Tête-à-Tête-Tête

I want to go on record as agreeing with you.

I expect McCain to win. And there was a time when I would have laughed in your face if you would have even insinuated that he could get the Republican nomination.

We do live in interesting times.

Why do you guys think McCain will win? These are bleak times for the GOP & their doomed to lose seats in the senate for sure, maybe in the house as well. Looks a lot like 1992, to me (and Bill Clinton’s campaign theme was “courage to change”, btw).

Seriously, what makes you think McCain will win? I look at the ‘00 and ‘04 maps & see few states changing play, although I think if Obama chooses Evan Bayh as a mate, he could pick up Ohio (which is iffy, thanks to the corrupt state GOP….look at the ‘06 elections & you’ll see that the GOP was swamped in that state) which would swing the electoral tally to the Dems.

The ‘big’ thing about Obama - being a likeable black candidate - really won’t help where blacks reside, since the south will be ‘red’ (I’ve been waiting for some attractive Dem candidate to step to the forefront and recognize this advantage….now, the template is set & in the future, black Dems have an advantage in getting the nomination because they could conceivably win almost all the southern primaries because they could pick up 85%+ of the black votes in those states…..the time has now arrived, folks, & the white northeastern liberal will have a tougher time against a likeable black southerner. Mark my words) but he could pick up Ohio, which is definitely in play this year.

You don’t think McCain will lose any states that Dubya won?

RW - the answer is that for very different reasons, Obama nor Clinton can win. I won’t go into the reasons Clinton can’t win. Suffice it to say she starts out with negatives at 47%. On the Obama side, by November, his negatives will be far higher than that. Don’t believe me? Google his name with William “Bill” “Weather Underground” Ayers. Or with Rashid Khalidi. Or with “national anthem”. I hate to even comment on these things - I don’t want to do the GOP’s job for them. But you’re going to be hearing all about these things before November, complete with gothic music and spooky lighting. Those connections + his father’s religion + Rezko (with his Syrian background) will serve to turn this rock star into worse than a scoundrel in the eyes of anyone not willing to look deeply into those matters… meaning 98% of us and the press. So, if Clinton can’t win and Obama can’t win… guess who wins?

btw, did you mean Obama when you said likeable black southerner? Because he is from Hawai’i, Indonesia, and Illinois. Hemispherically speaking he has a southern side… Other than that, I don’t think that word really applies to him.

Smijer pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

The absolute hatred of Hillary by members of both the right and the left automatically means she does not have a snowballs chance in hell. (reference 47% negatives)

Obama will be destroyed in the general election. The fact that he is black is strike number one. The fact that he is “liberal” (whatever that means) is number two and the fact that his middle name is Hussein is number three.

The general public doesn’t do nuance.

I don’t like any of those reasons but I do think I can read the general public and an old, white militarist is just what the doctor ordered for a majority of Americans.

My opinion of John McCain was and is that he is and was the worst candidate of either party from the beginning. He cannot control his own temper and he is 71 friggin’ years old.

If by the time you are 71 you have not learned how to master yourself I don’t think you have any business being given the responsibility and authority to master others.

Also, concerning Obama, I have wondered when the name Nadhmi Auchi will first show up on Fox news. Or has it already?

Buck, by itself, I think that Obama could weather the Rezko thing. Showing the unlikelihood of anything untoward in their relationship isn’t so difficult, if people will just half-listen. But they won’t even half-listen if they tuned out over other stuff.

btw, did you mean Obama when you said likeable black southerner? Because he is from Hawai’i, Indonesia, and Illinois. Hemispherically speaking he has a southern side… Other than that, I don’t think that word really applies to him.

I meant in the future. Obama is a special case, I can’t think of another candidate who could go a full year with the media adoring his every breath (yep, that’s me you see typing that Hillary Clinton is getting the shaft). In the future, a black pol who is acceptable to a decent portion of the rest of the nation’s Dems will have an advantage in the Dem primaries, because he/she will have a huge leg-up in the south, where blacks will vote overwhelmingly for them. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton & the rest weren’t acceptable to very many, wherease Obama is. Harold Ford, Jr., would have an easier time in Dem primaries over someone like Russ Feingold or Joe Biden or Chris Dodd, even though Ford couldn’t even win a senate seat, because he’d be at an advantage in the south.

On the Obama side, by November, his negatives will be far higher than that.

I’ve said from day one that Hillary couldn’t win. But, you think Obama’s negatives will rise enough to overtake McCain, who can’t even win over Ann Coulter or Limbaugh (anecdotal, but I know a lot of folks who are personally claiming that they won’t vote for him……haven’t heard that since ‘92, when people followed through and either sat out the election or voted Perot). BOTH SIDES always go negative, so I don’t know if I can accept the notion (you didn’t pose it, but it’s what I infer) that the GOP slime machine will be more unscrupulous than the DNC & such will decimate Obama. Lord knows, the GOP base has already given you the talking points against McCain, although a good bit of it you guys can’t use (illegal immigration, McCain/Feingold, voting against tax cuts) but, still, I refuse to accept that the GOP is slimier than the Dems. Not that I’m saying the Dems are worse, but there is no hallowed ground. For every instance you can provide, I can retort in kind. This is the big leagues and both sides have their McNamees & Clemenses.

The fact that he is black is strike number one.
For every person who wouldn’t vote for him because he’s black (a miniscule number, I propose) there’ll be one less inclined to vote for McCain because the GOP can’t go after Obama like you guys think because they’ll be accused of “racial overtones” or “racial undertones” in their every utterance. You know it will happen and there is a double standard, but that’s just the way it is - because of the GOPs past, today’s politics are practiced with PC awareness intact. A tough ad against Obama will have the Today show hosts asking McCain if they’re calling a strong black man “uppity”, negative comments against Obama will have Katie Couric airing a story on how blacks are treated more harshly than whites (after all, they’ve been airing the “Hillary is being treated differently because she’s a woman” stories.

I can’t believe that you guys are saying McCain will win & I’m the one saying Obama will win. Heck, I say Ohio goes to Obama & that seals the deal….can’t see a state that Kerry won that McCain takes, but it’s still early.

Buck, by itself, I think that Obama could weather the Rezko thing.

A party that nominates a member of the Keating 5 will probably have trouble getting the upper hand on the ‘ethics’ charges, guys. Trust me, ‘guilt by association’ can’t be played when McCain is the nominee, because of his past (no matter how long ago it was…..remember, Dan Rather used forged documents from the 60s). You guys are assuming that the press will be even handed. I’ll grant you Fox News, talk radio & the op-ed pages of the WSJ, WaTimes & NYP, but the rest of the media PLUS the mainstream culture will do just as it always has.

Don’t forget, there’ll be more concerts by Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, and now the top hip-hop groups & rap artists, pushing to vote for HOPE, CHANGE!

Effing html.

People expect their politicians to be crooked with money. The Keating Five isn’t going to have near the traction of TERRORIST! PLO! At least I don’t think so.

I hope I’m wrong. And I hope I’m wrong in thinking I’ll be disappointed by an Obama presidency should he win.

Truthfully, politics is an excercise in one of three things: 1) greed 2) superficiality or 3) masochism.

I think I need to get myself less focused on my masochistic relationship to politics and more focused stuff like music, science, philosophy, and Tennessee football. Oh. And Unicycling.

Politics is dirty business Ricky. You and I both agree there. No way I am even trying to insinuate that one side is dirtier than the other because both sides stink to high heavens. It is just the nature of politics. And as one Republican friend of mine told me, “We don’t have to worry about alienating the black vote in the general election because we are not gonna get the black vote anyway.”

I think the fight for the nomination on the Democratic side will do a lot to weaken their eventual nominee regardless of which one it turns out to be. The minor rift concerning the Republicans and Coulter / Limbaugh ain’t nothin’ compared to what I think we are going to see on the Democratic side. Somebody is going to have to lose and lose gracefully. I can’t see that happening.

I do think Obama eventually gets the nomination but that is when “MORE LIBERAL THAN BERNIE SANDERS!” is going to be shouted from the rooftops. “FAVORS GIVING ILLEGAL ALIENS A DRIVERS LICENSE!” won’t be far behind.

In fact it is the pinko, commie, leftist allegations that will do him in.

“Do we really want a communist as commander-in-chief during these troubling times?”

They will have to drag communism out of the trash bin of history during the general election.

I dread it.