Are The GOP Praying for an OBAMA?

New selling point by the Hillary Brigade; "The GOP really wants Obama....see how nice they are to him all of the time?"

Let me first say that I'm sure that those coming up with that theory base it on the fact that Obama is an African-American and that some see him as inexperienced. And based on those two attributes, they believe that Obama is "easy to beat" and they believe that this is what the GOP believes too.

Here is why I disagree with this meme being sold, and why Obama would actually do best against any GOP rival.

Primarily, most who push this meme do not themselves believe that America is "ready to elect a Black man"....although many of the same somehow believe that this country is ready to elect a woman....and they believe that the GOP feel that way too! Congratulation to them; they think like our opponents, in an institutional manner of looking at race!

I do not agree with this.

I will allude to what some might call a ridiculous example (but it isn't really)--The hit TV show 24 has had a Black president, and no one cared. What these Hillary folks don't realize is that More people are ready to elect a Black President than they understand. Many of these folks, who are either scared to death of anything but the status quo, or the status quo's wife, somehow have decided that the rest of the country thinks just like they do. Well I point you to the good people of Iowa, and I tell you that the premise is not supported by facts. Obama, no matter how hard the Hillary brigade tried, still transcends race....which is why he is surging.

Please understand that part of change means just that; change. That is what Barack represents. If anything, the GOP, just like the Clintons, will have to tread lightly on the area of race, because when it becomes too apparent, it calls for the better angels in people's hearts. There is a reason that the KKK membership has fallen. There is a reason that MA has a Black Governor. There is a reason that Barack has enjoyed more than was expected from him in terms of success.

The GOP may want Barack as a candidate, but if they are simply relying on the prejudice in the American heart, they are playing Russian Roulette. I wouldn't advise it as a campaign platform to win an election, shall we say?

Know that the world is watching us, and they are ready to see if America will live up to its ideal in the highest sense of the word, or if it will always be seen as paying lip service to others, i.e., being hypocrites. Barack, just as himself, is a symbol of change that speaks volumes to ourselves and to the world community. He doesn't have to say a thing, and yet, the world's opinion of us will take a dramatic shift when they see that we are willing to embrace the equality that we constantly tout as part of value belief system. That is why Barack stands for change, even before he speaks.

In terms of "experience"....let me just give you a sypnosis of one way Barack beats McCain in the area of McCain's best strength and forte; National Security, i.e., Iraq War, etc.

McCain’s position:
I’m am a big time War Hero. We were right to go into Iraq. Saddam gone is good. I know what to do to win this war. I wanted to send more troops at the beginning, and I urged for the surge when most were against it. I stood on my principles, and I was right. I want to leave Iraq, but we can leave victorious. It’s important to stay, because if not, there will be genocide, and Al Qaeda will be left to rule Iraq, and turn it into a terrorist state.

Clinton’s position:
Cannot argue about how we got into this war because her vote was the same as McCain's. She has also stated enough times that she wanted Saddam gone and that him being gone was good. She would be forced to move on to how the war was fought. She had a lot of problems with Rumsfeld and how the war was conducted, but she will only be in agreement with McCain, because he thinks that the war wasn’t fought correctly either. Hillary was against the surge, and if the surge is still being portrayed as having been successful, Hillary loses points, which weakens the rest of her argument to get us out of Iraq. McCain will look "resolute" next to her when judged by Repugs, Indies, moderates, and yes the Democrats who are also concerned about National Security.

McCain wins the Iraq War debate, even though most people want out...
He therefore gains the upper hand on National Security matters by defacto of having worn the uniform.

Obama’s Position:
Obama and forcefully argue that the War should never have been fought or authorized. He can point out that as much experience McCain is supposed to have with war, he voted for the debacle that will have ended up costing trillions and killed hundreds of thousands, while the congress was acting tone deaf as the public marched against such move.

Obama then can describe how the war was based on lies, and there were no WMD. That he, Obama, called it for what it was; a Dumb war, and those who supported it who should have known better. He would be speaking from a position of strength having stood against the conventional tide. He can claim the ultimate title of Maverick (McCain's strength), and point out that McCain is the one who supported the President's decision for an elective war, breaking the mold many years of Foreign policy wisdom.

Obama can stressed that well documented fact that there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, but that McCain acted as though there were. He can then slides in the fact that our economy is now into a recession because we are being held hostage by the Chinese and other countries we have to borrow money from because of our forced expenditures in Iraq. And so, apart from everything else, Obama’s Iraq War opposition provides backbone to go into the economic platform that progressives demand, based on the reason that it is Republican stewardship that has gotten us where we are.

McCain will divert the economic issue by talking about Governmental pork....but Obama can point out that the war is the biggest porker, and roll out some stats. Obama can show without being forced to debate "what to do about Iraq now" on McCain's terms, and he can stress that he had superior judgment on one of the most important national security decision in our current times. He also can brings up McCain's statement of the possibility of our being in Iraq for 100 years.

That's when Obama can move, with an upper hand, on how to get out of Iraq. His argument will carry more credibility than McCain’s by this time...and Obama then proposes how we get out of Iraq.

Obama wins the Iraq War debate, and neutralizes McCain on McCain's strength.

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Barack got to where he is for a reason, and don't think that he doesn' know how to articulate exactly why choosing him will be one of the most transformational message that this country will experience. Changing everything else after that will be much more of a breeze.

I, for one, believe in this country....and I don't mean I believe in the miracle of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Our founding values were never supportive of dynasties (in fact, that is what the Revolution was all about), but rather our values have much more to do with We the People and achieving equality and justice for all (the Civil War was the start of it). Don't, when betting on the intent of our countrymen, undervalue the good in us...even if we have had some rotten leaders.

The bottomline is, don't underestimate what a Skinny Kid with a funny name can achieve in this country. If this land was the one that Obama's distractors (Democratic and others) say that it is, Barack would not be competing today, and in many instances, winning against The Clintons, the most well entrenched politicians in our government today. David slaying Goliath can be done. Don't let the naysayers tell you that it cannot.

If we have the courage to support historical transformation, than we can do anything. I, for one, believe that.....YES, WE CAN!

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They've been wanting her for 10+ years. And she fires up their base. She is the one they want. The one they can't stand

She will also cause the independents to vote repub.

There will be NO crossover with Hillary.

which garners him this:

having to mean something. For me, it is a cue that you don't mean anything, and have even less to say.

The leaps of faith and logic, the blind partisanship of it all.

Good stuff.

nobody "left of center" is left.

Winning this election will not be about "them" having someone one 1/2 of a millimeter to the left of someone else.

It is about whether we as a nation truly understand the power of ourselves; the bottom up folks.

Now is the time to actually stand in making a difference. Again, I believe that we can. But not if we are all disunited.

You can moan and groan and be part of the problem, or you can stand up and fight with a solution that has been handed to you.

You, of course, will have to decide for yourself whether you will participate or sit in a corner and watch.

that we as a country are a long way from standing up and fighting ala "V for Vendetta". More people can name the participants in American Idol than who is running for president. I had hope that things were going to be different this time, but unfortunately it looks like it is going to be more of the same.

That said, don't get me wrong, I think our remaining candidates are better than any of theirs, and will probably receive my vote in november, but I just have to adjust my expectations a lot lower.

Nothing wrong with understanding that we are of difference races....but what's more important is when we understand that this cannot be the basis of what qualifies one for a higher office.

I believe that the Bill and Hillary have heard this message....and the GOP will hear it to.

IF you think that this country is going to allow there to be a real question on what it truly values, you are in for a rude awakening.

Don't kid yourself. It's Hillary they are "praying" for.

take on what the GOP want.

I know who they have been preparing for since a few years back....and it ain't the skinny kid with a funny name, That's for sure. They wouldn't ever give us Dems that much credit of being smarter than them.

:thumbsup:

The Clintons know that the GOP wants them to be the nominee(s) and as you point out they will now try to turn that truth upside down in their endless ambition.

All ya gotta do is pay attention to the shilling from the right wing rags and pundits.

It's all Gobama.

Of course, there's always the possibility that the GOP simply admires his "progressive" credentials. :evilgrin:

Especially the simple ones. :eyes:

right now I'm driven by opposition first to the Iraq war, and the aggressive and arrogant unilateralism which justifies it and secondly to cowardly spineless DLC, Republican-lite Democrats who enable it.
While Obama may or may not prove to be any better than Hillary on those fronts there are two points on which he is better than Clinton.
A) he is a fresh face and
B) he does not have quite as bad a record of caving into the Republican establishment.

Perhaps this is just a function of his not being around long enough to besmirch himself the way Hillary has, but I frankly don't give a shit.

It is enough for me that he has not branded himself as a DLC tool. In other words Obama MAY be a democratic invertabraete, but I KNOW Hillary is and that's why I'm willing to take a chance on Obama.

and of course, this post is addressed to those who would believe that we need to give the GOP what they want in order to beat them.

IN other words, this post is addressed to folks who believe if we give the GOP the status quo woman accompanied by her former President man, that this offering would be more difficult to beat than the Skinny kid with the funny name that came out of nowhere.

... coming in to the open Dem primaries to vote for Obama, in much greater numbers than for Hillary. Obama would be the stronger candidate against any Republican, and is our only remaining candidate who can clearly differentiate a position on the Iraq war in opposition to the Republican nominees.

More telling is Zogby stating his research indicates the RW ideologues, i.e., the neocons, want Hillary to win. Her YES votes for war and more war, IWR and K-L respectively, substantiate that. She ceded the moral high ground with those votes. She will also inflame the GOP base who will knee-jerk foam at the mouth (as they've been trained to do all these years) and they will come out en masse to defeat her.

However, the corporate media has already decided that John McLame will be the next president, so it doesn't really matter who wins the Democratic Party's nomination.

Obama's post at dailykos written on September 30, 2005

"Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/30/102745/165/500/153069

........I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups and right-wing advocacy groups. The consequences of their ideas are vastly different. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton. But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, "true" progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward. When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive "checklist," then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems. We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.

Beyond that, by applying such tests, we are hamstringing our ability to build a majority. We won't be able to transform the country with such a polarized electorate. Because the truth of the matter is this: Most of the issues this country faces are hard. They require tough choices, and they require sacrifice. The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress may have made the problems worse, but they won't go away after President Bush is gone. Unless we are open to new ideas, and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy or fiscal policy that calls for serious sacrifice. We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism while avoiding isolationism and protecting civil liberties. We certainly won't have a mandate to overhaul a health care policy that overcomes all the entrenched interests that are the legacy of a jerry-rigged health care system. And we won't have the broad political support, or the effective strategies, required to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of numbing poverty.

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.
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My dear friend Paul Simon used to consistently win the votes of much more conservative voters in Southern Illinois because he had mastered the art of "disagreeing without being disagreeable," and they trusted him to tell the truth. Similarly, one of Paul Wellstone's greatest strengths was his ability to deliver a scathing rebuke of the Republicans without ever losing his sense of humor and affability. In fact, I would argue that the most powerful voices of change in the country, from Lincoln to King, have been those who can speak with the utmost conviction about the great issues of the day without ever belittling those who opposed them, and without denying the limits of their own perspectives.
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My very republican friend's husband told me that if McCain was the Republican candidate and Hillary Clinton the Democratic, he was considering voting for Hillary Clinton.

To me, he said they are no different, and if Hillary wins we can blame her if things go wrong.

Of course this is only one person, I can't say how they all think.

Meg

As ridiculous as it is to me, I have many friends who are voting the following way

Obama over any Republican
Any Republican over Hillary.

A lot of it isn't even based on the policies of the candidates, but just the Hillary factor.

against Obama you would go all in. One wonders why the republicans have been so sweet and nice to obama, and can anyone tell me when a republican attacked Obama? Some people in here think if their candidate says, "There's no white America, there's no Black America, there's just the United States of America," then the Fascist bastards are going to start playing fair? Answer me this question. You think the Republicans are going to play fair, and show Obama respect? You mean like they played fair and showed Gore respect? You mean like they played fair and showed Kerry respect?

And if you Obama folks think the republicans are going to play nice and the rnc are going to play nice then I must be one of the only sane people on the internet.