lol OK, I'm sleepy, give my freakin bad jokes a break! Leave WEB alone! I'm a HUMAN!

Well anyway, so these are my thoughts on the primary for what they are worth.

Obama got his ass kicked. He not only took a big hit in terms of the symbolic value of PA, but he took a kick in the nuts to his popular vote total (she ate into it by 200,000). The reason for that is Obama's "bitter" remarks. Obama has enormous problems now, IMO. Exit polling showed that more Hillary supporters would not support Obama, than vice versa. Half of Hillary supporters will stay home or vote for McCain if Obama gets the nomination. Obama's got some REAL problems.

What's even worse than that is that Obama has lost his mojo. I watched Obama's concession speech. It was nothing compared to his concession speech in Texas, which was a complete masterpiece.



I guess that happened before the Reverend Wright, but Obama was such a pristine candidate back then. Now he's sullied by Reverend Wright and him getting mauled by his relationship with Ayers and "bitter." The Repubs are going to maul him North Carolina with a special propa....I mean piece on those men in Obama's life. Obama will be mirred in this kind of stuff.

At the same time, Obama's speeches are a compilation of what we've heard before and even though the Indiana crowd he was talking to was energetic, you could tell that the enthusiasm was markedly lower. It was a lot more mundane than it was before. Obama's problem is that he runs on high grade fuel, like aviation fuel. He has to keep injecting some super high amazing speeches into his campaign because he lacks the legislative accomplishments and experience to campaign on less exhaustive means. Obama is running out of things to say.

I guess we'll see what happens. The next elections in May will also be very important. Obama can probably get by, but we could say that he's past his peak in the Democratic race. You can still win when you are past your peak though.


WEB

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The last thing I will say is this. This is like the billionth time that we American and even non-American politics junkies, Obama junkies and whoever have put ourselves through this suspense.

First it was Iowa, then New Hampshire, then Nevada, then Super Tuesday, then the Potomac Primaries, then Maine, then Wisconsin, then Super Tuesday II, yesterday the PA Primary, in two more weeks the North Carolina/Indiana Primaries.

Joe Scarborough made a very good point. We are so short-sighted. We just go through this over and over again and it's not going to end until June and there's no way people can predict if Hillary supporters really won't support Barack. We can't predict anything. We just have to watch things play out and really not think too much of the moment, because the truth of this moment will be completely different in a few weeks.


WEB

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We all have our own crosses to bear then.
Your fellow citizens and you have the elections, the weak buck [great for exports though], gas prices and "what the heck is happening to our credibility in the world".
Euros have their problems: a strong currency [my euro savings account isn't complaining though], a hell of a bunch of lousy world politics in general and more important their puking high taxations and also high prices for gas.
China has an Olympic headache starting to feel like a "migraine".
China's Hong Kong (the most free economy in the world or so they say) is just shivering at the thought of being the next former Gateway to... as it will host some of the Beijing games also.
Life really ain't dull these days.

Btw, I wouldn't have chosen the Yuan in my title, the former poodle's Sterling of HM the Queen is worth way more these days.

Did you notice the guy right behind Obama in his speech last night? He looked bored right out of his skull. He didn't clap, he didn't chant...he just sat there! And I loved how they had that ONE little old white lady in the crowd behind him. ("get me some more white people" "We need more white people")

Hillary won the "blue collar lunch box workers" in most of the states that she has won. She won most of the senior vote.

Obama wins a lot of the male votes because...and this is my opinion only...MOST males would vote for a man over a woman most days of the week! Obama wins the young vote because they haven't been around long enough to see all their dreams evaporate into a mundane life. They're young enough to still believe that CHANGE can happen just because someone says he/she can do it. But give them 20 or 30 years and they'll be as disbelieving of an Obama like nominee as we older generation are now.

Well THIS Hillary supporter knows darn sure that she will NOT vote for Obama in November!

That's fine. Personally, I don't need the kind of social welfare programs Obama or Clinton is offering. Obama supporters are probably in a better financial position to support McCain, than Hillary supporters are anyway. Given that I support the war in Iraq, I welcome your vote for McCain. Please vote for Republican congressmen as well.

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I dunno, I hate to disagree publicly with WEB, but here goes;
I think Obama did a heck of lot to close the gap that was there 6 weeks ago. (in PA)
Clinton had powerful political backing in PA and the whole, "I spent my summers here-favorite daughter" thing going on and she still only managed to win by 10 points.
Unless I'm remembering wrong, most of the states where Obama has won the popular vote, he's beaten her by quite a bit; whereas she keeps eeking out these wins by single and low double digit percentages.

I think the Rev Wright stuff and Ayers has become baggage for Obama, no doubt, but I think there's a chance too that it will turn out to be a positive.
I think it would have been much worse for this stuff to have come out next fall.
Chris Matthews was venting for a bit last night about (his opinion) that the Clintons are acting like the Democratic party is theirs to do with what they wish. That they are the un-elected leaders of the Party and woe unto anyone who says different.
I think, or maybe just hope, that the longer she draws this out, the more voters new and old, will see her for what she is. A power hungry, irresponsible she-beast willing to sacrifice the party rather than concede she is the wrong candidate.
Course, all this could be the Kool-Aid I just drank too.

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"If you can't do something smart, do something right."

A big issue is that Obama has won a majority of his votes from states that are guaranteed to go to McCain in November, whereas Clinton has more wins in swing states, and Democratic strongholds.

With Obama performing so poorly in the swing states against Clinton, it isn't unreasonable to think that he would lose them all to McCain in a general election.

The Democrats can't win the election if they lose Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All states Clinton beat Obama in.

[IMG][/IMG]

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as i have said from the getgo reps can't win, but dems can lose ~ sure looks like that is what is happening

why didn't dems just didn't pick that safe white guy?

One should never feel a pause to publicly disagree with myself. I've never been a fan of people on a forum acting together to put partisan politics first over what they really think. Among civil people, the forum is no different than two people talking over sandwiches or beer.

I would say that the difference between our views then would be more of a glass half full/ half empty argument. You look at how far Obama's come, I look at how far he's fallen short. We'll have to agree to disagree on which is more significant.

I don't think that's what has been happening though. I just read an article about how this one journalist or pundit was saying that people would have "buyers remorse" about Obama, and that they may feel he is unelectable. I think one of the major things Obama had going for him during his January/February surge months was his electability argument and that Republicans hate Hillary. However, the whole Revered Wright and Ayers thing changed that. Now you seem to have a lot of the Republicans coming after Obama too. Obama is looking very weak outside of his core of white liberal / black vote supporters.

It's Obama's scandals that have really brought him down. Obama is an "unknown quantity", in so far as he is new and thus his support has a wider and less predictable amount of fluctuation. The scandals reinforce that unsteadiness that makes him less appealing to blue collar voters.

I will add one last thing. Bill Schneider commented last night that actually the race has been extraordinarily predictable. The same demographic that voted for Hillary in New Jersey and Ohio, also did so in PA. There was no difference in the demographics. The PA primary was closed to independents, and to voters trying to register on the same day as the primary. Indiana has less demographic and institutional disadvantages for Obama than PA.

__________________
"Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist...but it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." - Joseph McCarthy

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