If Obama REALLY wants to get elected...

He needs to go with his progressive instincts, not his triangulating ones.
Obama's best chance is to be the candidate of everyone that Hillary wants to keep out in the cold and everyone the Republicans exclude.

The keys are enthusiasm, registration and mobilization. The Rainbow Coalition is alive and well, and Obama
can mobilize it in a way that Jesse could not.

If that coalition can be mobilized, it represents an unstoppable majority.

The path to victory goes through the 'hood, the barrio, the "rez" and the union hall. It does NOT go through the suburbs.


He needs to listen to Kucinich and Dean, to Edwards and Sharpton and Gore. He needs to ignore the Beltway and the big donors.

Barack needs to be Bobby, not Bill.

and through the hood and through the country. It was remarkable. Obama is a uniter, he's not going to become a divider.

Had the Ryan sex scandal not broken out we would have no idea how Obama would have done in Illinois. The fact that neo-con nutjob Alan Keyes came from Maryland to replace Ryan pretty much assured that Obama was gonna win in a landslide

While people assume that circumstances caused the Senate seat to drop into Obama's lap, there was more to it than that. Yes, much good luck came Obama's way, but he did all the right things leading up to it and seized the opportunity when it presented itself.

Because every serious Republican in the state knew they would lose to Obama. They were all afriad to face him for a good reason.

Obama was heading for a solid win even without the Maryland Madman as his opponent. Enough spinning already.

belt.

Intelligence, integrity, vision and charisma mean everything.

jobs that you can just 'pick up'. It's not an on-the-job training type of deal. Especially considering how little experience Obama has.

Go ahead people, dream. It will not happen. There are too many people like me (everyone I know that isn't a repub) that thinks this is just plain damn funny. And believe me, none of us are going to cast our vote for him as nominee. Will not happen.

what happened to them! So did George McGovern and all the Kennedy's.

Lyndon Johnson even had it with his War on Poverty and Civil Rights Legislation...plus allowing Student Loan Program for those wanting to attend College.

All our Dems have had vision, integrity and the rest...but they either got "knocked off literally or by attack from MSM or when they got in ...somehow it got corrupted. So far Johnsons programs would stand up best since FDR for Vision...but he lost his soul in Vietnam. Bill Clinton lost his to the DLC... Carter got waylaid because he wasn't "inside the beltway" so they trashed his "energy independence" vision by mocking him saying he "wore sweaters in the WH because he turned down the heat and turned off the lights."

We need to be prepared as voters but most of all our CANDIDATES should KNOW at this point they will throw dirt at you and send all kinds of folks bearing false gifts to corrupt you. It's not easy once the election is over...and these days even getting elected as a Dem is filled with fraud and treachery because of the voting machines and disenfranchisment. :shrug:

I have an issue with his lack of experience AND the fact that he is a senator (senators can't seem to win). But I see a future with this guy and I think that putting him in the VP ticket will be a major boost. When he spoke at the convention I saw this guy had the big ticket in his future but probably not getting a run for president until sometime nearing 2020

has brought forth to the American people, experience ya'll say?
don't make me laugh your starting to sound stoopid, when your not.

I recommend "Boiling Point" by Ross Gelbspan, for one.

I want him to go through the hood, the unions, and everything else you said, and also through the suburbs. Why should he be divisive?

as it did in other recent periods.

My point was that his projected leading rival would be running an exclusive, 'burbs 'n big donors strategy, and that Obama, if he imitated that, would either doom himself to defeat or reduce himself to being a presidential Oreo if he won in that manner.

A national version of Harold Ford or Doug Wilder wouldn't be WORTH electing.

He needs the burbs , he needs the inner cities and he needs rural America. What you consider to be an 'unstoppable majority' , isn't unstoppable and it's certainly NOT a majority.

Would mean leaving the cities out in the cold as his main rival will inevitably do. We don't need a black DLC'er, that would be no different than electing a centrist white.

Obama's best chance is to be the polar opposite of HRC, not an imitator of her approach.

The idea is to be an inclusive candidate rather than exclusive. RFK rather than...well you know who...
Guts and passion and enthusiasm first, not bland good manners.

Period.

Much as I am impressed by Obama personally, I have no idea where he really stands on the political spectrum. One day he sounds like a progressive, the next he sounds like abother bland centrist blubbering on about nothing.

He could go either way at this point. I hope he decides to represent liberal populism that actually stands for something and not just an empty suit.

"shut up and settle for what we give you. You have no right to expect anything beyond the election of someone who CALLS him or herself a Democrat" has to end. It was never fair or even good politics to treat activists as they were treated in the Nineties. The Democrats did not have to hollow out their party's soul to win then, and we don't have to now.

The trend is moving our way. If we obsess about "the center" we'll stop the trend in its tracks and make any victory in name meaningless. It goes without saying that only a Democrat clearly to the left of where the party was in the Nineties is worth trying to elect.

There is only a handful of Senators who vote more progressively than he does, and they aren't potential candidates as far as I know.

He doesn't NEED to go with his progressive instincts. He already is.

He also has an unnerving habit of saying things like "My definition of progressive may not be YOURS", which leads to the natural concern that he ends up saying "Whatever choices I make must automatically be considered progressive". That way lies cynicism and centrism. My objective is to point Obama and his supporters AWAY from path of least resistance politics and towards a more electable national strategy.

Progressive than Obama who can win a national election?

I think he's the kind of candidate that can appeal to diverse groups at the same time.

And I'm thankful Kucinich is in the race, for the affect he may have on Obama alone. Obama needs to parrot Kucinich, not Clinton.

One America, right?

is to be Wes Clark's vice-presidential running mate. They're eminently electable as a team IN THAT ORDER, and after eight years of working together with competence and charisma, Obama could be a shoo-in.