I'd be REAL worried about national security if I had to pull the lever for Obama.

I hate RePUKES and will hate the PUKE nominee. That's the only reason I would pull the lever for Obama over McCain or Rudy.

But there ain't many like that out there voting and if I would be reluctant to support a candidate who doesn't instill much confidence on national security you can imagine how the general public will see Obama especially when the MSM gets done with him.

Clinton doesn't have that liability. National security will be the number one issue by November epecially with Iran and the PUKE nominee beating it like a drum along with the MSM.

It's not an issue that can be platituded to death by "change" talk.

Clinton goes in neutralizing PUKE on national security and blows them away on domestic issues.

If the PUKE nominee is Huckabee, Obama can win. If it isn't, I doubt it. He's going to be viewed as a national security lightweight.

Sorry.

Really, I wouldnt be so sure

It seems like there are people who instantly see red the second you mention the word "Clinton".

THE Vietnam Vet against the War, and his traitorous ties to Hanoi Jane?

Nobody hated him? Where did the swiftboat liars come from, if nobody hated him?

Among the leading Presidential candidates, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney have the highest level of core opposition among voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) say they will vote against each of these candidates no matter who else is on the ballot.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/for_or_against_presidential_candidates

20% of the base. I personally do not know one Democrat or independent that would voter for her.
And I only travel in Dem/Indie circles. Whether you want to be in denial or not, she has the highest negatives.

I've always voted for a Dem for President (9 cycles), but I won't vote for Hillary. I'm tired of being disappointed by so-called progressives who are really do-nothing centrists. I'd vote for McCain first (with nose held).

Don't deny it. Racism exists.

Still, we have two personalities here ... who are more than "an African-American" and "a woman."

If they can't vote for Hillary because she's a woman, or Obama because he's black, there is not a single Dem in the lineup they would vote for. Those voters we can safely disregard.

When the world is blowing up around you, people don't want a koombiya. They want a person who has some experience, and knows what the hell they are doing, where to move, who to talk to. Obama is none of this, and you're going to have Democrats voting for a Repug like McCain on National Security alone, if Obama is the nominee. People feel this strongly about the issue. It's not a joke.

:nuke: yourself.

senator. Her husband was the President, not her. He has the experience. I would not claim to have experience in my husband's job. Is Hillary's running just a back door way of bringing Bill back?

National security is bogus anyway -- we have more arms than the whole world combined; we sell more arms than the rest of the world and if we're still not secure maybe we should take a fresh look at our foreign policy. I think both Obama and Edwards would be more likely to reach out to other nations via diplomacy - Clinton would always be stuck to the foreign policies of the nineties as you can see by the people like Albright who surround her and give her advice.

or Obama/Clark?

or Obama/Biden? (I'm not a big Biden fan due to his extreme Drug-War-Hard-on, but the man does understand National Security and Foreign Policy).

If Obama gets the nomination, he clearly needs a VP who will enhance/balance him. I think it really could help...

-app

I'm not voting for Obama if he's the nominee. I don't know anyone in my circle of friends and family that will. In fact, given the options we are stuck with, most of them they said will be voting for McCain, if he's the nominee. So, there you have it.

I'm just not voting at all.

and told us all he goes to a racist church, citing that slimy punk Jesse Peterson.

So stay home in November. No surprise there.

I've never been into hypocrites though. It's ok for blacks to have an all black church, but if whites were to do that, Jackson and Sharpton would be there before the door closed.

You mean when the MSM releases ALL the dirt..? I think EVERYONE will have a RUDE AWAKENING!

There are so many issues that they will hit him with...AND only HE will be in the spot light...Every single breath HE..Michelle..His Reverend etc..will be dissected twisted blown-up and played over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.....:smoke:

Obama will inspire independents to vote for the "D."

Mr One Million years in Iraq and Mr command center in WTC?
You're kidding, right? See my sig line.

Rudy, depends.

on the wars from the get go?
What happened to DU? Rove, Paglia, McCain, Bloomberg - are people's candidate passions completely blinding them to their core beliefs? :wtf:

and if you disagree with that on substance, he damn sure doesn't have the image as one.

a few months ago walking around in the green zone with fortified troops all around him proclaiming something to the effect of "see I can peacefully walk down the street". McCain has lost his marbles.

Wow!!

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=53350

you've made my case for me.


:crazy:

pathetic. no, really pathetic. That won't fly, either . What else you got?

nt

Quit the fear mongering.

I'm more worried about dying from failing infrastructure than some Osama Bin Ladin popping out of Estelle Getty's ass with a stick of dynamite with my name on it to scare all the good folks.

Come to think of it. We all have a MUCH greater chance of ending up dead due to shitty medical care, failing insurance, natural disasters that "national security."

I could explain more but you probably like being scared of the scary dark men....

nukes in the hands of stateless filthbags is a real threat this century. You don't believe it?

oh yeah, you are not pulling the race card at all.

:shrug:

are there no stateless filthbags in your world?

Give up your future/rights/reason now so the brave ones can protect us!

"reality"

I've never voted for that shit and f*** anyone who does. If you're gonna die. You're gonna die!

I'd rather take my chances voting to work and thrive in a properly developed country than a backwater scared ruin of an empire that jumps at it's own shadow because some a**hole like you thought he was doing us all a great service. The only folks who get serviced by this shit is the military industrial complex and the crowing of fear and another war is just what it takes to keep them rich and rock hard to continually f*** us in the ass fiscally.

Yeah there's bad people in this world but any asshole who thinks that Rudy or Hillary or anyone else is going to do a better job of it than "those crazy lefty peaceniks" is sorely f***ing mistaken.

Go back to Free Republic and scare them. They love it.

and by the way Obama and Hillary basically have the same stance on just about every issue. I don't think insulting either one's stances for the sake of another really serves much of a purpose...but you're not really here for the Democratic party are you?

It's the obamistas who say they might not vote if their candidate isn't picked. I'm voting for Obama if he's the nominee. I'm saying it will be with reservations. BIG ones.

As soon as you can assure yourself that it's safe to come out from under your bed...

don't worry

You're a real wealth of culture...

eh, I don't.

goal: congratulations, you ARE a terrorist.

so, do you want to be called a stated or a stateless filthbag?

but fits the definition of "terrorist" to a mother loving letter.

Not for a f***ing moment. And if there is a war on terror. Keep the stupid thing cladestine out of public eyes and cost effective.

There are already nukes in the hands of people who don't give a fiddler's damn about me. We can cry in the corner and throw all the money at it we want but it won't go away.

So work on the things you can to make the world a better place and stop trying to scare us

"Stateless fithbags"....F***ing please...so much better to have a state and reason for false pride: nationalism.

it's better for the US if we are dealing with states ,not individuals.

*Yawn*

and an incredibly incompetent staff throughout the government that has got us to where we are now, Obama or Edwards should easily dissemble the right wing national security noise machine.

with the national security than any greedy, mental patient, GOP warmonger.
That this is a debate point on DU is pretty pathetic.

I think it will again unless we have a candidate with chops

If we were worried about national security (or foreign policy or defense) credentials, we had to go with Biden, Dodd, or Richardson. Oops.

To me, little difference Obama vs. Clinton - both mostly indirect experience (Obama academic degree in intl relations and on SFRC; Clinton first spouse and on ASC, neither veterans, neither directly relevant executive experience).

Also worth bearing in mind how important advisors and appointees will be. Unfortunately we don't get to vote for those and have to guess. I wanted Biden in large part because he would have a lot of his own background knowledge to rely on, rather than having to lean on advisors.

nt

We do know who the #1 advisor to HRC will be.

THEN what will we have?

agree.I base this on what Obama said in one of the debates that he would try diplomacy with Iran to settle the nuclear proliferation issue.

What has Hillary said, specifically, that you think puts her into a stronger U.S. defense position?

Hillary talked circles around the other candidates on national security in the debates. More important, I see it as a Billary presidency and there is a successful track record there

However, I sense it's not as much of a problem now that both have won a state primary/caucus.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the national security issue.

If you have a bunch of Repugs up against a rookie Dem, the country is going to vote Repug, no matter how much they hate them. People want something better, but they're not crazy, and this is what sums up the country. Obama is just all over the place with his naivety, with no substance, behavior, anything to back up his claims. All he does is preach change. That's nice, but it's not going to stop the Middle East from blowing up all it's neighbors.

Limbaugh may well be reading your post tomorrow.

:eyes:

always will be. now it's real and it's got nukes.

See my sig line.

we need a candidate who will neutralize the PUKE rhetoric.

nt

but on principle. I know she wouldn't start nonsense wars like BFEE, but I am worried about her ending the present one.

I got some beachfront property in Kansas to sell you. Hillary is NOT viewed as a national security maven by anyone outside of the Democratic party base.

nt

I think not. Certainly not by independents.

Thanks for the laugh.

eom

Got some poll numbers to back that up? I won't hold my breath.

McCain is a crazy old man, a joke.

McCain's perceived national security credentials.

he's widely perceived as being "close" to the military...and he's just recently announced that he's perfectly OK with us staying another 100 years in Iraq. Plus, he's bugshit insane and is likely to launch a preemptive attack on Vietnam at any moment.

In other words, if the election is decided on national security issues, McCain has a big advantage.

credentials...

in our party vs thieves and warmongers in theirs.

youll hear all about McCain's plan to pull out

And you think he'll get sane? Just for the race? Mr "Bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran"?

Wait, don't answer that. I'm put all Republican-Lites on Ignore.

you have no idea of what you speak. I hadn't made up my mind until today, until I heard John Kerry speak, and my vote is for Barack Obama.

a trillion a year now and it's going up. We spend more than the rest of the world combined, but everyone still wants to spend more.

Jeez, they want to inspect every cargo container for bombs, but can't properly inspect them for impure food. They want to find al Qaeda in every little shithole around the planet, but can't find Bloods and Crips.

Just what has all this "Defense" gotten us? (Besides a shitload of debt.)

not platitudes

you will lose election after election.

After all that worked for Rudy Guiliani AND Lois Griffen. :eyes:

I want the Democrats to be on the offense on that and all other issues.

:sarcasm:

I thought it was an issue all presidents will need to deal with.

talk about platitudes.

Sounds somehow familiar :scared:

If we have actionable intelligence on a threat, he will neutralize it.

:wow:

Just wow.

We've decried these scare tactics on this board since September 12, 2001. And here they are in the service of tearing down a Dem candidate.

A truly despicable post.

perceived as lightweights in national security arena

nt

Your fear was not of losing, but of being nuked.

but it's a real issue. Important too. Important to have expeience in negotiating and knowing where to spend money and not to spend it. A Billary presdiency instills confidence there. That's my point.

Just when I think I can vote for Hillary after all, comes an attitude such as yours and I freeze all over again. You should watch a bit less teevee.

Point is, we can try to redefine all we want but come november these issues will be huge.

Like the stupid Bloomberg threads - "quick! Lets dump Hillary! Bloomberg said he'd jump in if we don't give him Obama vs Huckabee" How do you like this one on their terms?
And, BTW who is "they"? The MSM? Pundits? Teevee? Whom do we need to please?

perceived as a lightweight without any significant evidence (or that Clinton would be perceived as strong, equally sans evidence).

I always liked you on these boards. But this strategy is fucking disgusting. I mean, truly sickening. And then you go on to pretend in GD that the opposing argument is "terrorism will go away if we wish it away," which, of course, few sensible people would actually assent to, and which, of course, belies your claims here that it is all about perception (is it about real terrorism, or perception of strength?). So you have unfounded argument that you then defend with a strawman, dishonesty piled upon dishonesty.

You're too close to this thing. Your passion is affecting your character, and it ain't pretty. Take a step back and examine what you're actually doing here.

In November 2008, it's the economy, stupid.

shhh! if we shhh, nobody will talk about it in the election.

about the empty spectre of The Terrorists when they can't make ends meet, and when they can't afford their prescriptions. The economy is headed for a meltdown, and the healthcare system is defunct. You want to fight 2004's battles again, be my guest.

It's an issue, but you didn't start this thread as "I'm afraid we lose" but as "they'll attack us". be honest now.

I think there are real threats and "foreign policy" issues to manage and I think there are fake threats that will exist in the voters minds come October.

I was saying I would be reluctant to support Obama over the real threats. I will but with reluctance. So how many who aren't as extreme pro democrat will do the same thing?

And I am reluctant to support Obama because of the perception part of it too. He'll be successfully painted as a lightweight.

this election will almost entirely be about domestic issues.

Can't skate over it.

the media has been completely ignoring both wars? Haven't you noticed that the candidates are only rarely talking about Iraq, and virtually never about Afghanistan?

Republicans don't want to touch Iraq with a ten-foot pole. That's the biggest credibility black hole in a generation. They'd just as soon not bring it up.

Democrats have been cowed by the apparent short-term successes of the surge. While the surge will not lead to political reconciliation, and thus will be a failure, it is an enormous PR success that will continue through the '08 elections. The Democrats would rather not harp on Iraq too much.

No, Iraq was the defining issues of 2004, and to a lesser extent 2006. The defining issues of 2008 will be healthcare and the economy.

BECAUSE it's their weakness, and also because its the top energizing issue for voters Nothing hits home as poignantly as ..Death.
WAR IS A DOMESTIC ISSUE!

Peace matters.

important it is.

street to protest..It's what makes them organize, canvas, vote...War/peace - not social security...The Dem party was always blind to that.

There seems to be a lot of Keith O's on DU that believe that there are no threats to the US except bush & cheney. All of the wolf crying & manipulation by bush has made people too complacent. It's an issue that needs to be discussed responsibly.

lose any credibility with me.

Partisan vitriol is just as corrosive from the left as from the right.

are pukes.

board.

I think people worry that Hillary will have no choice but to out war-monger the war-mongers, a la Margaret Thatcher. In order to not appear weak, she'll never be able to get us out of Iraq, and may well get us into Iran. They'll remember Obama's superior judgment on Iraq—the war everybody hates—and trust him not to do anything stupid in Iran. He'll also be the candidate that can successfully differentiate himself on the war once the time-out collapses and the Iraqis start killing each other in large numbers again—especially if the R nominee is McCain, which seems pretty likely.

His judgment is about the same. His experience is much less. His ability to not be painted as a lightweight compared to Clinton's is zero.

That he did know? :shrug:

"In a recent interview, declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time. 'But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.' But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. 'What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,' he said."

He repeated his opposition to the war, while striking a conciliatory note; he simply didn't want to come off as insulting to the two nominees. The "I don't know" was simply giving Kerry and Edwards some tiny benefit of the doubt.

Still, he's also emphatically on the record in opposition to the war from the get-go. As for the lightweight issue, you're right—he's never been First Lady, so he missed out on all those years of menu planning and seat-arranging. Still, I think he'll probably manage to give Hillary a run for her money.

Obama was correct on the war and he was correct on Pakistan. He would have an amazing staff working with him that don't have PNAC tendencies.

If you want less war, vote for Obama. If you want quagmire and trillions lost, vote for the people that got suckered by Bush to make that happen.

Clinton wouldn't have started the Iraq war, neither would any D who voted for the IWR except Lieberman

He said that the case wasn't made, and that Congress failed to do its job. He threw in that "If I were in their shoes looking at their information, I don't know, but from my vantage point it was pretty obviously a bad idea" as a tiny benefit-of-the-doubt bit to Kerry and Edwards.

I get it.

I'm pretty sure Clinton has purchased temporary rights to fear for the campaign, but after that, she has to relinquish them back to its proper owner.

But I am pretty sure you are using the fearmongering against copyright laws.

Biden and Clinton may have more foreign policy experience but foreign policy and national security are two different things. Richardson is the only one that his actually been involved in national security.

I don't care what people think, sitting in the Senate for any length of time, no matter what committees you may serve on, does not make someone to handle the country's national security. If you held a key national security related position in the executive branch, like Richardson did, or held a high ranking position in the military, like General Clark, then you can talk about how you are more prepared to start from day one.

Yeah we need men and women that have experience with their finger on the end-of-the-world button.:scared:

Bush, Darth Vader and Rummy have lots of experience, look how well that went.:puke:


So what experience do Hillary and Huck have in this area??:shrug:

eom

And "puke?" What are you, twelve?

eom

You're either posting drunk or you're just stupid.

:)

I'm assuming he's passed out. So I'm going to have to go with both.

if she's claiming experience as first lady qualifies her for president...

"These were the same people in charge when Al Qaeda was birthed. And they did nothing. Except shoot a cruise missile up a camel's butt."

Or fail to behave belligerently enough toward Iran. I don't want Obama to be the nominee, but I don't doubt for a moment that he would be as effective at defending the country as any of the others. In fact, his passion for diplomacy makes national security an area where he could be quite successful (i.e. relations with Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia).

All this is a polite way of saying that I find your analysis to be very shallow. You speak only of perceptions. So many arguments that are made around here involve people being concerned about how Candidate X will be perceived. While there is some merit in considering this, we here at DU really carry it to extremes. I'm not worried about Obama. And if he can win in Iowa, there is reason to believe he can win in many other places as well.

Still rooting for Edwards, though.

vote for Clinton-

But I'll deal with that if the day comes, and I'll understand that it is MY choice- not anyone elses.

Do you think you are any different?

Not likely. Lord knows she has tried with her Iraq war vote, and more recently Kyle-Lieberman.
But this is McCain's issue. If he is their candidate, she will not be neutralizing national security.
That is for sure.

for this office. It's highly unlikely he'll surround himself with idiots. If anyone scares me, it's Clinton. Declaring the Iranian military a terrorist group was about the last straw. It gave King George the approval he wanted to blow another nation to hell for no reason. Hillary's like one of those antique dolls with 2 faces - one is sweet and dewy eyed, but turn it around and the other side is stern and warlike. Apparently the first side won New Hampshire.

...than one who I know will do the wrong thing.

As a president Hillary Clinton would be far too in to supporting their agenda.

Having little likability or charisma she would not be of much help in pushing forward our agenda.

Obama is a much better candidate and will be a much better president than any other we might choose.

may be the reverse.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4021888&mesg_id=4021888
see #26
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4021888&mesg_id=4021888

You want us to run on THEIR terms because you are...proud to me an aMurikan....Just here to stir the shit.