Barack Obama Doesn’t Care About the Democratic Party
by matt at 6:00 am on December 20th, 2006 in '06/'08 Campaigns
There’s a really funny series of scenes in the 1994 movie Reality Bites where Winona Ryder’s character Lelaina sabotages her TV host boss by writing off-color lines on his cue cards, including one that prompts him to blurt out: “Personally, I’ve always had an odd preference…for very, very young girls.” Lelaina, of course gets fired and goes through a comical series of interviews that ends at a newspaper. The editor interviewing her asks her to define irony, a task Lelaina – and circa-1994 me – just wasn’t up to. When she returns home, dejected and worse-for-the-wear, the final insult is delivered by Ethan Hawke’s couch-surfing Troy who smugly defines irony as “when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning.” Ten years later, members of the Democratic party gathered in Boston for their quadrennial convention. By then, I knew how to define irony, but what I didn’t know was how ironic that convention would prove to be.
Prime time speaking opportunities at national political conventions are short on supply and long on demand. As up-and-comers vie with party stalwarts for the shrinking number of televised slots, a tenuous balance is often struck between proven leaders with long lists of accomplishments and those light on experience who are seen as the future. In Boston, this dynamic was most visible in the two men who gave that convention’s defining speeches. Bill Clinton played the role of elder statesman, while Barack Obama was anointed the rising star and given the prestigious keynote address.
As they arrived in Boston, Democrats were kind of shell-shocked. John Kerry’s early strategy of “just don’t make any mistakes” came crumbling down via his “I voted for the $80 billion before I voted against it” nonsense as well as an unchecked attack by the Swift Boat Liars. Defeating a President running for reelection is never easy, but with Iraq smoldering and a jobless economic “recovery,” what seemed like a better-than-average chance to send George W. Bush into retirement looked as if it was slipping away. But something happened during the convention: unbound by the straitjacket Kerry had fitted for himself, the Democrats selected to speak at the convention one by one made stark cases in favor of the party itself and the urgent need for change.
Howard Dean, (Never again will we be ashamed to call ourselves Democrats — never, never, never) Wes Clark, (My fellow Americans, Democrats are leaders and Democrats are fighters) Al Sharpton (We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats…the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn’t gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of good men, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us.) and Bill Clinton (the whole damn speech) and others, passionately made their respective cases in favor of Kerry, against Bush, but more importantly in support of the Democratic party. They were Democrats, addressing Democrats, promoting Democratic ideals, and saying, in the words of Clinton himself, “Our way works better.”
When Barack Obama took the podium to give the keynote address, the vast majority of Americans had never even heard his name. He was a relatively obscure Illinois state senator who had been given the gift of a lifetime when, after winning a crowed Democratic primary with the support of progressive organizations after the favorite dropped out due to sex scandal, he saw his formidable Republican opponent Jack Ryan drop out of the race amid disclosures related to sex clubs and his former wife. Obama, in contrast to almost all of the other speakers, (including the nominees Kerry and John Edwards themselves) used his time under the bright lights to talk about…Obama. It wasn’t as if he was in a tight race after Ryan gave way to Republican crackpot Alan Keyes, but it was clear that this speech was the first step in Obama’s inevitable run for the White House. Of course there’s nothing wrong with politicians aspiring to higher office, but then again, Obama’s audience shouldn’t have had to wade through half of his speech before they heard him say the name of the Presidential nominee, and the whole speech without his take on why being a Democrat is important to him.
I had a nagging suspicion at the time that this wasn’t just some high-road introduction, but rather a signal of things to come. I suppressed that feeling because Obama can give one hell of a speech, even when he’s saying nothing, or worse, the wrong things. His keynote speech, like the book that followed it, was entitled “The Audacity of Hope.” And its theme (after the lengthy and entirely selfish part about his background) was a somewhat sappy, but convincing at the time, ode to faith, kindness and crossing party lines.
At a party convention. In the middle of one of the closest elections in history.
No one realized at the time just how much of a problem this would become. And thus, the irony. During a week when Bill Clinton reminded Democrats that “Our way works better,” Obama was just starting a bizarre campaign to unite everyone behind…himself. And like Winona, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. That is until Obama joined the Senate and decided to embrace bipartisanship over the ideals of those groups and voters who sent him to Washington, and that, contrary to the old adage, hope is a plan.
Usually when it comes time to evaluate the performance of elected officials, I head over to Vote View and just let the numbers speak for themselves. Obama is about average when it comes to voting with other Democrats, probably the most accurate way to quantify party loyalty/ideology. And if you get past his votes to confirm Condoleezza Rice and John Negroponte and a few others including supporting Bush’s class action/tort “reform” bill, he measures up pretty well. But a closer look at his public statements and his general outlook shows that he is much more willing to criticize his own party and hamper its progress than many Democrats (some of whom come from deep red states) who rank below him in vote loyalty. So while he is putting together a decent voting record, he’s all too willing to triangulate against his own party, often setting up absurd straw-man arguments in the process.
It shouldn’t be unfolding like this. Obama is a freshman Senator who has yet to complete his second year in the Senate. Since he first took office, he has on several occasions, categorically ruled out a run for the White House, and promised to serve out the term to which he was elected. Yet the reason that he continues to backhand his own party is that running for President is more important to him than serving those who fought to get him elected. So the same man who made himself known to voters just days after Clinton made one of the best cases for being a Democrat, has turned around and decided that Obama’s Way Works Better.
Now I’m not one of the voices who claims that a man of 45 with two years of US Senate experience is too green for the White House. But I am one of the few who knows that Obama’s Way may just give him a shot at the Presidency, but will certainly endanger the thin Democratic majorities in the Congress. What is Obama’s Way? Judging from his public rhetoric, it is made up of equal parts of hope, faith, prayer, reflexive bipartisanship, and triangulation. Need it be said that you can’t hope a bill through congress, you can’t wish a program to success, and you can’t effectively govern the world’s most powerful nation and its 300 million citizens on faith? It isn’t against the rules to talk about faith and hope and even religion, no matter how much some of us would like that to be the case. But Obama is really pushing the envelope by going past discussing his own views on faith every time a reporter is present to bashing other Democrats for not doing the same. And in the bargain, he ends up perpetuating the myth that all Democrats are secular and hostile to religion. Not only is he unfairly smearing members of his own party – never named, of course – his courting of religious voters is horrible strategy. The same white, evangelical, suburban and rural voters who respond to the dog whistle of religion-in-politics are the absolute least likely demographic to vote for a Democrat. And let’s not play games here: the majority of this type of voter is largely southern, a region not exactly in the vanguard of racial tolerance.
But it’s Obama’s brand of triangulation, partly on display in the religion example, that is most disturbing. Of course Bill Clinton brought the word to the political parlance, but Obama’s version is like a Xerox copy made on a machine with dirty glass and half of its scanning bulb out of commission. Clinton looked at ascendant conservatism and did everything possible to staunch its gains. Did he err on the side of giving away too much on occasion? Of course, not too many Democrats are very happy with the proliferation of one-sided “free” trade agreements or welfare “reform” set in motion during the Clinton years. But Obama stepped up his triangulation even after Democrats made historic gains in November’s elections. It’s funny, but I never really understood what Bush meant when he said that he wouldn’t “negotiate with himself,” but it turns out to be one of the precious few things he got right. Obama is out there trying to define himself (and drag the Democratic party along) by starting with the assumption that traditional Democratic ideals are unacceptable, and the only way to get to the (political?) promised land is by setting up false straw men representing anonymous Democrats who stand for something supposedly abhorrent, bashing them, and then proposing a policy that somehow splits the difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Thus the Democratic position is shifted to the right even before any real negotiations have occurred. Bad for Democrats who believe in their principles, good for Obama who gets to play knight in shining armor, unfortunately “leading” by the “kick down” method. On issues like religion and national security, the story is the same:
Sen. Barack Obama chastised fellow Democrats on Wednesday for failing to “acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people,” and said the party must compete for the support of evangelicals and other churchgoing Americans.
and
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., warned Democratic activists Sunday that the party must take a tougher stance on national security if it wants to succeed in the November elections.
“What Democrats have to do is to close the deal. We have got to show we have a serious agenda for change.”
If you want Democrats to do something, don’t talk about it, do it. If your ideas and leadership attract a following, presto! If they don’t, see you later. Obama cheats the game by failing to lead, instead appearing bipartisan due to his tendency to castigate his own. It’s a dynamic I covered after Harold Ford lost his Senate race in Tennessee. Some candidates want all of the benefits of political parties (ballot access, fundraising, databases, volunteers, echos of past heros) while keeping as much distance from their party’s rank and file as possible. It’s fundamentally lazy in that if they valued independence so highly, logic dictates that they’d be better off as independents. That Ford did it in deep red Tennessee is one thing; Obama needs to remember that he represents deep blue Illinois, and hopes to carry the torch for the whole party.
Two years out from the next Presidential election there is plenty of time for Obama to wake up and actually earn the Democratic nomination. This post is even premature because Obama hasn’t officially declared his intention to run. But the wall-to-wall press coverage is prompting extra email from family, friends and readers who are unanimously shocked when I tell them that I don’t want Obama to run, win the nomination or become President. In some cases, shock doesn’t even cover it.
My take on 2008 is that it’s pretty damn easy, too easy actually, to choose who I’ll support for the Democratic nomination. While Obama engages in serial fratricide, Hillary focuses on protecting kids from video games, PMRC-style, and other Dems with no compelling reason to run fluff themselves with dreams of the media attention that accompanies a White House run, only one Democrat is acting like a Democrat. John Edwards has spent the last two years talking to and about the poor and middle classes. He’s organized with labor unions, and voiced consistent opposition to Bush administration policies. And he’s planning to announce next week, from New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, another issue on which he has been vocal.
Things could change, of course. Al Gore and Wes Clark could surprise me and run. Both have been as good as Edwards over the last two years, especially when it was time to campaign for candidates in the mid-term elections. But unfortunately I don’t see either of them running. Edwards, Gore and Clark are proud Democrats, and I will be proud to vote for any one of them. I’ll be damned if I’ll vote for someone who thinks that demonizing people like me is the way forward.
matt tobey wrote:
Look what all that bipartisanship and anti-democratic rhetoric got Obama: http://www.investors.com/images/editimg/ramirez/toon121906.gif
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 10:54 am ¶
Nick in Beantown wrote:
Tobey – Great find! Sums it up perfectly.
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 5:30 pm ¶
Hera wrote:
Great post. I’ve been hesitant to jump on the Obama Love Boat, partly because one needs more than a pretty face and a smooth style to be President. But his reaching out to religious conservatives does make sense on one tactical level. Democrats don’t need to convert all 50 million Evangelicals to win the White House, when two or three percent will do. That small slice of conservative Americans is enough to make a difference in swing states like Ohio, New Mexico, and even my home state of Wisconsin, which barely turned blue in the last two elections. But Obama is going about it the wrong way, taking a rhetorical sledgehammer to the dialectic of faith.
Posted 01 Jan 2007 at 5:38 pm ¶
matt wrote:
no doubt. but it’s how that matters to me. the way obama is doing it is corrosive. catering to those who think the bible should supplant the Constitution is bad for democrats, and the country. and no matter how skillfully obama thinks he can do this, it is just as likely to cause a loss in votes elsewhere than a net gain. it just reeks of what it is, pandering.
Posted 01 Jan 2007 at 5:46 pm ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
This is why Kerry lost an election that was “one of the closest elections in history.” He simply didn’t have the balls to counterattack Bush, let alone defend himself. Why didn’t he go on the offensive? Why is it that that everytime I turned on the news I saw pro-Bush adds and very few if any Pro Kerry ads? Kerry failed to adequately defend his military service in Vietnam and he did practically nothing to attack a president who wasted no opportunity in making him look like a wimp.
If Obama is elected president he will be in a position to do more to serve those who got him elected as well as the rest of the country.
Plus, your whole idea of Obama “backhanding his party fails when you look at how he campaigned across the country on behalf of several democratic house and senate hopefulls. Obama spent a great deal of the fall travelling around the country to rally the Democratic base. These actions alone demonstrate that he is doing more than enough to pull his weight for the Democratic party.
Criticism is sorely needed by the Democrats right now and I’m glad that someone from within the party is taking a stand to deliver it to them. You may have an issue with Obama appeaking to relgious conservatives, but the bottom line is its needs to be done. Politics is a business and you need to think with your head and not your gut when making decisions. Obama is spot on when he takes Democrats to task for not competing with Republicans for the evangelical vote. The Republicans won in 2004 due to their support from evangelicals and its time that someone within the Democratic Party demonstrates intelligence and vision necessary to erode GOP strength within that demographic.
Let’s look at it this way…the Democratic Party does not have a base. Everytime Democrats elect someone they have to ask “Will Centrist voters like him/her?” “Is he/she electable?” When was the last time you heard a GOP supporter ask such questions? Obama need to push the Democrats closer to the center. The risk of not doing so is nominating another John Kerry.
Critics of Obama can never seem to make up their minds. You say Obama is not liberal enough. Others say that his 92% liberal voting record (Hillary’s is 89.5%) make him a died in the wool super liberal. Could you guys please make up your minds? You yourself said that his voting patterns are those of the AVERAGE democratic senator. In the paragraph quoted above you say that he keeps his distance from the rank and file democratic senators. Hmm…Sounds like someone is negotiatating with himself…
Well, you know what they say…If everyone disagrees with you, you must be doing something right.
Funny how everyone becomes a marxist whenever…anyways. Edwards talks to the poor and all of a sudden that makes him a great guy. Make no mistakes about it, Obama is much more deserving of the Presidency than Edwards. Obama has more years of elected office under his belt and, unlike Edwards, actually makes the effort to attend Senate roel call votes. Finally, let’s not forget that in Obama’s short time in office, he has already consponsored Bills calling for more money to fund the Pell Grant college loan program, has cosponsored a bill with Senator Lugar to ban trafficking in shoulder-mounted missile launchers and introduced(wrote) a bill in the Senate that makes it possible for votes to monitor government spending.
What has Edwards done?
Yep. Meanwhile, she votes for bills that send bombs hurtling from the sky downward toward innocent Iraqi kids.
Posted 02 Jan 2007 at 8:58 am ¶
matt wrote:
the same could be said of anyone. my point is that as he “does whatever it takes” to win, he is hurting his party to prop himself up. he could win, but with a weaker party, and then how does he get anything done exactly?
quite simply, you’re wrong. he did campaign, but so did clark, edwards, kerry, sharpton etc. no one is doubting the star power of obama, of course candidates who needed help with minority voters (jim webb foremost) would want obama to come campaign. but let’s not make this bigger than it is. what does he get in return? local email lists that he can raise money from. added exposure across the country. a favor in the bank when his presidential run happens. please let’s not turn this into some great selfless act of sacrifice when it’s plainly not that.
i would never dispute that. but there is a way to do this that helps the party and a way that hurts.
as i wrote, if he thinks that this is the key, then he should by all means pander to them at will. if you can’t see the difference between that and saying “democrats need to…” then i’m not sure what to say.
but if you can demonstrate to me how democrats attract evangelicals without caving in on core issues, i’m all ears. wouldn’t it be better to point out how republicans are only paying lip service to their evangelical captives and try to depress their turnout/participation/fundraising?
Bob Dole. Not that long ago.
What does that mean, closer to the center? averaging our positions with the positions of the lunatics on the right? this isn’t the answer, and it has nothing to do with john kerry. didn’t you just assert that kerry lost because he was a pussy and not because of any policy positions?
It’s not about his voting record which isn’t all that bad with a few very notable exceptions. Did you actually read what I wrote? It’s his rhetoric that is damaging, and you haven’t made any case whatsoever against that.
or just a giant douche.
i’m sure this is a completely objective conclusion borne out by lots of facts.
Posted 02 Jan 2007 at 9:25 am ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
I think you got alot of good points going on in your post. I re-read my post and I think I came off as a little rude. I apologize for that.
However, there are still some points of divergence in our views on Obama.
In your post you seemed to imply that Obama’s oversight of John Kerry’s name until halfway through the speech was somehow indicative of selfishness. However, if you reconcile that with what you said first, it becomes obvious exactly why Obama was not obliged to mention John Kerry’s name earlier. Why is a keynote address so coveted? It’s coveted because it gives the speaker an opportunity to promote himself and his views. People expect a keynote speaker to promote him/herself in addition to the Presidential candidate. There is no reason for Obama not to have used the opportunity to promote himself when so many other politicians have done so.
If you believe that John Kerry should have been mentioned earlier, or that somehow Obama was out of line, then perhaps you need to provide more proof. When have other previous keynote speakers mentioned the cancdidates name?
The truth hurts. Hurting his party indeed. No pain, no gain. But all jokes aside, I have to say statements like yours show what’s wrong with the Democatic Party. you say “whatever it takes to win” as if its a bad thing. The Republicans do whatever it takes to win and guess what…they win! The Democrats bumble around, tear each other down to see who can spew the most rhetoric and….lose. Then, ironically, they find themselves rallying behind Republican agendas ANYWAY…and end up saying things like, “I voted for the war before I voted against it” and “If I knew how Iraq would have turned out I would not have voted to send troops to Iraq.”
My point is that there is nothing so immoral as losing.
But looking over your statements, the only proof you offer for Obama doing anything to win, is a hasty perusal of some of his statements. Okay, so he criticizes the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party could stand a good kick in the pants. Let me guess, he should “know his place” and hem haw and beg the Democratic Party to reform.
Not wrong at all. Your claim was that Obama was failing to support his party. To counter your assertion, I brought up the fact that Obama campaigns for his fellow Democrats. Doesn’t look like a “backhand” to me.
Second, I never said he did it out of altruism, I said that he helped his party. What’s worth doing is worth getting compensation for. The fact that he got voter lists does not detract at all from his efforts to put muscle behind the Democrats.
Such as? Obama is telling the truth. The truth hurts, but it also heals.
Your rhetoric is nice, but you’re not really saying much here. You have given zero evidence of pandering except for this quote:
How exactly does this quote constitute “pandering” to evangelicals?
But whether he is pandering or not is not the important issue. The question is if Obama is right. Is the democratic party losing the evangelical vote? If the answer is yes, then clearly something needs to be done about it.
You pretty much just answered your own question. lip service. Democrats pay lip service to evangelicals, they get evangelical votes without caving in on core issues. Presto.
Plus all they want is lip-service. As long as Democrats say they are against gay-marriage, can explain their positions on Pro-Choice with enough angst and reflection and can look for common ground issues with Evangelicals–say the fight against AIDS–then the Dems can gain some Evangelical votes.
Ha ha. I was twelve at the time he was running. I’ll just have to take your word for it.
The attitude reflected in your quote reflects the deepseated divisions Obama remarked on in his speech. You’re one of the people he was talking about who are interested in slicing and dicing the U.S. into red and blue. Yep. Everyone is so certain that they are right. Conservatives think they are holier than everyone else. Liberals think they are smarter than everyone else. Meanwhile, Democrats lose and Republicans win. So you tell me who needs to change?
What do I mean by moving closer to the center? Moving closer to the center means acknowledging that the other side has a rational basis to their decisions. Moving closer to the center means avoiding the oh so casual labelling of the other side as inferior. Moving closer to the center means finding common ground to move forward while agreeing to disagree instead of letting one or two issues become excuses for incessant partisan feuding.
Obama is the man who is moving the Dems to the center.
Of course I made a case. My point is that Obama’s rheotoric tells the truth and opens eyes. Hopefully other Dems will take heed of his words.
Wow…how mature.
Pretty much. The case for Obama is obvious.
Posted 03 Jan 2007 at 10:02 am ¶
tom wrote:
“My point is that there is nothing so immoral as losing.”
so anything is justifiable as a means to winning? youre just spouting nonsense. trying to win general elections by dealing with people whose views are completely opposite to yours on all fronts is a failure waiting to happen. why should the evangelicals give the left any votes when the right already does everything they want? it just doesnt make sense.
and you act like winning elections is all its about. its not. actually doing something does count, and thats why the republicans lost their majorities and barring a mistake in nomination
(hillary, obama) theyll win the presidency. you can talk the talk all you want, but when it comes time to walk the walk and your shoes are on the wrong feet, all that talk isnt going to help you one iota.
its not surprising you were 12 when bob dole was running, your understanding of politics is questionable at best.
“Is the democratic party losing the evangelical vote? If the answer is yes, then clearly something needs to be done about it.”
yeah, what needs to be done about it is any number of things that arent trying to pander for their votes.
Posted 03 Jan 2007 at 10:25 am ¶
tom wrote:
obviously, i meant to type that the republicans will LOSE the presidency. argh.
Posted 03 Jan 2007 at 10:26 am ¶
matt wrote:
no need. rude isn’t a sin here.
no reason other than short attention spans and the critical times.
it depends on what kind of winning we’re talking about. winning the presidency by hurting downticket races and the party’s brand isn’t winning as far as i am concerned. you can’t govern without support of the party. what on earth would bush’s presidency have looked like without the loyalty (fealty) shown him by the congressional republicans?
and obama’s favored tactic of talking about what democrats need to do instead of just doing it changes this dynamic how?
i don’t know what this means.
of course the party isn’t perfect. and of anyone, i’ll be the last person to tell someone to “know his place.” hierarchy is a joke, and big institutions could use a big dose of open source input. what i expect of obama is that if he considers himself a leader and is running, then lead. don’t talk about leading, just lead.
you’re choosing a very small action that happens to be required for those with aspirations to higher office and using it to give him a gold star on his forehead. it doesn’t work like that.
it’s much more an example of how he feeds republican talking points about democrats. pandering to evangelicals is his bill exempting tithing from bankruptcy repayments. of all the amendments he could have attached to the corrosive bankruptcy bill, this is what he chose. completely unacceptable.
why can’t people understand what it means to be evangelical? what part of the democratic platform are you willing to throw overboard? religion in shchools? abortion? gay rights? these aren’t people who you can “throw a bone” to and they (even in small numbers) start voting Democratic. it just doesn’t work like that, even in elections decided by a few percent.
chief, you don’t know me. i decided not to be rude and tell you what you could do with yourself, but instead i’ll point you here for exactly how divisive i am.
have i been relying on the librul media too much for 2006 election results?
in 1976 maybe. but that shit is over. i’m going to assume that you haven’t been reading this site for long. otherwise you would be aware that compromise ceases to exist. as i said above, you can’t get an evangelical to say “well, he agrees with me on 90% of the issues, so i’ll give him a chance.” past that, when liberals want something, it generally is a right to do something, not a ban on someone else doing something. of course there are a few exceptions, but the point stands. no one is making a Christian get an abortion. the compromise is the freedom to control a woman’s own body. same for gay rights, same for many other things. again, what are you willing to give up? this isn’t rhetorical.
no.
who was it again who thought they knew everything?
Posted 03 Jan 2007 at 10:59 am ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
Hi, Matt:
it depends on what kind of winning we’re talking about. winning the presidency by hurting downticket races and the party’s brand isn’t winning as far as i am concerned
More empty rhetoric. I guess you believe if you repeat this line enough times it might…maybe…actually come true. Obama walks the walk and talks the talk. One of the first Bills he introduced in the Senate was an ethics reform bill. Second, as far as religious votes are concerned, he’s made it eminently clear that he is a Christian and that he will appeal to Christian votes. (I believe you labelled such actions “pandering”
I have no choice but to conclude that you are completely confused. On the one hand you complain that Obama tries to rally people behind him too much. Then you accuse him of not trying to lead. You then move on to criticize him for reaching out to Evangelicals–implying that he is uinique for doing so, then accuse him of not trying to lead.
The bottom line I get from your posts is this: If Obama leads, then he is acting selfishly. If holds back, he is just an “empty suit.” Heh heh, say hello to the logic of…ahem. Anyways.
You constantly point out that his campaigning on behalf of his party was not altruistic, yet altruism was never a part of my argument. Again, my point is that he helped to build up his party. For example, if a construction worker builds a house and then gets paid for it, a person would still say the construction worker built the house. This is my point.
Ha. Right. Most Americans are Christians and this bill encourages tithing. Such an amendment helps win voters over to the Democrats side. The basic idea is this: Obama must chip away at the Republican base. The dems cannot afford to just sit back and let the Republicans sit pretty. We have to bring the fight to them and Obama is leading the charge.
This is probably the most self-contradictory of your claims. You claimed that REPUBLICANS were just paying lip service to Evangelicals, while not actually giving them anything. Now you’re saying that Evangelicals are not the type of people you can “just throw a bone to.” Wasn’t your argument of GOP double-talk founded on the premise that Republicans are just throwing bones to Evangelicals?
But self-contradictory arguments aside, your beliefs about Christian conservatives do lend credence to my assertion that you have an us-them outlook. “These people” as you call Christian Conservatives(Evangelicals) have not been a target for the Democrats for a long time. Who is to say how many Evangelicals can come to our side once the Democrats start listening to their concerns. We can win some of em. Obama knows this. Drop the “they all think alike” mentality and let’s get ready to attack some GOP strongholds.
have i been relying on the librul media too much for 2006 election results?
In your mind perhaps but not in the real world. Both parties are still angling for that most interesting of political creatures called the “moderate voter.”
And this attitude has won how many elections for the Democrats? Let’s not forget that Bill Clinton himself was on the conservative Democratic Leadership Committee. He pushed free trade and welfare reform while also appealing to liberal issues. Again, if the Evangelical vote brought Bush the Presidency, why is it wrong to bring over that vote to the Democrats?
In chess, as in politics, there is no area so important as the center.
You’re actually helping my point. This is why I said that all Democrats need to do is pay-lip service to Evangelical concerns.
Before November, Republicans had control over all three branches of government. Did women lose abortion rights? All the Republicans had to do was talk tough to win the Evangelical vote. They didn’t do anything. Liberals can cop the same attitude, agonize over abortion, maybe even appear contemplative about it. It won’t matter, because abortion “rights” are pretty firmly entrenched.
Neither party votes for gay-rights. But for some reason, it is easy to get people to believe that Democrats do. This is a problem. By appearing to have more Christian considerations, the Democrats can help to banish this myth. Appearing more Christian also helps us to look “more tough” in the fight against islamofascism.
Dude, look over the biographies of the two men. Obama is far and away the better candidate. Heck, Obama’s attendence record at Senate roll-call votes already looks to be eclipsing Edwards’
Posted 05 Jan 2007 at 5:37 am ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
Tom:
No. “Anything is justifiable” is a loser’s mentality. Which goes directly against what I said.
Nope. It’s called living in the real world, Tom. The world isn’t made up of people who will always agree with you. We have to learn to play well with others.
But your quote reflects a larger immaturity. Tom, no one exists on this earth with whom you cannot find common ground. Yes, some people may disagree with you on gun-control, prayer in schools, and gay-marriage, but that doesn’t mean they won’t disagree with you on ethics reform, the need to make the economy more competitive with the Asian Tigers, and stemming pandemics in Africa. The genius of Obama is that he takes issues that both conservatives and liberals can agree on, and uses those issues to bring more ideas and opinions to the table.
If you want to bring an NRA into your party, you don’t necessarilly have to agree with him on gun control, sometimes working to ensure that man’s job isn’t exported to China or India is enough. This kind of reasoning is what I call, appealing to the center and finding common ground. This is what Senator Obama is doing. This is where Senator Obama leads the field.
Flattery will get you nowhere, Tom.
You can’t do much if you’re losing. When you win elections you get things done.
Okay. Sure.
Posted 05 Jan 2007 at 5:57 am ¶
matt wrote:
surely you can see the irony contained in this statement.
you’re ascribing positions of others to me. i never said anything about “rallying.” your statement about evangelicals is simply nonsense, and happens to prove my point. how is what he is doing on evangelicals “leading?” he’s not saying what part of the democratic platform he would give up for their votes and what he would do to replace the votes he’d lose from people who don’t like what he’d just given up. that the very definition of empty rhetoric.
i suggest trying to quell your hard on for obama, it’s hell on your reading comprehension.
bait and switch. you made your comment in the context of trying to differentiate obama from his fellow candidates.
obviously you’re not a democrat. nothing wrong with that, i’m not officially one either, but you’re the one trying to throw large chunks of the platform overboard. tithing while in bankruptcy? are you serious? that’s not even defensible on policy or moral grounds. chipping away at the republican base like this is going to lose democrats.
no, it isn’t. aside from abortion and gay bashing, republicans don’t actually give the right anything except broken promises. but so what? democrats surely can’t give them those things, but they can sure point out the raw deal they get elsewhere. if your point is that we only need a few evangelicals to swing an election, then wouldn’t it be better to try to depress turnout in that segment while keeping the platform intact than trashing it to appeal to that same number?
you’re betraying a shocking level of ignorance here. please demonstrate which evangelicals, born-again true-believers, who vote for a democrat who didn’t throw abortion and gay rights etc under a bus? or aren’t those issues worth saving in your opinion?
how about we become the party of tax cuts and trashing the environment and go after big business? how about we become the party of mandatory minimums and go after the law-and-order vote?
what you are proposing is the same dam thing. debase the party to win, and then govern, well, how exactly?
i suggest reading a bit more. the voters in play aren’t all moderate. they don’t have political views in common. they are simply indecisive and subject to being sold.
yeah, we heard you chief. it’s not getting any more right. it just doesn’t work like that. and how exactly did clinton’s free trade and welfare reform help anything other than getting him elected? republican house, republican senate, republican state houses and governorships…lovely governing environment. if you want republican ideas.
fortune cookie?
what percentage of the evangelical vote do you think this will net? again, don’t duck this like you did my other direct questions.
um, yes. “partial birth abortion” bill signed into law by the president. global gag rule. states trying to pre-empt roe. how many more examples do you need?
tell that to women in the 87% of US counties that have no abortion services. tell that to south dakotans who for much of 2006 lived in a state where abortion in any form was 100% illegal. please, read or something.
and there we go. no wonder you want obama.
so you decided who you’re going to troll for and against by reading biographies and checking voting attendance?
Posted 05 Jan 2007 at 6:53 am ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
Calm down, Matt.
Let’s begin.
No irony at all. You keep on using the word “pandering” in an attempt to portray Obama as weak. I mean. You’re stretching the definition of the word here to fit your own ends, but I’m not interested in correcting you. I don’t have time for a pointless semantics war.
Fair enough. But you did say, “unite.” You said that Obama was starting a campaign to “unite everyone around himself.” Leaders have to gather the troops, Matt. You know that.
See, Matt. This is why I say you’re confused. Are you saying that you want Obama to give up part of the Democratic platform to win Evangelical votes? But weren’t you complaining that he’s wounding the Democratic party as it is? I can only conclude that there is a dark purpose for your dislike of Obama.
A very dark purpose indeed.
This is the nexus of your confusion:
If you believe that Obama is just talking about Evangelical values, but doesn’t plan to do anything, then you shouldn’t really criticize him. When he becomes President, he won’t follow through. He will have, in effect, played the Republican evangelical shell game to liberal advantage.
If you believe that Obama actually plans to “give up the platform” then you weaken the point of your argument where you say that Obama does not lead. Of course, you can claim that giving up the platform is not leading but is instead pandering, but you know as well as I that this is just rhetoric. If Obama becomes a leading candidate and implements policies which shift the Dems to the right, he will have led the Democrats to that point.
I’ll ignore comments like these for the duration of this discussion. If you want to behave in a juvenile fashion, by all means continue doing so.
Nope. I made my comments in the context of rebutting your assertion that Obama is not helping his party.
As for gay-bashing, Democrats and Republicans are not that far off. Neither party strongly supports gay-marriage. As for abortion, you would do well to remember your history, the Partial Birth Abortion Act passed the house with 281-142 votes in the house. It passed the Senate 64-34. Some of those votes were from Democrats, Matt.
Also, you have contradicted yourself again. You claimed earlier that its not enough for a candidate to agree with Evangelicals even 90% to get their vote. Now you’re claiming that Republicans only do two things for Evangelicals in order to get their vote. I don’t want to sound mean, but maybe you’re being too greedy. Bashing Evangelicals and Obama is just fine, but you can’t ascribe every vice to them simultaneously. Pick your insults more judiciously.
Nope. What I’m proposing is that Democrats reach out to the right on common ground issues. Such as jobs, national defense, education and ethics reform. Stick to your guns without screaming about how you are sticking to your guns, and let your actions satisfy your base.
This is what Obama is doing. Obama took a stand on one of his signature issues, AIDS prevention and awareness, and went to Saddleback Church to speak. Obama’s position on abortion does not mesh with theirs, but their positions do mesh on the moral and health issues posed by the growing AIDS pandemic. Whether Obama got votes from going there is a question I leave for a later date, but he at least signalled to moderates that the other side will listen to him.
This has less to do with the Republican majority than it has to do with the fact that states have, since ROE, had leeway to craft their own responses to abortion. The fact remains that a woman in the United States can still legally have an abortion, at any trimester, if she so chooses.
This is perhaps the easiest argument of yours to rebut. Matt, 87% of US counties do not even have abortion clinics or doctors. For your argument to rebut mine, you would have to show evidence demonstrating a clear trend in the decline of counties having abortion services since ROE.
But now abortion is legal in South Dakota, Matt. The resolution which overturned the South Dakota law banning abortion passed in a national referendum. But the law banning abortion in that state was passed on November 3rd.
But you’re stepping away from the issue, here Matt. Obama is not an anti-abortion candidate. My only point in bringing the issue of abortion up was to show that Republicans don’t have to do much to win Evangelical votes. Even on a signature issue like abortion, the Republicans have not yet been able to completely turn back the clock. I think the Democrats can win Evangelical votes by acknowledging the importance religion plays in their governing decisions.
Care to explain what you mean here?
Not everyone who disagrees with you is a Troll, Matt. Not all Republicans are evil. Some terrorists actually do want to kill us because they’re jealous and Russ Feingold is a not a saint.
Obama is better than Edwards in almost every way, Matt. You haven’t bothered to refute my point on this issue because deep in your heart, you agree with me.
However, I do invite you to defend your choice of Edwards.
Posted 06 Jan 2007 at 12:19 am ¶
matt wrote:
if you think for one second that something like this would end up working out, then you’re a rube.
this isn’t even an argument worth having anymore. you don’t understand the basic meaning of words, are suggesting that democrats would be better of faking it in some kind of bait and switch as if winning one presidential election is the end-all-be all (what happens when the well is poisoned for every future democratic candidate?) and have some bizarre fixation on repeating my name in every paragraph (which won’t continue, whateveryourrealnameis).
acknowledging…understanding…respecting evangelicals. none of these are transitive verbs. you’re not offering them anything. you can’t play dog whistle politics with the other side’s voters. what you’re talking about is insane, and past that, not based in fact or any polling that has ever been done. I’ll ask another direct question that you’ll duck because it doesn’t help your case and you haven’t answered any of my other direct questions here (another big no-no): what would happen to a republican who ran on telling democrats that he acknowledged their desire for safe access to abortions and understood their opposition to tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%?
don’t have an answer? don’t bother posting here again.
Posted 06 Jan 2007 at 12:49 am ¶
Mike wrote:
Leadership IS what Obama is doing here. He is telling the party what he believes to be true: that without some changes to our attitude, the democrats cannot win in 08. Face it, uneducated hayseeds vote at a higher rate than eggheaded research analysts.
Not WANTING the uneducated hayseed (“values”) vote, because we see ourselves as ‘above it’, is the big problem here. The ‘pubs don’t have to run the shrub again, which means the democrats will face an infinitely stronger candidate in 08. Obama recognizes this and is doing what he can to expand the party lines to include enough people that we can actually take back the white house…
Posted 14 Jan 2007 at 8:06 am ¶
matt wrote:
seems like dems have more than a few hayseeds themselves. willing to follow the empty cipher pied piper right off the cliff.
Posted 14 Jan 2007 at 8:10 am ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
Hey, Matt:
Sorry, I’ve been away so long. I’ve been busy.
So you’ve conceded. Good.
Uhmmm, sure. Yep, that’s it. If I were as smart you, I’d see things your way.
Hmmm, well, Matt it looks to me as if you are the one who doesn’y know the basic meaning of words. acknowledging is a transitive verb. understanding is a transitive verb and respecting is also a transitive verb.
Matt, get some rest; you look tired.
Posted 16 Jan 2007 at 4:54 pm ¶
matt wrote:
tran·si·tive (trăn’sÄ-tÄv, -zÄ-)
adj.
(Abbr. trans. or tr. or t.) Grammar. Expressing an action carried from the subject to the object; requiring a direct object to complete meaning. Used of a verb or verb construction.
WTF kind of action does acknowledging take? understanding? respecting? it’s all just words to make people think something’s going on when it isn’t.
i love a debate, but seriously, you want obama to try to trick people who would never vote dem anyway into voting for him because he “acknowledges” them. jesus christ. and by the way, you never bothered to answer what happens if you’re right, and the lunatics carry the great hopeful one to victory and he is caught not delivering. what happens then? or do you concede?
Posted 16 Jan 2007 at 6:13 pm ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
Matt:
You’re ignoring the bottomline factor here. Here is the deal. The Republicans have done an excellent job of capturing the centrist vote and rallying their base. Obviously, the Democrats cannot rally the Republican base, but the Democrats can certainly do a better job of capturing the centrist vote. How so? Simple enough. Democrats need to do a better job of appealing to America’s core values, of which faith is one.
Part of what makes Obama such an excellent candidate is that he explains in detail the role faith has had in his life and his political decisions. He emphasizes the need for the Democratic Party to combat the perception that it is a party that fails to consider faith. Obama challenges his party and this is what makes him a great leader.
How do you feel about a person who practices what he preaches? I for one want a President whose personal and political life have been aimed at reaching a goal. I want a leader who PROVED that he has a passion for something. Barack Obama is such a man. Obama has made gaining civil rights and equal rights for all Americans his life’swork. Unlike Edwards, Obama put aside the big bucks he could have made after graduating Magna Cum Laude from HLS, and instead chose to work in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. He worked in voter registration drives and also provided free and low cost legal representation to the poor. As a state senator, Obama also crafted a bill that videotaped interrogations–a bill which helped prevent corrupt cops from forcing crime suspects into coerced confessions. Obama has also been at the forefront of protecting abortion legislation.
Bottomline: Obama puts his money and time where his mouth is.
Let’s look at Edwards:
Edwards talks to the poor.(How sweet of him)
As for acknowledging, understanding and respecting I suggest you look at dictionary.com. You’ll see that all of these verbs can be both transitive and intransitive. (If the words has “trans” written by it, it is transitive)
And let’s not get away from the issue here. You say Obama is a bad candidate. I say he is a good one and I’ve provided backing for argument. All you’ve said about Edwards is that he “talks to the poor.” Bah.
Obama is the most qualified candidate.
Posted 17 Jan 2007 at 2:50 am ¶
matt wrote:
you have ignored several simple direct questions. your understanding of how politics works in the real world is pathetic. i’m sure there are blogs for people with unjustified hard-ons for obama. until you’re ready to do this for real, go find one.
Posted 17 Jan 2007 at 7:01 am ¶
StanleyCrouch wrote:
Hail to the ad hominem!
Posted 17 Jan 2007 at 9:49 am ¶
matt wrote:
what else is there? you can’t (or won’t) even defend your own positions. you can’t (or won’t) answer simple questions that get to the heart of the matter. again, what else can i say?
this comment section isn’t a place for people to come and pimp their fantasy candidates, it’s for discussion of what is written in the posts. that you are unable (or unwilling) to do anything other than spout resume items and lunacy about pulling a bait and switch on a segment of the voting public is telling.
Posted 17 Jan 2007 at 9:54 am ¶
Ralph wrote:
Great post! There is an arrogance in Obama that rubbed me the wrong way and you’ve articulated quite well what the nature of this arrogance was. He plays dirty but will castigate others for their dirt. He is a hypocrite through and through and I’m glad he’s not going to win. Plus, he cheats.
Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 5:27 pm ¶
Jaloney wrote:
HOKEY PETE! A rational humanoid that knows the difference between Work, Blind Faith and a song. Damn Obama has horrible attendance record, a admitted cociane history that noone makes an issue with. Ihave a previous Boss that was arrested for buying cocaine, and noone had a clue so Obama’s cocaine use is HUGE to me. We don’t drug test candidates and I don’t need someone that isn’t sober and off drugs with their hands on national security secrets and nuke buttons. I won’t even touch his crazy chruch committment to Africa.. Is it still okay to want a Pres committed to your nation? Everything from voting Present but not making a decision on votes, to cocaine use, and even a sex & drug scandal with Larry Sinclair of the infamous you tube videos sueing him doesn’t fantom the ENCHANTED ones who act like Obama is GOD. GAHHHHHHHD he is not even a good experienced candidate. He can’t and won’t debate. NEED I say more. THANK YOU for seeing the light.
Posted 16 Feb 2008 at 7:44 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
you totally forgot about his Muslim terrorist background, now didn’t you?
Posted 16 Feb 2008 at 8:29 pm ¶