Roy Robison writes about Obama's main strength: his easy-going, non-threatening personality. Despite the fact that very few people can point to anything Obama has actually done while in office, he is almost universally liked, and he has been able to ride that one trait to this point in the process. However, Robison warns that the end of that train will come in the form of national security. If Obama wins the White House, Obama will have to become a little more aggressive, and Iraq poses a big problem for him:
Recent polls show the public disapproves of the Iraq War by a three to one margin, which on the surface bodes well for him. But also over half of the public thinks that we are now succeeding in Iraq.
If more than half think we are succeeding, then they disagree with the Obama frame of reference, in which our actions in Iraq were immoral, caused by a lack of understanding of a foreign culture and that we need to disengage immediately. In that paradigm success can only be achieved by leaving Iraq. Over half the public must disagree substantially with the Senator's Iraq policy.
The frame of reference for most Americans is that we were right to take Saddam out, but that our strategy failed in the aftermath. Most Americans do not view the Iraq War as immoral or illegal but just, however improperly planned and executed they might think it has been. The American people support overthrowing heinous dictators, spreading democratic ideas, and killing al Qaeda. They just want it done competently.
Obama by contrast doesn't want it done at all.
This is the one issue on which McCain will look better than Obama.
So, is Hillary done? Former Clinton adviser Dick Morris thinks so. His reasoning is that Clinton miscalculated by touting her experience and trying to illustrate Obama's inexperience. By doing that, she boxed herself into the status quo, which the country is most assuredly not favoring right now. According to Morris, her 'firewall' of Texas and Ohio is likely to fail because her mistakes have conceded all the momentum to Obama, and these two states will not save her candidacy.
Ruth Marcus illuminates us on an irony in the way the Democrat party nominates its candidate via superdelegates. Basically, the current system of proportional awarding makes it extremely difficult for any clear frontrunner to emerge, meaning much of the power lays in the superdelegates, who can tip the balance of the nomination at the end of the process. Read the story for more details. The irony here is that the very same man (Harold Ickes) who proposed this system back in 1988 to help his candidate (Jesse Jackson) is now on the losing side of the coin as an adviser to Hillary Clinton.
Lee Cary predicts that Obama will become the 'global candidate'. Excerpts:
His mixed race and varied national backgrounds symbolize his connectivity with peoples across the planet. The adulation felt for him beyond America offers the U.S. a chance for enhanced strength and repaired credibility worldwide. Sure, he's an American citizen, but he's also a global citizen, a man of the world.
The MSM will assert that the next president must not just lead the nation and the Western World, but he also must heal the international wounds caused by the Bush administration so that he can lead the world community to address serious global issues.
The collateral wing of the storyline will predict the world's profound disappointment if Obama loses in November. Americans will feel guilty if the world awakes the morning after the second Tuesday in November to a President McCain. And, we'll be told, the world will feel more frightened and distrustful of us than it already is.
Meanwhile, the MSM will make no effort to peel away the veneer of conceptual vapidity surrounding Obama's seductive oratory. They will not push him for clarity or details. Instead, they will be his campaign's de facto PR firm. Rather than probe his intentions, they'll focus on his emotional appeal made via ethereal notions of hope, compassion, love...(cue the inspirational muzak).
In short, the MSM will not require that Obama bring his intentions down from 60,000 feet to runway level. And, when people enter the polling booth to vote, with regard to Obama it won't be so much "What you see is what you get" as "We're not sure what we saw, or what we'll get, but it sure made us feel good." Sadly, for some, that will be enough.
Marc Sheppard hits the nail on the head of the critical contention on the Democrat side. I've heard people approach this topic in recent weeks, but Sheppard nails it head on: the superdelegates. If you think the war in the Republican party right now is big, just wait until you see what happens if Obama continues winning states and delegates, but Hillary eventually secures the nomination purely through superdelegates. Even Democrat leaders like Howard Dean are concerned by this potential train wreck. Some leaders have even pledged to leave the Democrat party if the nomination is ultimately decided by superdelegates. Excerpts:
First-rate as it is, our one-man one-vote system can't promise majority contentment in every election. You needn't reflect back any further than the 2000 Presidential race to evoke the unpleasantness, racial and otherwise, ignited by a popular vote denied its mandate. But the divisions cleaved by Gore v. Bush would surely pale by comparison should the mainstream approved candidacy of the first black man in history be reversed by a small group of party elites.
Suppose, for a moment, that the race between Clinton and Obama remains as closely undecided as it is today beyond June or perhaps into the August convention. Even should Obama's February surge continue, Clinton March and April victories in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania or a DNC capitulation on Florida's delegate penalty could once again tighten the race. Now suppose Obama lands in Denver with a 50 to 100 delegate lead but is nonetheless relegated to second place by virtue of the SD's.
Imagine trying to resolve the feelings of absolute abandonment and ensuing rage in a minority voting block whose candidate had for the first time ever won a majority of delegates, only to have all hope dashed by a bunch of mostly old white guys. Particularly having been all but assured by Hollywood's elite and the MSM that their turn, if not their Messiah, had at long last arrived.
While it's sweetly ironic that the party who's pandering and continual submission to racial coercion would now find themselves victims of the fetid system of their own design, is anyone truly prepared for irreconcilable crowds roaming the streets chanting "No Nomination, No Peace?"
Or to witness the racial ambulance chasers whose relevance even an Obama candidacy may well relegate to the dust bin of history, instead, be empowered by his unjustifiable rejection?
Should the situation arise, it will be fascinating to see just how the would-be candidate handles the delicate balance between national and her own personal interests. Both of which would surely be compromised to some degree by alienating no less than 13 percent of the population, anyway.
While conservatives are being forced to re-evaluate their role in the Republican party, Democrats should be wary of this scenario playing out. It is a very realistic possibility, and could splinter the party like a bomb. If that happens at the wrong point in the year, would it allow the Republican nominee (presumably McCain) to slip into the lead by default?
Here's another thought - it is my contention that much of the remaining racism in America is held by the leaders of the Democrat party (not the rank-and-file citizens) who want the black vote but refuse to give blacks any positions of serious power. If you look at the Democrat 'elites', how many of them are minorities? Very, very few. On the other hand, the Bush administration has just about the most diverse cabinet in American history. Anyway, Obama is on the verge of breaking through that Democrat glass ceiling, propelled by the swelling tide of Democrat voters, and those racist leaders are threatened by him. They are faced with a vicious choice: give up their own power to a black man, or prove beyond doubt for all the world to see that the Democrat leadership is racist.
You gotta' love irony, don't you?
It's all hypothetical at this point, but these are still some very interesting questions to think about.
There's my two cents.
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