--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Judy, > > Have you posted anything about what you think the swiftboaters > are going to do to Obama that will so besmirch him that he'd > lose -- to of all people -- McCain? I'm not talking about > anything new, just what they'll do with what they've uncovered > about Obama so far. > > With 70 percent of America consistently in the polls wanting out > of Iraq -- NOW -- I'm wondering what you think the swiftboaters > are going to be able to do to get the masses to take the War off > the front burner. > > It seems you're saying that Americans are so racist (I'm nodding > my head here) that they'll kill another 4,000 G.I.'s and another > million Arabs rather than have a black man for president?
Well, some will certainly vote for McCain rather than for a black man for president, but they won't see that vote as resulting in lots more death in Iraq. They'll assume McCain has the savvy to quickly achieve "victory" in Iraq so the killing will stop. And some who don't care about race one way or the other will vote for McCain for the same reason. Race per se won't be a public issue; it'll be an undercurrent. Nobody's going to say publicly that folks shouldn't vote for Obama because he's black. (There will no doubt be viral emails to that effect, and right-wing blogs will feature lots of comments, if not posts, along those lines. And people, of course, will talk to their neighbors.) The public issue--the public "face" of the race issue--will be Rev. Wright and *his* purported racism and hatred of white people, as well as his disrespectful remarks about America. This will overlap with the "patriotism" issue. Obama (and Michelle) will be attacked for not being sufficiently patriotic (no flag pin, etc., as well as their allegiance to Wright). The third major issue will be Obama's lack of experience compared to McCain. That would also be a big issue if Hillary were the one running, but it'll be even more so with Obama. So in that regard, the war will be on the front-burner. Then there will be attacks about Obama's alliance with Rezko, as well as the usual nitpicking about contradictory and/or false statements, especially those about McCain. And of course the "Muslim" issue--his middle name, his early upbringing, the photo of him in Somali ceremonial garb, all that crap. The media are going to be in something of a pickle, because their affections will be split between Obama and McCain. The latter is a huge favorite with the media, and Obama has certainly been the favorite over Hillary. Most will, I'd guess, *probably* choose McCain, and will continue their practice of not reporting or vetting his ridiculous and ignorant statements about policy and so on, or his coziness with lobbyists, or his gross hypocrisy about his "straight talk" that isn't. The Democratic candidate will have to do all that, and quite forcefully. <snip> > Obama also is someone smart enough to take an attack and make > lemonade out of it. If they come at him for Wright's stuff > again, he'll just do the same thing and get all that free > advertising on national TV again. Yeah, but, you know, it didn't go over so well with Republicans the first time around. It's not going to get any better with repetition. > I'm agreeing that politics are dirty and that Obama's dirty > too. I don't know if Hillary or Obama is more sinful in this > regard, but with Hillary's "false baggage" that has been > created by Fox Noise etc., I'm claiming victimhood and > sincerely questioning if I can ever see her truly -- if I > ever did. That's a problem. But at least you can see you've been brainwashed. > The biggest bestest mostest nicest thing about her is her > herness. A woman in the White House could snap the heads of > states' heads around in just such a way as to lessen what > American men have done to our nation's image and give the > world some hope. And a woman's insight, pardon my sexism, is > sooooo much deeper than a man's, that that would be another > chunk of new too. Her election could certainly make the > world pause and rethink us over here. I like the sound of that, but to be honest, it isn't really a feature of my personal analysis. In any case, I do think Obama would have something of the same effect. > But her old man let half a million be murdered by "Chinese > hired thugs" in Africa, and I just have the hardest time > thinking that he didn't tar her -- like himself -- with the > same brush. Silence during that era condemns her -- YMMV. Not going to get into that, except to say that I think these types of issues are vastly more complicated and fraught with problems for a president than I see reflected in your take on them. > Add to that all the lies told about > the Clintons that somehow got under my radar and wasn't > noticed as lies, and I'm just not getting anywhere near > to liking Hillary. Heck, *I* don't like her all that much, even discounting the lies! As I've said, she's my default candidate. I'd have preferred Dodd or Biden. I support her because I don't think Obama begins to have what it takes to do what has to be done to clean out the stables. She said in Oregon today: "I wish I could believe that we could get to universal health care, that we could turn the economy around, that we could end the home foreclosure crisis merely by asking people to do it, by bringing them together, by pointing to a higher cause and expecting them to shelve their commercial, ideological, personal and partisan advantages. That is not the way the world has ever worked." Obama *does* seem to believe this, and to have hypnotized large numbers of people into thinking it's is actually a viable, desirable approach. I think he's disastrously naive on that score. The forces that are going to be arrayed against him are *vastly* bigger and more powerful and more determined than he imagines. <snip> > So, I got sidetracked on Hillary there. I'm mostly interested > in your predictions about Obama. Do you think that racism is > the only "big hammer" they've got in store for him? Nope, and I don't think, as noted, that it's going to be used publicly. The big issues will be lack of experience, lack of patriotism, and Wright (the last two not necessarily in that order).
