NCAAbbs

I'm insulted that you would insinuate I am a typical, elitist liberal snob. What would give you that idea?

Obama sees an America he missed

I told someone way back when he first announced his candidacy that Obama was at least 8 years away from being able to be elected President. It has nothing to do with him being black, but everything to do with inexperience and naivety. This guy is a trainwreck waiting to happen for the Dems (and it probably would have happen already if most of the MSM wasn't clearing the tracks as fast as they can).

I'm trying to figure out the point of this post. Are you saying Obama is unfit to be president because he hadn't yet visited all 50 states? That just makes him a typical American.

No. I'm saying he is a typical, elitist liberal snob. It has nothing to do with not physically visiting all 50 states (although I realize that was the editorial gist of the NYT article). It's the underlying impression, which I am convinced is true, that the guy is MUCH more JK (John Kerry) than JFK (who's legacy the media is insistent on christening upon Obama). When it comes to the majority of Americans, he hasn't cared, he doesn't care, and he won't care...he only has to appear to care, or so he thinks. That's what I think makes him a pending trainwreck because he doesn't have the experience to fake that for a full national election cycle.

When it comes to middle America, and most battleground states, it will just be a matter of whether each person doles out $2 or $100 in drinks before they realize the hot chick (i.e., Obama) is telling them what they want to hear so she can drink for free all night. Eventually, they'll wise up and walk away. Not necessarily to the streetwise, personable, sure thing regular at the end of the bar who's not nearly as attractive (i.e., McCain), but they'll walk away nonetheless.

Can you name ONE political candidate who truly cares for the vast majority of Americans? I doubt it.

Obama, at least, wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had to earn what he has today.

And I doubt most people are believing what McCain tells them anymore, now that he pretty much says the exact opposite of what he said during his last presidential campaign.

People believe what the want to believe, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

What's the MSM?

Mainstream Media. Or the Right-wing's Boogeyman.

I'm not implying anything about other politicians when I call BS on the Obama hype. Just because I say something about Obama is untrue, doesn't mean I think it's true of other candidates and vice-versa. Like I said in my last paragraph, I'm not saying they'll dump the looker for the other chick at the bar, but they will dump the Obama hype at some point and just stay home. When the Obama trainwreck happens (and it will probably happen in gradual stages), it will help McCain not necessarily by increasing his votes, but at the least by reducing his opponent's.

And Obama may not have been born with a silver spoon, but he has had one surgically implanted over the years...starting with his adoption into the Chicago political machine. He is Cicero without the substance, although he does have a comparable intellect. It's just not going to be enough to help him avoid tripping over the gap between what he says and the lack of solid underpinnings and convictions (which Cicero did have).

Many people were stunned when Bush stood toe-to-toe, and even came out ahead, against Gore in 2000. I predict this cycle will be even worse with McCain looking more and more solid as Obama talks himself in circles during the debates (like an codependent empath in a room full of neurotics)...and the media will be dumbfounded.

McCain has at least 10 homes, worth millions... each. Left his first wife to marry the millionaire Heiress he had been screwing behind her back. He doesn't know the price of gas, or why its important. Thinks that the financial problems facing millions of American families are psychological instead of financial and that they should just quit whining. Who is elitist again?
Your whole last sentence just shows that you know jack and sh!t about John McCain and jack just left the building.

Hey folks. the people have spoken and the two main candidates are chosen. The choice of running mate is the only matter still up for debate. "W" made a good choice because even those who distrusted him had faith in Chenny to keep him in line. (It reminded me of the Bama Big Red Elephants who hired Mike Shula knowing he was very short on coaching acumen, but trusted his older assistants to keep things straight. We know how that turned out.)
If the economy keeps "tanking", it may be Hoover running against FDR in 1932 all over again. "It's the economy, Stupid!" may well be the rallying cry in 2008 just like it was in 1932 (and 1992).

Not with Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran sitting out there..."It's the economy, stupid!" isn't gonna make it with most voters and the polls say as much.

He's damn well streetwise, personable, and a sure thing compared to the glitter at the other end of the bar.

How do you think it would affect the election this Nov. if the Iraqi / Afghani Insurgents are students of history and decide to mount a new version of Viet Nam's "TET Offensive" that so devastated American resolve to "finish the job" there? Our great military victory that suppressed the offensive fell on deaf ears at home because we had thought the conflict was all but over, much like the current administration is selling the success of the "Surge".

I'd like to get back to the point in this post: Nobama!

1) They don't have the presence or capability to amass such an offensive unless a relative upspike is magnified by the media. We're not trying to "hold a line" like we were in Vietnam that allowed North Vietnam and Cambodia to pump in an almost endless amount of troops.

2) Even if #1 wasn't true, if an offensive like that happened, or another terrorist attack on Western soil, it would help the Republicans and everyone knows that to be the case.

3) The success of the surge hasn't been sold at all. In fact, I think that's a huge failure of this administration. The success of the surge has been allowed to drift along under the radar, but it is a fact that our change in strategy almost a year and a half ago (not just the surge) has completely changed the face of things in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

I love how Obama, raised by a single mother and her parents, a guy who worked his way through school on a combination of academic scholarships he earned and student loans he's only recently paid off is "an elitist".

McCain is the son of an Admiral, bottom of his class at the service academy, and he divorced and re-married into multi-millions. They own seven homes. Seven. The tax cut he espouses would cut his taxes by $400,000 annually.

You guys have a different take on "elitism" than I do.

My signature says it all...

Speaking of elitism, the "Obama is an Elitist" meme started with Hilary Clinton. When she decided to show that she wasn't an elitist but a woman of the people, she hit a working-class bar and drank boilermakers.

Crown Royal boilermakers.

That Obama, he's an elitist though, huh?

Umm...No, nothing like cicero, that would be Daley

Daley was silver-tongued as well, but not as polished, packaged, and presented as Obama I think.

Again No, Daley comes from a family of politicians, following in his father's footsteps. So tell me about this, "Chicago political Machine", is it the same one that obama fought against in his past elections?

Cicero didn't come from a family of politicians, but I think we're getting away from that argument. Obama has sided against and for the Machine in his past, but once he jumped on the national stage (the Senate to start with) he had their full blessing and power. That's as privileged a political background as it gets in this country (comparable in power to west coast elites, east coast ivy league consortiums...right and left wing, southern "good-ole boy" networks, etc.).

Ben, where the heck are you going with this?

Your thread began with bashing Obama because he hasn't visited all 50 states? (silly)

Then bashing him as an elites, with a silver spoon in his mouth? (how? is his family really rich? then politically connected by attaching him to Cicero? I suggest you read the history of chicago politics first)

Finally by your "chicago political and media machine" who is that WGN? Harry Carry? Ditka? (here come that black helicopters)

Look if you don't like Obama or may democrats, just say it! Don't fill us with B.S.

From the way that it reads, I get the impression that you don't really care for McCain as a candidate either. Everyone of the conservatives that post on this board say "I support McCain......but, I disagree with his stance on ______(fill in the blank) policy. While all of the liberals tend to say "I support Obama. (period)" (Emphasizing the lack of "but" statements). It's as though the supporters of one candidate are backing that candidate because they choose to while the other supporters are backing a candidate because they have no other choice. So, even though you stand no chance, or have no interest with the eye candy that sits at the one end of the bar, you are destined to go home with the fat chick at the other end of the bar, just because there is no one left.

Um, Cicero doesn't really have anything to do with Chicago politics. I was comparing Obama's gift at public speaking with that of Cicero, then contrasting his comparable lack of philosophical underpinnings. I really hope we're talking about the same Cicero...the one I'm referring to didn't grow up on the Northside rooting for Cubbies.

Do I really have to prove the existence of the Chicago political machine? There are some supposed political "cabals" that could be chalked up to paranoia ("vast right-wing conspiracy" anyone?), but the underbelly of Chicago (and, by extension, Illinois) politics isn't one of them. When I say someone earned their chops moving up the ranks of the Moral Majority everyone knows what I mean (well, everyone over 30 I guess). Obama was adopted, groomed, and primed for the national stage by that group of politicians and backroom dealers (dare I say election-fixers...I know I don't have to).

His elitism has nothing to do with money or personal worth, but it comes from the typical source of most liberal elites: a deep concern for great ideas and platitudes (over actual persons) and a barely hidden disdain for those who disagree or live their lives by different standards.

Now my opinion and personal observation: most Republican elites treat those who disagree as wrong or misinformed of the facts and/or reality, most Liberal elites treat those who disagree as unenlightened, unlearned, unwashed barbarians. I think that's the general distinction of Liberal elitism in political circles. Both types of elites are harmful, btw, but a "Liberal elite" does have a generally accepted definition.

Please tell me that you don't think Crown Royal is some sort of expensive, elite liquor? That stuff is pure Canadian hog piss. Crown is a whole $.50 more than well bourbon at the bar I used to work at. Now if he were drinking Knob Creek or Basil Hadyen's, then I'd understand.

The comics used to make fun of John Kerry's marriage to an heiress to the Heinz fortune. Maybe they sense that Americans have tired of such diversions from the issues that matter. In my opinion, neither candidate is really elitist in their outlook, even the one with the most money. What Americans are asked to do is decide which one has a REAL grasp of the social, economic and political problems confronting us in 2008 without the desire to gloss over the problems caused by those who support their candidacy or give huge donations to their campaign to get the next president to leave them alone. As has always been the case, we must hope we can separate the "wheat from the chaff" and make the right choice. We have until November to get it right.

Nah, my point was that Hillary was drinking boilermakers in solidary with the blue collar working class vote, and that's not the drink I'd be thinking of in that context.

Plus who drinks boilermakers now anyway?

"You ain't from 'round here, are you?"