DebateGate

General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: R.R. on December 11, 2006, 12:54:19 AM

Title: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: R.R. on December 11, 2006, 12:54:19 AM
Maybe it's right time for Obama to run . . .

December 8, 2006
BY RICH MILLER

I've known Barack Obama since he was first elected to the state Senate in 1996, and I've been mostly wrong about him from the start.

In the beginning, I thought Obama had too much "Harvard ambition" about him, but others pointed out to me that his loss to Rep. Bobby Rush in the 2000 Democratic primary seemed to humble him a bit.

Sometime after that loss, I ran into Obama in Jackson Park, a city golf course on the South Side. We chatted pleasantly and he said some brief words to my female golfing companion and we moved on.

Afterward, my friend, who is not easily impressed, had a look of pure joy on her face. She talked excitedly about Obama, but I dismissed him as someone who had screwed up his future by running against Bobby Rush. She said I would eat those words one day.

I took my father to hear Obama speak in January of 2004, at the beginning of his U.S. Senate campaign. My father was a lifelong, conservative Republican, but he had broken with George W. Bush over the Iraq war and was open to change.

My father sat transfixed during Obama's speech, soaking up every word. I had never seen him react that way to anyone or anything in all my life. I got quite a chuckle out of it.

Afterward, Obama approached our table. My dad grabbed his hand and with a look of awe gushed, "Never change. Never change." I remember feeling embarrassed for his exuberance.

My dad has been pushing for an Obama presidency since before Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. I agree that Obama should probably strike while the iron is hot, but I have some troubles with his lack of experience and the recent revelations about that questionable land deal with noted political bad guy Tony Rezko.

The experience issue is less of a problem for me. Abraham Lincoln's sole governmental experience was eight years in the Illinois House and just two years in Congress, yet he was one of our greatest presidents. Besides, more "experience" wallowing through the disgusting cesspool that is Washington may only hurt Obama, not help him.

According to Tom Schwartz, the Illinois state historian, 19th century voters didn't view politics as a profession, so they didn't expect presidential candidates like Lincoln to have extensive political experience. The issue never came up in the 1860 campaign, Schwartz said.

After telling Schwartz that I was trying hard not to add to the hype by comparing Lincoln to Obama, Schwartz shared some surprising thoughts.

''What Lincoln brought to the presidency, which was very much needed at the time . . . [was] a very fine ear for listening to the public's concerns and then being able to articulate responses that created consensus that was able to move the country forward in positive ways,'' Schwartz said. Schwartz then said that he saw a direct comparison to Obama's calls for unity and the way Obama had sparked so much interest from people who normally don't care for politics.

Back in the 1800s, the Illinois Legislature was opening up the state to development and railroads, so legislators were aware of profit potentials before they became public. State Rep. Lincoln got in on some of those deals -- one of the rare strikes on his integrity before being elected president. Ironically, they were all busts.

I've been wrong about Obama for so long that, after talking to Schwartz, I'm tempted to just throw in the towel and join my dad's cheerleading squad. If Obama can prove that Rezko's way-too-convenient purchase of a yard next to his South Side mansion was an aberration, then I may be sorely tempted. Until then, I'm going to resist the hype as best I can.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/miller/164861,CST-EDT-MILL08.article
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on December 11, 2006, 07:36:11 AM
I've been wrong about Obama for so long that, after talking to Schwartz, I'm tempted to just throw in the towel and join my dad's cheerleading squad. If Obama can prove that Rezko's way-too-convenient purchase of a yard next to his South Side mansion was an aberration, then I may be sorely tempted. Until then, I'm going to resist the hype as best I can.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had to read this whole thing before I found out why RR posted it. As usual, it's a put-down of a Democrat. Not a very good one.

Who the hell is Rezko?

is the yard next to Obama's DSouth Side mansion, or next to Rezko's?

What the poo is the relationship betyween this lot and some sort of Obama impropriety?

It sounds like Obama is being aacused with sharting a sentence with the name Rezko.

Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: BT on December 11, 2006, 09:52:18 AM
Rezko is apparently Illinois's  Noe.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: R.R. on December 11, 2006, 12:45:05 PM
It's not a put down, you dork. It outlines some of the hurdles that Obama would have to face if he ran. The Rezko deal seem like an honest mistake that Obama made.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on December 11, 2006, 12:57:03 PM
It's not a put down, you dork. It outlines some of the hurdles that Obama would have to face if he ran. The Rezko deal seem like an honest mistake that Obama made.

==========================================================
In the words of Steve Martin:
Well, EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME!!!!

As a rule, you tend to  glory in pointing out the defects of Democrats, rather than your fellow ratwingers

This article makes absolutely nothing clear about who bought what from whom and why anyone would think it improper.

I am a bit reticent to trust anyone named "Rezko", but just becausae it sounds a bit like "Ratso"

It sounds more hygenic to be a Rezko than a Lipshitz, but a Rezco sounds more slimey.

If I were a novelist, i would be more likely to name the con man Rezko and the corrupt restaurant inspector Lipshitz.

A bad novelist, that is. Really, fiddling with characters' names needs to be more sophisticated.

Obama's biggest handicap might be his inexperience in national office.

That, and the fact that often people say they will vote for the Black guy, and then don't.

I don't think Obama's being half Kenyan should be much more than Pataki's being named 'Pataki", which might sounds vaguely Pakistani to the uneducated.

Obama sounds a bit like Alabama. "Barak" sounds like a noise made by my cat prior to producing a hairball.

Not that I would let the name affect my vote. But still, there are those who prefer the name Pepsi to the name Coke, and 'McDonalds' to 'Lard Lad'.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Brassmask on December 11, 2006, 01:02:12 PM
My wife seems to like him and likes his "consensus-building attitude".  She likes that he's "from the streets" and that he hasn't been dragged through the filth of Washington YET.

Me.  I'm not such a fan.  I think he's a likable person and I think that he'd make a great VP who needs to learn more about foreign policy.  He seems to embrace the right a little too much for my taste.  And though he demanded that they take his name off their roles when he was running for the Senate, I suspect he is very chummy with the DLC set.

He'll have to show me something in the primary season to get my vote.  If Gore opts out, which I don't think he will, I'll be able to tap the screen for Obama if I have to.

I doubt that Americans will be able to overlook many aspects of his past.  His experimentation with drugs, while not a problem for me, will be a lot for some Americans to ignore.  He is still a smoker and people tend to be wiggly about that.

He's got hurdles just like others.  They're not insurmountable though.

Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: R.R. on December 11, 2006, 01:18:55 PM
As a rule, you tend to glory in pointing out the defects of Democrats, rather than your fellow ratwingers

It's not a rule. It just happens to be more fun. But I've criticized Republicans. More so than you've come down on any liberal ;0

But I do like Obama. And it's better to get some of these questions answered now before the campaign starts.

The Rezko deal seems to be that Obama bought an adjoining strip of land next to his house that was owned by Rezko. Rezko does appear to be some kind of con man and he did contribute to Obama's campaign. But there doesn't seem to be any kind of wrong doing in what happened on Obama's part. Obama paid more than market value for the land that he purchased from Rezko and there doesn't seem to be any kind of quip pro quo involved. Obama probably thinks it was a mistake to even get involved with Rezko.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: BT on December 11, 2006, 01:20:16 PM
Quote
He's got hurdles just like others.  They're not insurmountable though

Surprised you aren't blaming the Clinton's for the linking of Rezko to Osama. Sounds like a momentum stopper to me.

Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Plane on December 11, 2006, 02:18:36 PM
Obama has some Star qualitys , lots of charm , a good turn of phrase , a pretty clean history .

And not too far down the radical road , as far as we know.


The real triumph for either party would be to energise the Apathetic Voter , there are many thousands of unharvested votes .


If Obama can inspire the half of the nation to care that presently does not care , that in itself would be a good thing , and it would make an election a cake walk.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on December 11, 2006, 02:30:58 PM
Obama visited my university and made a very good impression. I only caught the last 20 minutes of his speech because I had a class at the time he started, but he came here to support Jim Davis (who was unfortunately beaten by Charile Crist) and no one said they didn't like him.

I didn't see him smoking. We have a no-smoking official policy on campus, which means that the smokers hang out in three places on campus, which Obama would not know about.

I don't see any problems voting for a smoker. What a man does with his lungs is certainly his business and none of my own.

It would be interesting if Obama and Giulani were the candidates in '08, but I have this feeling that neither of them will get the nomination, not because they are unqualified, but because they don;t have the big money backers behind them.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Mucho on December 11, 2006, 03:30:39 PM
I thought I liked Obama until Ricky Ricardo said nice things about him . I now must rethink my position .
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Brassmask on December 11, 2006, 04:55:45 PM
Quote
He's got hurdles just like others.  They're not insurmountable though

Surprised you aren't blaming the Clinton's for the linking of Rezko to Osama. Sounds like a momentum stopper to me.



It's still early.

My latest theory cockamamie idea is that Obama is merely a stalking horse for Gore.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: BT on December 11, 2006, 05:03:59 PM
Quote
My latest theory cockamamie idea is that Obama is merely a stalking horse for Gore

Nah, far as i can tell Obama is sane, so you have that opposites thing going. .

Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Brassmask on December 11, 2006, 05:09:11 PM
Quote
My latest theory cockamamie idea is that Obama is merely a stalking horse for Gore

Nah, far as i can tell Obama is sane, so you have that opposites thing going. .

If you think that Gore is insane then you may have problems with the president that will be sworn in in 2009.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: BT on December 11, 2006, 05:18:38 PM
Quote
If you think that Gore is insane then you may have problems with the president that will be sworn in in 2009.

I don't think Hillary is insane. Nor Guilliani. Shame Warner pulled out. Bayh is worth looking at. .

I think Gore has as much of a chance as Lamont did. Not too fond of McCain either.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Brassmask on December 11, 2006, 05:38:12 PM
I don't think Hillary is insane. Nor Guilliani. Shame Warner pulled out. Bayh is worth looking at. .
I think Gore has as much of a chance as Lamont did. Not too fond of McCain either.

I still adhere to the belief that it is WAY early to be laying bets on who will win.  Personally, I want Gore to run and I hope that he will win but I'm not 100% committed to him and only him.  Of the people announcing and intimating and so forth, only Obama has any appeal to me but he won't inspire me to get out there and talk to people on his behalf.  Hell, if it was him and anybody else right now, I wouldn't even bother getting a yard sign.

Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: yellow_crane on December 11, 2006, 06:43:43 PM
 Not too fond of McCain either.
[/quote]


Sees McCain hired one of the Bush outfit's biggest sleazes to manage his campaign--Terry Nelson, who was responsible for the blatant racist ad that cost Ford the election in Tennessee, as well as being an indicted (or unindicted, depending) co-conspirator in Tom DeLay and RNC in the TRMPAC scandal, as well as the illegal phone jamming in New Hampshire.

You would think McCain would think twice, in today's lowtide corruption scandals,  about hiring somebody of such notoriety, but maybe he just knows that the press rarely goes after the dirty dealers in campaigns.  I don't, for instance, remember reading in the MSM that Kerry's swiftboat ads were financed, at least by $2.3 million big ones, by Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton.

Seems to suggest that Bush and McCain are not really too far apart.



"We must win in Iraq.  We cannot fail.  If we lose in Iraq, they're coming after us.  We will fight them somewhere else, like here.  It's all part of a gigantic, titanic struggle between good and evil." -- Sen. John McCain.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Brassmask on December 11, 2006, 07:00:28 PM
McCain used to be the guy I would vote for if Hillary and he were the candidates but that's not going to be happening now.  He's crossed over to the dark side.

I would like to ask though, why was that "blatantly racist" ad "blatantly racist"?  I thought it was just stupid.

Also, I think that Gore is running.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061211/ap_on_el_pr/gore2008 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061211/ap_on_el_pr/gore2008)
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: Xavier_Onassis on December 11, 2006, 08:26:48 PM
I would like to ask though, why was that "blatantly racist" ad "blatantly racist"?  I thought it was just stupid.

The ad with the blonde who asks Harold th call me was indeed dumb, but it was more than a bit racist in its intent.
Voting for Harold is a way of approving of a tryst between a blonde bimbo and Harold seems to be the message.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: yellow_crane on December 11, 2006, 08:34:11 PM
Well, Nelson and crew picked the blondest bimbo they could find to coo suggestively to Harold, just at the end.  I would argue that in the South that is a trigger; the woman's action were sexual towards Ford, and that's the oldest song in the South.  I would wager that a huge percentage of lynchings were evolved from a latent sexual undertheme.

I think it was obviously racist, but you may have a point about blatant.

Blatant would be obviously, boldly conspicuous, and it was subtle enough to get aired.

But can you deny that the ad was meant to trigger a latent racism in the state's society?
If that was not the intent of the ad, they must be doing cartwheels at the coincidental success of it.

Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: R.R. on December 11, 2006, 08:36:32 PM
I thought I liked Obama until Ricky Ricardo said nice things about him . I now must rethink my position .

There really aren't any strong conservatives in the race that I like. I don't particularly care for Mitt Romney. And Newt is just going to be shaping the debate; even he doesn't think he can probably win.

My top 3 choices for president would be Guiliani, McCain, and Obama, of the proposed field.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: yellow_crane on December 11, 2006, 08:49:26 PM

Also, I think that Gore is running.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061211/ap_on_el_pr/gore2008 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061211/ap_on_el_pr/gore2008)
[/quote]


I find it hard to forgive Gore for not fighting the war in Florida, but I will admit that he has redeemed himself beyond what I thought he could.  I have heard a few comments on the blabs about Gore making great strides in proving himself as credible to people who have been heretofore ready to laugh at him.

If he vocalizes on the environment to the extent that he reveals what he knows--that the majority of Americans believe in a sane approach to the environment, while much smaller numerically corporations and share holders argue that if they cannot poison (in many cases, to death) the land, they can't make their biggest buck.  

If Gore links the corporations to the environment in real terms, I would vote (and pimp) for him.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: domer on December 11, 2006, 08:56:42 PM
The confounding issue when considering the environment vs. the economy is the number of "regular guy" jobs that may depend on more lax standards. Ideally, any loss from regulation could conceivably be made up in jobs creating new environmental technology, but, to some extent at least, that's speculative and it carries a transition period that would adversely affect those who simply cannot defer to a brighter time.
Title: Re: It's the right time for Obama
Post by: BT on December 11, 2006, 09:02:18 PM
Quote
The confounding issue when considering the environment vs. the economy is the number of "regular guy" jobs that may depend on more lax standards. Ideally, any loss from regulation could conceivably be made up in jobs creating new environmental technology, but, to some extent at least, that's speculative and it carries a transition period that would adversely affect those who simply cannot defer to a brighter time.

That is a major consideration. Another determining factor is how the "crisis" is sold.

In local politics, the politician who wants to ban Weber grills, is the politician seeking early retirement.

Same goes for pickup trucks.