What Obama needs to do

Its obvious since Mc Cain brought in the crooks and liars who masterminded the character destruction of John Kerry, Barack Obama will have to play tough. However, little 30 second adds about how many houses Mc Cain owns is ineffective.

What Obama needs to do is to make a great speech, adressing thousands, and completely and utterly dispel the attacks made by Mc Cain. He needs to point out the hypocrisy of the Republican smears and point to the enormous privelege to which Mc Cain hails from. He needs to describe in great detail his relatively humble roots and compare it with rich navy aristocracy boy Mc Cain. He needs to show that the American people are not mean spirited and will not tolerate further comparisons to Paris Hilton and the like.

Right now, Obama is winning over no-one by simply responding to Mc Cains attacks all the time. He needs to uneqivocally reject the charges made and fire back with great venom.

He, he, Pike, it sounds like you are almost wanting Democrats to lose by repeating that line over and over again. Most of the time you raise good points, but you are off with the Hispanics this time.

Hispanics are going to vote Democratic. The racist Hispanics are older; many of the older, more racists ones can't even vote.

And the Republican Party has spent the last 4 years turning them off. They are not going to flock to McCain, especially when his anti-immigrant rhetoric directed to white racists reach them. I know that for a fact

Now, Bill Richardson was not a great pick for the same reason that I give above: the Hispanic vote is going Democratic in any case, and putting a Hispanic in the ticket will drive the racists to the polls

My top choice for VP was Wesley Clark. From the South, from the military, very smart, and counting with a network of organized activists in the South. After that it would be great if Chuck Hagel would be persuaded to make a switch.

However, the VP picking requires that both parties agree to it. It must be hard to get Hagel to switch parties. And I don't know the specifics on Clark. I do know that Senator Webb from Virginia rejected becoming vice president, which made me really happy since he is a great senator.

The house ad doesn't deliver the punch that we want, but it is effective. I met yesterday with a McCain supporter and he was pretty turned off that rich out-of-touch McCain is so wealthy that he can't even keep track of how many houses he owns.

Obviously, for McCain, the fundamentals of the economy are great. But if I had married for money, as a cheap golddigger bimbo, I would feel the same way

Pundits and the chattering classes (Us) love thinking that people vote for the VP. They don't. Polls out today show that 3% more people will be more likely to vote for Obama because of his VP - Within statistical margin of error. The effect of the VP is miniscule unless he is a complete moron. Biden has a past but is a solid politician and widely respected across the board. Biden will not make a difference, no VP candidate will make any difference.

I agree in part with you Parnell, however, I think Biden as a VP will help Obama immensely. Biden has the foreign policy experience that many see as a short coming in Obama. I also believe that Biden will help Obama because it will allow Obama to venomously respond to McCain's attack dogs with out really getting his hands dirty. I think that one of the reasons that Kerry lost was that he was not a tough guy/fighter and he did not bring to his ticket anybody who was. Obama has made the smart choice in bringing in a VP candidate that has similar polling numbers to Hillary (he polls well with blue collar voters, Obama does not). Obama has also chosen a fighter and somebody who is a man of humble background who can point out McCain's lack of reality in understanding the economic plight of the nation. THis was evident from his first speech as VP candidate earlier today.

I would have loved to see Wesley Clarke as Obama's VP choice.

What pikeshot has failed to understand is that Biden helps sure up states like Pennsylvania which has 21 electoral votes. He helps this specifically in industrial areas like Scranton. So Biden brings more then Delaware to the table.

Originally posted by King John I agree in part with you Parnell, however, I think Biden as a VP will help Obama immensely. Biden has the foreign policy experience that many see as a short coming in Obama. I also believe that Biden will help Obama because it will allow Obama to venomously respond to McCain's attack dogs with out really getting his hands dirty. I think that one of the reasons that Kerry lost was that he was not a tough guy/fighter and he did not bring to his ticket anybody who was. Obama has made the smart choice in bringing in a VP candidate that has similar polling numbers to Hillary (he polls well with blue collar voters, Obama does not). Obama has also chosen a fighter and somebody who is a man of humble background who can point out McCain's lack of reality in understanding the economic plight of the nation. THis was evident from his first speech as VP candidate earlier today. I would have loved to see Wesley Clarke as Obama's VP choice. What pikeshot has failed to understand is that Biden helps sure up states like Pennsylvania which has 21 electoral votes. He helps this specifically in industrial areas like Scranton. So Biden brings more then Delaware to the table.

Edited by pikeshot1600 - 24-Aug-2008 at 00:13

What you fail to understand is that I understand how conservative PA is. However, Kerry carried that state by winning the most populated districts - the ones including Scranton (Lackawanna), Philadelphia, Allegany, Erie, et al. He, Kerry, did not win a majority of the counties but still carried the state. This was possible because as I have said he won more of the heavily populated counties. What does this have to do Obama and Biden? Obama has not done well with voters in these counties during the primary, Biden on the other hand has been called the 3rd PA Senator and polls well in the above mentioned counties. Obama will win NY, California, New England, New Jersey, the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii. RIght there is 173 Electoral Votes, only 97 votes short of the 270 needed to win the Presidency. If we add PA into the mix that number moves to 194. If we also add states that went Democratic in 2000 and 2004: ie MIchigan, Minnasota, Illinois, and Wisconsin that leaves Obama with 252 Electoral Votes leaving him 18 shy of Presidency. THis means that he can win the Presidency by carrying Ohio (21 EV) or any number of smaller states like W. Virginia and Virginia among others. These are all states put into play by Biden's working class blue collar support.

The Dems have only nominated Northerners in the last two elections. Bubba Clinton was from Arkansas and Gore was from Tennessee. Both are states that are definitely not Northern states. So the point that "the Dems keep nominating northerners in spite of the evidence" is ridiculous. Nominating northerners is not why they keep losing. They keep losing because they refuse to fight and do politics the way Republicans do. For instance Kerry allowed himself to be portrayed as a flip-flopper and be swift-boated had he shown some spunk and fought back it might have been a different story instead he tried to play a rope-a-dope type of politics.

They have carried the west, especially the pacific states, in the last two elections with candidates from the north and still lost. The reason the Dems have been losing has nothing to do with where the nominees are coming from, it has to do with how effective the Republicans have been at exploiting political gaffes by the Dems. Take for instance when the Republicans used the release of a convict while Dukakis was governor and a rape-murder committed by the same convict against Dukakis (this was a Bush ploy). A similar thing happened with the swift-boating. It also has to do with how effectively the Republicans paint Ivy Dem candidates as elitists when republican candidates are also for the most part ivy educated and come from the same privileged backgrounds. Compare Bush 43 and Kerry both were ivy educated but yet Bush 43 successfully painted Kerry as an elitist. So as you can see election results have little to do with demographics. It has to do with the effectiveness of each parties' propaganda.

Hi, Kevin,

Webb made it very clear that he didn't want to be vice president a few months ago, so he took himself out of that one. Kaine was a mix bag; being a Southern governor was good, but he had lost some of his liberal cred in the state. And he is not very charismatic.

Richardson would be okay. He is very accomplished and has the best resume. I just don't think that he would have brought as many votes as one could probably thought. Also, having two minorities in the ticket would certainly turn off many people, especially the older ones. Never mind that Richardson is only half Mexican: Obama is only half black himself, raised by a white family, but people still think that he is mainly black.

As for wealth, let's say that Obama earned his money from the bottom up and didn't just marry a wealthy woman. And Obama still remembers what it is like not to have money since he has a platform to help middle class people and knows that the economy is hurting most Americans.

McCain says that the economy is fine. He is so wealthy that he loses track of how many houses he has. He is obviously out of touch.

Originally posted by hugoestr Hi, Kevin, Webb made it very clear that he didn't want to be vice president a few months ago, so he took himself out of that one. Kaine was a mix bag; being a Southern governor was good, but he had lost some of his liberal cred in the state. And he is not very charismatic. Richardson would be okay. He is very accomplished and has the best resume. I just don't think that he would have brought as many votes as one could probably thought. Also, having two minorities in the ticket would certainly turn off many people, especially the older ones. Never mind that Richardson is only half Mexican: Obama is only half black himself, raised by a white family, but people still think that he is mainly black. As for wealth, let's say that Obama earned his money from the bottom up and didn't just marry a wealthy woman. And Obama still remembers what it is like not to have money since he has a platform to help middle class people and knows that the economy is hurting most Americans. McCain says that the economy is fine. He is so wealthy that he loses track of how many houses he has. He is obviously out of touch.

Hey Hugo!

I think that Obama could have convinced Webb otherwise about the VP spot especially since he seems ambitious and is a rising star in the Democratic Party if he isn't one already, and looking at things I think any candidate would have been better then Biden even Kaine, because keep in mind it typically isn't a good thing for the VP to overshadow the Presidential Candidate in any regard and that is why one of the reasons, I think the Obama team decided against selecting Hillary Clinton because it would have created too many problems in terms of presence on the ticket.

With Richardson I think you are right in most regards.

With McCain I feel to say that he doesn't know hardship would be false although I get what you are saying in terms of economics, However though despite his wifes wealth McCain did build a highly successful business from the very ground up back in the late 1970's/early 1980's. 


Edited by Kevin - 24-Aug-2008 at 05:28

I think if McCain can keep the "Solid South" republican (meaning not lose Virginia and Florida) he should win. Bush did that in 2000 and 2004. To win a dem has to break the South, thats how Clinton won; incidentally he was also a Southener. Dose anyone really think Obama can break the South? I doubt it. Gore could not even win his own state in 2000, on whom he lavished quite a bit of love as a Senator and Veep.