You say that now, but he IS SO SEXY! Don't deny it! And his abs, MY GOD! Yeah, he's got my vote.

Wait? Am I the only one here who thinks Hillary is pretty damn good looking?

Anyways, BKB. I'm voting for her tomorrow too!

Yep, that's me -- a really stupid 49 year old. What do I know about politics? Just because I have a degree in political science and once worked as a campaign manager. I only vote for people who look good. Obama's my man because I am so damned shallow.

If only I had the maturity and political experience of someone like BKB! Why, then I would know exactly who to vote for. But no, I am just a stupid follower who can't evaluate the issues and make an informed decision.

Why, I'm so naive that I actually believe that leadership qualities and vision are more important than experience. I should know better! After all, look at the experienced people we have in the White House now! Why, there is no one in Washington with more experience than Dick Cheney and look how well that worked!

By God, we should have elected Strom Thurmond as President! No one had more experience than him! True, he was a racist bastard who had no morals whatsover, but what does that matter? Experience trumps everything! BKB told me so, and I'm just a stupid guy who doesn't know anything about politics.

Please note: I have no real major problem with Hillary, and if she gets the nomination I will certainly vote for her. I just think that between the two, Obama will be a better President and also has a greater chance of beating McCain. (And polls agree with me on that last point)

*cough*4 years in Senate*cough*

The endorsement to end all endorsements.

First of all, if 8 years as First Lady counts as experience, then so does Obama's 7 years in state government and 3 years (not one) in the Senate. Hillary has been in the Senate for 7 years, not 8. So 15 years to 10 years is not "infinitely" more experience, it's not even double.

Second, should Barack Obama win the presidency, he will be 47, or five years OLDER than Bill Clinton was when he won.

Third, like Groucho, I'm no teenager. And we're not voting for Obama because he's sexy. I think Obama and Hillary are both attractive people.

So basically, nothing in your post really has any substance or makes any sense. It's just a rant and that's about it.

I can't speak for Groucho but I can tell you why some people feel he'd be better. We just came out of a period where the whole establishment, republicans, democrats, the top media people, really fucked up and got this country in a disastrous foreign policy mistake, the Iraq war. Is Obama a little too inexperienced? Yes, I'd rather he had a few more years under his belt, as governor or senator or something. But unlike Hillary and McCain, he wasn't part of the problem that got us into this disaster and in general he constantly shows good judgment, solid intelligence, and thinking things through.

Also, Hillary is one of many leading democrats (Daschle was another) who have this cringing mentality where they don't really stick up for their own beliefs. The republicans have trained them into being afraid to be anything but a hawk on foreign affairs or they'll be called a wimp. Obama doesn't have that fear and that's refreshing.

Once more, I don't think years in the Senate necessarily give you judgment. Years don't give you morals. Obama showed leadership in his personal life, where he made choices that showed he cared more about changing the world than he did his own personal achievements.

In Illinois, he led the charge to get rid of their death penalty, and he did it by convincing Republicans -- and the Republican governor -- to get rid of it. In Congress, he got the biggest anti-corruption anti-lobbyist law passed last year by once more getting those on the other side to join with him.

That's leadership. That shows a man who can get things done. Do you think any republican is going to work with Hillary? They hate her and her husband. All the experience in the world won't help her get things passed if we just have another administration at war with the other party.

Hillary's leadership? Mostly she follows the polls. She supported the war until the polls showed it was a bad idea. She changed her position on licenses for immigrants when the polls showed her it was unpopular. She (and Bill) rarely make a move without testing it with the population first.

Obama has taken hard positions that were not popular -- and still does -- and has not changed with the wind. That's what leadership is. No amount of years in Congress will give you that.

Am I a blurry-eyed idealist? No, of course not, you guys should know me better than that. I'm pragmatic and a realist and a cynic. Obama will certainly do things I won't agree with, and will screw up just like Hillary will. But given the choice between the two I'll take the guy who has shown leadership in the past.

I could go on, but my point is this: Maybe, just maybe, some of us actually think Obama would be a better President than Hillary for reasons other than blind optomism and "hope." And it's really insulting to us to imply otherwise.

Actually, if you add his years in the Illinois legislature, Obama has MORE years in an elected political position than Hillary does.

I think this sums up two major points for me against Hillary.

yep

You have it wrong.

A DEMOCRAT should be president, and if Hillary gets the nomation, then a republican is all but guarenteed to win.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080204/lf_ ... mCVxwHcggF

Robert de Niro: "He wasn't experienced enough to authorize the invasion of Iraq."

Heh.

Eh, I don't like getting into debating so I feel bad making this sound antagonistic, but I interpret it a little differently.

I think the problem with the 'general disaster' of this country is the problem all senators with a voting record from the early 2000's have. Kerry got slammed for it, Clinton is getting slammed for it, even Edwards when he was still a senator was slammed for it. It was a particular internal pressure under the weight of a fairly tyrannical president who people less directly involved get to speculate what they "would have done" in hypothesis.

Hence governors popularity in past elections. Dean said he "would have voted against" entering Iraq, but its all speculation. Clearly, not many people did. Not Biden or others. Obama came late to the situation, when the general public had already soured against the war. He's in a totally different situation than senators from 2002 are in. Senators always have this trouble, and few senators have been elected to the presidency (compared to the number of governors) because of the more ecclectic voting histories that come with federal work.

I personally think there is a big difference between 3 and 7 years in the senate right now exactly because of the big difference in national sentiment between 2002/3 (close to 9/11) and 2005 (criticism beginning, death tolls climbing, Michael Moore documentaries, whatever). This is not to say Hillary handled it perfectly (Kerry did not either) but both she, and Kerry before, where not supportive of the Iraq War the way someone like, say McCain is.

This is why the media is harder on her (and was on Kerry compared to Dean) than Obama. Because she was there at the time. Obama just gets to sit around and say that "if he had been there he would have said no.' That's a hypothesis, and it bothers me that people believe in that hypothetical situation as though it had actually happened, which it didn't. Based on what both candidates are saying NOW, both want a timely and efficient withdrawel of troops. I have no problem with people criticizing Clinton's past voting record, but I do have a problem with people acting as though Obama actually voted on these things in 2002/3/4 and treating him like its more than just rhetoric. He still voted for the same budget support Clinton did recently, and they both voted to remove as many sections as they could of the Patriot act.



True, but I think its because he doesn't have to defend his own record. He wasn't there. That's the thing people keep overlooking that allows him to enter with confidence and avoid media criticism that is not granted to her. This holds true in last time around's Kerry vs. Dean. Governors have it much easier in the presidential races, and I'll extend that to first term senators (Obama, I think JFK). They just don't have a long enough record to even criticize.

Every long-standing senator does. Kennedy, the bastion of 'liberal politics' in this country, would be torn apart in a minute with his decades-long voting record. Times change, democraphics a senator represents change, sentiments change, candidate's personal beliefs change. Then they are stuck having to defend these longer records and inevitably seem less "fresh." Freshness is a fine and appealing characteristic to have, but only certain candidates get to have it, and almost all of them were not previous elected officials at the federal level.

Also, Groucho, while he faught locally to eliminate the death penelaty (in a major urban area, where the death penalty is far more reviled on ideological and practical purposes) but in his national campaign he has said (on his website even) that he doesn't oppose it. Does this make him a flip-flopper? No. It means locally he could push legislation throgh where the demography he represented was already warm to the idea. You know on a federal level it would never fly, and that's why no candidate explicitly opposes it. But such an example serves to highlight the difference between federal and regional politics. Senators and the federal level deal with the whole country, not just a specific region. They never look as good.

I personally think he entered the senate already preparing for the presidency, which is why he's avoided the hot-button national issues. Anti-corruption is a 'cute' bill, and one that most the voting public, democrat or republican, is not going to say they are opposed to. Kind of like McCains campaign finance reform (unlike McCains torture work, however). I find the topics Obama has pushed through in the last two-and-a-half years to be particularly nuetral...already prime for bi-partisan work and already easy to televise to a national audience. He's abstained from voting for several key issues, which doesn't make me think he's got any higher morality than anyone else, only that he is as equally strategic about his politics (and politicking for the presidency) as the next guy.

As BKB did note (though I'm not sure where the sexy abs part came from) Obama is hard to slam in the media. Is this because he has really had ideological, strong positions that go against the sentiments of large parts of his voting bloc (Democrats) or the general public (McCain's immigration plan comes to mind) or is it because he just avoided getting his name associated with legislation that was too volatile or touchy feely? Is it because he wouldn't vote for the war now, or because he didn't then (which is a mental slip I notice many people make).

Anyone's guess? And no one will ever know. I throw this out mostly because this primary seems to be becoming less and less about the issues and increasingly about cult of the personality. That drives me nuts. Obama might not be as politicking as the next candidate, but as interpretted above, he may very well be just as manipulative as anyone else, too.

I like most of his positions, and think he'd make a fine president, but I am sick and tired about how everything has been whittled down to simplisitic interpretations of moralism, righteousness, and honesty. All the candidates have skeletons in their closets, and all have been trying for the past year to marker themselves in ways that will catch-on among the public. They are not different in this way, and I am tired of the papers scrpting HIllary as some conniving bitch (yep, its gendered) whose husband 'will wear the pants' in their relationship and the presidency, while Obama is some untouchable celebrity personality who has never voted (or in his case abstained from voting) out of self-interest rather than a true spritual calling. Its ridiculous.

In that sense, I agree the media has been dreadful. It has mimed the same story arch it developed for every senator (this is with historical presedence and hence senators are never that successful in presidential bids). And it has built of some cult of the personality arch for Obama. The latter statement has nothing to do with older voters who have taken the time and voted on the issues. It doesn't even have to do with mature voters who say they don't mind the 'freshness' and think its just as good a reason to vote for someone as any other.

It only has to do with this select group of twenty-two year-olds that keep throwing themselves at me in night clubs and cussing the hell out of Hillary that their lives will be ruined. I'm, like, 'Chill, you're a pampered PhD student on a full scholarship for the next seven years at NYU. You've never left a classroom in your life, and probably won't for the next 8 years regardless of who is president. Calm Down.' Those people are a turn-off. My brother and sister were literally undecided two days ago until once such episode happened to them and its certainly helped them make up their minds. I think BKB is talking about this youth-movement, hence his random mention of abs. I don't think he was referring to you guys per se.

Anyways, sorry for the length of this post. I talk too much, as usual.

That's not true at all. Obama spoke out against it before the invasion, when it was not nearly as popular to do so. And Kucinich was one of many Democrats who voted against authorization. So the line that everyone bought into Bush's bullshit and therefore it's justified or excusable is nonsense. At least Edwards admitted he was wrong, something Hillary refuses to do.

I actually read dolce's debut book.

She makes some important points. In short, Obama lovers and Clinton haters, we can't consider Obama's only term in the Senate "experience," because he's been preparing for a run at the presidency ever since his standing ovation in 2004.

I think Obama is too ambitious. I admire him as a person, but he can't "git r dun." Really. I'm not saying it's all false hope and speculation - I don't think we'll be any worse off with Obama as a president than we are now - but Clinton's greatest strength, a strength even her opposition will acknowledge, is that she's a moderator between the parties. We need a centrist right now to streamline things, not a visionary, JFK wannabe

Actually, no. He gave a speech against the war in October 2002, just when it was being passed and voted on. He didn't come to it late, he spoke out against it when the majority of the public was supporting it.

Here's a text of his speech: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Ob ... raq_Speech

That's leadership. And as he said in the last debate, it's not just about being ready on day one -- it's about being right on day one.

There's a record of his opinion. Had he been in the Senate, we know how he would have voted, because he made a public speech on the point and urged Congress to defeat the resolution.




Well, McCain has like 20 years in the Senate, why aren't you supporting him?




What he accomplished in Illinois is actually a moratorium on the death penalty because it is applied so unfairly and because so many on death row are later found to be innocent. I think he may do the same for the US if President, which Hillary certainly will never do. That's a point in his favor in my opinion.




McCain was a cosponsor and that's one of the reasons many republicans hate him. I also used it as an example of how Obama can work with those in the other party while they never will with Hillary.




Well, I agree with you there. I hope my positions have been a bit more nuanced than that.



Again, I don't disagree. Obama is the choice du jour of the media right now. They love a good fight and a good underdog story and they pick an image for a candidate and it can stick (Dean is a crazy screamer! Kucinich is a short little elf! Kerry is a flip flopper!) and once they do, it sticks. I won't disagree with that.

However, it doesn't mean that maybe there is some truth in there and maybe Obama is a good choice even so. I don't believe the press when they say someone is terrible and I don't when they say someone is great -- I do some research myself and make up my own mind.



There will always be the idealists in that group. Bill Clinton had the same kinds of reactions when he first ran, believe it or not (altough not to the extent we see here). I agree with you.

However, that doesn't mean that in this instance they are wrong. Even though your instincts are telling you that you don't want to associate with these people, maybe he really is the best candidate after all.