Apparently, I mean he talks about change all the time

I'm with Micheal because the lot of you would not know political debate if it jumped up and punched you with a steel glove.......................debate on KJ is shallow and boring to an extreme degree, indeed its not debate its just people points scoring on others. Seriously what the hell is with that and who gives a toss???? I've had Sinn Fein and IRA members beat me to a pulp and threaten me with death in my life and i've told them to fuck off..............and STILL when it came to irish politics I could debate it rationally..........................................but the fuckheads on this website are completely incapable of doing that and I'm sick of it.

I really hope you wankers get your own forum so I don't have to listen to your drivel because I am sick of it at this stage.

Sounds familiar, real familiar

When you are going to rejoin the community of the reality based? YOU are trying to have it both ways.



http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/25/183713/960

There is nothing special about Obama, other than his supporters' extreme hypocrisy. Clintons are evil when they play politics. Obama doesn't do it, except when he does and then it is "purity", not politics.

Posted like two pages ago.

wow...all i can say. he got 2x the votes he did!

I can't keep up with this thread man

AA vote in SC in 2004 Dem primary approx. 136,000. It was 47% of 290,000.
AA vote in SC in 2008 Dem primary approx. 291,500. It was 55% of 530,000.

The primary this year was on a Saturday and in 2004 was on a Tuesday, so that helped to increase turnout (turnout is always higher on a Saturday than on a Tuesday). Still an amazing increase in the AA turnout.

If anyone is curious the 2000 Republican primary turnout was 573,000 and Bush got 293,000 votes.

Michigan's headline was primarily Clinton almost getting her ass whooped by "Uncommitted".

Maybe if she was actually in South Carolina rather than a February 5th state when she "thanked" her South Carolina supporters. That was a wee bit transparently political.

Clinton and Obama have similar platforms, so judging on issues alone is pointless. What matters is character, and Obama's strength is his ability to inspire. Kennedy's greatest achievement (other than averting nuclear war) was not a material program but rather his call for Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves. Cynical Clintonistas don't seem to grasp the importance of such an intangible factor for the well-being of a liberal democracy. They think all we need are programs and ten-point plans, that it does not matter if a leader makes the country clench their teeth. Throw all the intellectual jabberwocky at me if you want, but I stand by this statement.

Alcoholics Anonymous is really getting out the vote this year!

Oh, Hillary inspires alright. Vitriol and bitterness on the right AND the left.



I have to say, I'm actually astonished at the cynicism. They are actually FOR more slime and mudslinging - the kind that Hillary and Bill are dishing out. And when Obama tries to stay above it, they accuse him of being too weak to fight back.

I'll be glad when the primaries are over and Dems can go back to attacking Republicans again.

Hahahahaahaha!!!!

That would make for a sad year 2008. Though to think of it, there is little point in voting McCain in Texas; he would have a total lock on every red state against Clinton.

It makes sense in a twisted way. They think slime is what it takes to further the liberal platform.

I pretty much agree with all of this. It's not just here either, it seems to be all Obama fans. I've noticed it a lot among my group of friends and just college kids in general. It has definitely made me more of a Hillary supporter than I would be otherwise.

So I was just reading up on Michigan and Florida. And it does not paint a pretty picture for Hillary. So basically, the Dems have decided not to count the Michigan delegates because of a rules violation. So all of the candidates agreed not to run there. Obama and Edwards took the extra step of taking their names off the ballot. A symbolic gesture that had no real bearing since the delegates wouldn't count anyway.

But since Hillary won the primary, she suddenly (and this is a total flip-flop) wants the delegates counted. Ditto with Florida, where she is also ahead in the polls. That's BULLSHIT. How much money you wanna bet that if she loses Florida by a substantial margin, she'd totally reverse position again and argue that they shouldn't be counted. It's ridiculous how transparent her campaign is. The only thing Hillary stands for is Hillary.

Again, I must have missed all the "new" arguments FOR Hillary or against Obama after all these pages. C'mon, where are they?

We get it, Beeble. Hillary is out to win it, while Obama and Edwards stand for "symbolic gestures".

Yawn... let's give it to the one who actually seems to understand what she's getting herself into.

No, clearly you don't get it. They're all out to win it, of course, but Hillary is the only one who will literally say or do anything to win. She is the Mitt Romney of the Democrats in terms of principle, and the Karl Rove of the Dems in terms of slime politics. She only cares about what is good for Hillary, not America.

Um, you're kidding, right? Edwards isn't saying and doing just about anything to win? The guy is stashing delegates to barter for a vp nod. Obama began passing out pamphlets where he is speaking from a pew with a giant cross in the background and saying he found himself through church as a youth. This is an election, everyone's hands aren't clean.

The big difference I've noticed is that most people who are voting for Hillary (or Edwards) don't hate Obama, they just want to hear more from him.

I see Hito's point that someone has to have the 'spirit' to motivate people to come together, but the question still stands, "over what?" Bush got a remarkable amount of people to unite (and give up their privacy rights) with his nifty deck of playing cards and his 'red light' 'orange light' system. That's a unite I'd rather do without.

Being a leader takes both leadership 'quality' as you guys call it; but as a concerned voter I want to know what I'm drinking the coolaid for and joining first. This is a valid arguement, and one that does not disclude Obama from my thinking process in the primaries and certainly not my whole-hearted support in the general election.

Its a far cry from what I've noticed you've been saying. Which is spreading far more "Vitriol and bitterness" than any actual one of the candidates does. The raw loathing you have for someone who pretty much has sound policies squarely within the democratic platform can only lead everyone reading this thread to notice what they already have: mainly that there is a small group of Hillary-haters in this country that preceeded and will transcend the moment. Its a particular thing that only happens to her and has been documented for years. Now, there are a million suspicions as to why these haters exist (and no, its not just her actions for five days in SC, its been around as far back as her health care package suggestion as first lady), but the one thing that is for sure is that they are really colouring this election with all kinds of nastiness.

Now, I am not saying all Obama fans are Hillary-haters. Clearly most of them are not (75% exit polls, as I earlier posted in this thread). But its remarkable to see one of them in action as Michael picked up on here. The general comfort I have is in knowing that over four-fifths of democrats interviewed in SC said they are pretty much fine with either candidate running on the general election ticket. They have a preference (as all people who vote do) but they aren't sitting around being nearly as negative about the other candidate. That's good, I realize it means neither one of these candidates is as 'polarizing' as the media is trying to make them out to be (its like a bad episode of Survivor...the way NYTimes and CNN have been covering and 'editing' this election process).

I just hope other people aren't reading this thread and thinking this is what most democrats think in this country (which would lead to a biased opinion that Hillary is a polarizer), because they don't. Both the lead candidates are promising to deliver a fairly consistent democratic platform. Because of this, no one is going to randomly jump ship in the general elections. They are both very electable.

The fact of the matter is, if someone jumps ship and, say, votes for McCain, than they really weren't ever going to vote for a democrat anyways. They are just lying to pollsters because they have a myth of their own 'Independant' status (this happened in NH, and most people turned out and voted in the end in the Rep primary). There's a big difference between what both Hillary and Obama are offering as far as subsidized national health care, pro-choice and pro-gay couple rights, as well as aggressive exit plans from Iraq, and what McCain is offering: which is fairly opposite all these things.

So people need to stop acting like if Hillary is the democratic candidate that voters will randonly change entire political agendas and platform appeal just because they don't like her 'personality', and that if Obama runs suddenly all these 'racist' democrats are going to jump ship. If McCain beats either of these two very strong candidates it can only mean one thing: That after decades of a right-moving country, the plurality of this country really has shifted its values towards the right. If so, then we can't really blame either of the democratic candidates; only ourselves.

No, and neither is Obama. Or McCain. Romney does and so does Clinton.



You guys clearly aren't hearing what I'm saying. They are all politicians, yes, and politicans make promises, sure. But with Edwards and Obama and some of the other candidates, they have underlying principles. That's the difference between them. Hillary has none. I'm not criticizing her for wanting to win. They all want to win. I'm criticizing her because her only principle is Hillary.



As much as I'm flattered that you think I represent the history of Hillary hating in this country going back to 1994, it's absolutely untrue. First of all, I don't hate her. I, like many, have the biggest resentment toward her for her vote to authorize Bush to go to war. There are other issues, but that's the biggest. It's also the one her supporters continue to ignore or brush aside. You wanna talk about leadership qualities, then explain that total lapse of judgment of character, events, and facts that she displayed in 2002 and 2003. But it's part and parcel to the modern Hillary - the one chastened and hardened by the 1994 health care debacle, the one who will say or do whatever she thinks will make her popular.

And I certainly take issue with those who harp on Obama's experience and ability to enact the change he promises and NOTHING ELSE, and accuse me of repeating the same criticisms over and over again. It's a ludicrous level of hypocrisy, especially given Hillary's relative lack of experience and (newly invoked) promises of change.



Sorry, dolce, but you are living in a dreamworld if you don't think that Hillary is any more polarizing than Obama. I'm not saying that's a reason not to vote for her, just as pandering to latent racists is no reason not to vote for Obama, but I think a lot of Democrats are deluding themselves over just how high her negatives are. As someone else pointed out, there is a very definite ceiling to her popularity that Obama simply does not have. And IF that is the reason one is using to criticize Obama's inability to enact the kind of change he promises while simultaneously arguing that Hillary somehow can, then it's an empty baseless reason.



I don't think that's issue. I think there's the "stay at home" factor, Dems who are way less enthused about one candidate over another and decide simply to stay out. Again, this is a risk for any nominee, this year more than many, but I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Hillary is far more vulnerable here than Obama.

I believe you mean winning?

There's winning, and then there's winning. Watching Hillary campaign is like watching people in China do business. Anything goes, for the win.

She adopts "change" when polls showed Americans want "change". She suddenly claims to be "ready for change" on "day one", even though missus "vast right wing conspiracy" is obviously unqualified for working with Republicans. She votes for the Iraq War, and bamboozles some Americans into believing it is not a vote for war. That resolution's name is "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq." Generally speaking, Hillary is quite the expert on bamboozling, whether about her record, or her opponents' records, or her campaign stances... all for the win.

She can't bamboozle McCain so easily. His slogan is, gasp, "Best prepared to lead on day one." Throw all the babble about Hillary's qualifications at me, but McCain has been in elected office for three times as long as Hillary. But given Hillary's record of convenient transfiguration, she would probably, all of a sudden, position herself as a change candidate. It would be good entertainment, for sure.

God, I missed Dolcevita.

Florida today (I almost forgot!).