ottopilot

Ok... time for a little turn-around is fair play.

Obama has pretty much polarized the country and has failed to close the deal... With credible polls like Zogby and Rasmussen still showing a virtual tie (within the margin of error), will enough Americans actually pull the lever for Obama on voting day for a win. What does his future look like after failure?

crap! ...Lost my ISP connection before submitting the poll (5 minutes lapsed).

Oh well. Have at it or delete Mr. or Ms. moderator.

__________________
"It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

Frosstbyte

Could you link to those polls, please? I keep reading about 7 to 10 point spreads...

dc_dux

The country wasnt polarized before Obama began his campaign?

And isnt it fair to say that it is Obama's opponents who are responsible for most of the polarization?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Rekna

my thoughts exactly

Derwood

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right has Obama well in the lead, and that takes into account dozens of polls and projections

docbungle

That's rich. Obama is a "polarizer?" What planet are you living on?

He can't "close the deal?" That happens on election day, obviously.

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Bad Luck City

reconmike

It is a win win situation for me, McCain wins, I wont get spanked in taxes, if Obama wins I cant wait to get all my free stuff.

And if Obama wins and I dont get all the free stuff he is promising, I will be here every day asking the people who voted for him where the hell is my free stuff.

__________________
Where is Darwin when ya need him?

filtherton

I think it will be a good thing if Obama wins the presidency. Conservatives can finally get frothy about the shortcomings of the federal government again without having to experience the cognitive dissonance caused by being largely responsible for the state of the federal government.

Paq

filtherton...completely agreed. I don't know how so many conservatives survived being so pissed off the last few years when their party was in power. And mccain tonight brought up how the dems are largely responsible for all this bc they've had control for less than 2 yrs...

and dude....seriously, hwere do you get that obama is in a 'close' race. 538 mentioned before, pollster.com and election-projection.net along with intrade.com all have obama winning by 330+ EV and a huge margin of the popular vote. Seriously, even fox news doesn't put the race as even 'close' I think the smallest lead is by 6 points now, maybe more.

flstf said it best in another thread, "I think if Obama was white and had a more standard name he would be ahead by a landslide because of the horrible economic news which is being perceived as a Washington/Republican problem and voters want change. His race and unusual name are keeping his lead within striking distance."

and even with the race and name, i'd say the lead is still pretty substantial.

but hey, that can all change tomorrow.

also, i kinda like obama as the face of the democratic party. the 3rd debate sealed a lot of things for me, quite frankly

__________________
Live.

Chris

Glory's Sun

I don't think Obama is really the face of the Democratic party. He's just a figure who happens to have good ideas and speaks well and well, who happens to not be totally white. This obviously gains him an edge in some voter circles. To call him the actual face of the party however is a long stretch IMO.

I still think the Democrats nominated the wrong person but that's a moot point now.

as far as this free stuff goes, McCain wants to buy me a house and Obama wants to buy my health care.. I'll take the health care.

Derwood

who is the face of the Democratic Party then (if it isn't their presidential candidate)?
-----Added 16/10/2008 at 03 : 27 : 10-----
what free stuff has he promised you?

ratbastid

You make more than $250,000 a year?

Can I have a loan?

Glory's Sun

the president doesn't necessarily have to be the face of the party. it just happens that he belongs to that party. If anything, I'd say Pelosi is a better face and Hillary is a better face for the party as a whole. They just happen to be in a different area of government. It's sort of like asking about Palin as the face of the republican party.. she's obviously not in a role of President but people are wondering if she's the new face of the party.

Hell when Newt was in office many considered him to be the face of the party. .. so yeah.. President doesn't equal face.

roachboy

this idea of a "face of the party" is an aspect of television-driven bizarreness.
jg ballard likened it to ultra-monarchism.
i think he's right.

check out his "the secret history of world war 3" sometime. it's far more elegant than i could be on this.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Derwood

so Pelosi or Clinton. that's all I was really looking for.

Glory's Sun

I gave it to you

reading back on my post it did sound a little snarky..that wasn't the intent at all.

resetman

me too think it's a win-win situation if either one of them win. But i'm hoping obama can win because i believe he have much stronger domestic policy

__________________
let freedom ring

powerclown

ottopilot

I find the similarities highly disturbing. Can we truly accept this as mere coincidence?

__________________
"It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

powerclown

Forgive me, for I do not mean to frighten or perpetuate mass hysteria.

Yet, if you - The One™ - have Ordained It As Such, then so Be It!

Rekna

he has a 70% approval rating, he sure polarized the nation huh?

filtherton

Just wait until he makes socialist, gun-confiscating abortions mandatory. Then we'll see.

roachboy

idiocy, powerclown.
what you're racing around posting today is nothing more and nothing less than idiocy.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ottopilot

I say let's give the man a chance ... he's only been in office a few days. I certainly had my fun during the elections, but that's over. We should at least attempt to be constructive until we have reason to tear him down. But I sincerely wish any president to succeed with honor.

Most of all, I want those who are uplifted by the historical significance of Obama's election to soak it up and revel in the moment. There is real joy and a sense of new pride among many who believed this day would never come. To see it in their faces and hear it in their conversation is truly remarkable. If anything, their honeymoon is long overdue.

__________________
"It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

ratbastid

Honest to God, it's this sentiment, expressed by otto and several others I've heard who were just as strident during the election season, that finally gives me some freaking hope for America. Let's just TRY pulling together for once! Let's just see what happens. It's been since literally September 13, 2001 or so that this country had anything like an experience of unity, and that was under horrible circumstances, and was gone into a cloud of partisanship in a matter of days. How about let's have a little unity FOR something, and just SEE, you know?

Thanks for that, otto. Seriously.

dc_dux

I think Obama is very serious in wanting to reach out and build consensus...even to the point that it might piss off some of his more liberal supporters.

But its a two way street and the Congressional Republicans(and supporters) need to remember who won the election.

Bi-partisanship does not mean an equal voice for the minority party....it means a seat at the table and a president who will listen with an open mind to ideas that may differ from his.

Obama made that point with the Republican leadership as well when he met with them on the economic stimulus package:
Voters not only want an end to the partisan bickering, but a change in policy direction as well and that means out with the old Republican ideas of using/threatening force before diplomacy, national security over individual privacy, secrecy over transparency, deregulation over government oversight and tax cuts for the wealthy as the only economic stimulus....and in with the new.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

roachboy

dc's right about this. i think the sense of crisis is evident and he's proceeding by pitching his policy toward a center position, even as it's logic runs toward a bit more social-democratic line. my concern is that by pitching his policy initiatives in this way that he'll end up pinned by the dysfunctional logic of neoliberalism more than he should be and will find that he'll have to change course later to effect a harder break with it--which will cost time that i'm not entirely sure we, collectively, have.

it seems to me that the bulk of the "stimulus package" is geard around something like a full employment program. it isn't exactly one, but it's headed in that direction. if he were to just say it--this is a principle objective for the domestically oriented policies--i think it'd have the effect of making the direction clearer, both in terms of marketing, but also (and more importantly) in the building of approaches. this is a wholesale break with neoliberalism--but is a quite traditional social democratic objective.

the advantage would not only be clarity in that direction, but it would also enable a way of explaining how a diversification of economic activity within the united states could dovetail into a reconfiguration of relations to debt--relatively high wages was central to the transformation of banking under fordism, to the generalization of consumer debt as a mechanism for purchasing political solidarity. this didn't just drop from the sky, but rather was a result of the history of the american mode of production and of policy initiatives that originated with the state--for good and ill (taft hartley anyone?)...

the same position would also provide a rationale for addressing the legion dysfunctions in the spaces of capital flows--even as it would not in itself address them (the processes of fashioning new regulatory frames is a process of redirecting capital flows--the entire logic in place is not functional--typically for the blinkered ideological world that is the states, this has not been addressed--instead you have versions of the "bad apple" theory the sole function of which is to posit the systems of capital flows as in themselves rational and dysfunctions a result of particular abberations--but that's wrong, it seems to me.)

at the same time, i see little choice but to pitch toward the center and build coalitions as a way to implement the changes he is advocating--it just appears piecemeal, the same kind of reactive stuff that was characteristic of the bush people, but bigger this way. i don't think it is, but that's the appearance.

clarity of line seems critical. we aren't there yet.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

I must confess, I am somewhat disappointed in Obama so far. Here it is Sunday and he has yet to announce he has provided all of our nuclear launch codes to the New York Times, signed a surrender document with Iran, instituted a draft for the SuperSecret Police, not to mention he hasn't filled my gas tank with $8 a gallon gas! I suppose we need to give him another week or so though.

Baraka_Guru

Did you watch too much Fox News last week, powerclown?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Derwood

obvious troll is obvious

powerclown

Reminds me of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Achipelago...seems the masses at a meeting were introduced to Josef Stalin, and began applauding. And applauding. And applauding. Because you see, they realized that the first one to stop would get a Makarov bullet to the head.

And now if you will excuse me, I must go back to looking for Moose and Squirrel...

Baraka_Guru

I would like at this time to put forth the motion for a vote to invoke the Dodds Corollary, where Stalinism stands in for Nazism.

Once the vote has passed, I strongly suggest continuing a sensible discussion of President Barack Obama as the face of the Democratic Party of the United States of America.

Thank you.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

first off, powerclown, you have the allusion wrong. not only to the wrong book---it comes from milosz's "the captive mind"--he calls the phenomenon "ketman"---but also what it's about. it's as much about the relation of fear to political unanimity in general as it is about stalinism in particular. you might think about why exactly it is that you take such solace in the raving commissars of far right paranoia on faux news---you too seem to fear being annihilated any moment---you too seem to enjoy that fear.
and paraoia is fun: it makes you the center of the world.

structurally, it's an interesting little foretaste of how the jurrasic right will react if the national security state starts to be dismantled--which i think is absolutely necessary. one way to look at the whole of neoconservative thinking is as a last-ditch effort to maintain the rationale for the authoritarian structures that are the legal expressions of the national security state.

but maybe you don't remember what it is: the argument was that because stalin was a dictator and democracy slow to react (even in its shadowpuppet form in the united states) structures needed to be put into place to enable the united states to function like a dictatorship. the switch is in state of emergency law. you remember how much the bush administration liked states of emergency, don't you? or hasn't faux news mentioned that?

it is the largest remaining relic of the cold war. it is also a patronage network that is predicated on a particular set of approaches to the military--the approach that enabled "mutually assured destruction" to appear a viable nuclear strategy, the approach that centered on creating a network of underground bunkers that would enable the state structure to continue existing, presiding over a world of ash. it's of a piece with the approach to military strategy that's lost each major war it's been engaged in since the 1960s. it's geared around one type of conflict, with one way of thinking about procurement.

and the conservatives have been no friend of it in other areas--there would have been an alarm sounding as the basic manufacturing industries--particularly steel--was fragmented and outsourced away if conservatism had been consistent with it's own military "thinking"---but it wasn't. so the only thing to conclude is that the neo-cons were about defending the patronage network for it's own sake, because their nutty view of power rested on it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

DID YOU KNOW THAT...

If you say "HOPE" many thousands of times in a row every day for a year, you will start seeing wonderful things?


* * *

5,000 times - lose weight and look younger.

10,000 times - feel capable of maintaining a regular job.

20,000 times - the bank will give you back your house and your cats.

40,000 times - your ex will move in back with you.

80,000 times - you will win a Mega Millions jackpot without buying a ticket.

160,000 times - the Democrat Party will make you their candidate for President.

* * *

The count is currently at 444,162,344,989.

Derwood

someone PM me when powerclown has made a point.

isn't this type of constant trolling against TFP rules?

dc_dux

The new face will be youtube, facebook, a WH wiki and the other networking tools that Obama will carry over from the campaign to keep his supporters engaged.

More than 13 million e-mail addresses on file from the campaign has the makings of a grass roots lobbying force like never seen before.....matching supporters w/ specific issue interests, targeting supporters in swing districts, etc.

The politics of the 21st century has arrived and raring to go.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

powerclown

Glory's Sun

---

-+-{Important TFP Staff Message}-+- If you cannot make a constructive post to the discussion at hand, and simply want to throw out troll comments or silly statistics, then please either use the back button or leave the thread until you have something constructive to point out about the thread of discussion.

dc_dux

powerclown.....

Omitting the silly pic you felt a need to post, you say "get it while its hot!" like its a bad thing.

Hot is good!

Obama is beginning his term with more political capital and public support of any president since Kennedy and that includes Reagan.

Kennedy's political capital was generational. Reagan's was ideological and the rejection of a incompetent predecessor.

Obama's combines all the above...generational, a rejection of the Bush years and a post-ideological outreach that many previously cynical voters view with a sense of optimism. His understanding of politics and policy also exceeds both Kennedy and Reagan who were far more superficial in their appeal.

Perhaps thats why you might feel so threatened......the country just might be passing you by and if he succeeds, and the challenges are far greater than those faced by Kennedy and Reagan, he (and the direction he takes the country) will be hotter for a lot longer than you think.

Hey..its a bitch to be marginalized like that.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

filtherton

If Obama's "I won" line is any indication, he'll be exactly the kind of face of the Democratic Party that a lot of Democrats were hoping for.

How many times do you think he's texted John Boehner to say stfu?