2008 Barack on Top
posted by on November 20 at 7:13 AM
Obama outpolling Clinton for the first time in Iowa…
Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) draws support from 30 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, compared with 26 percent for Clinton and 22 percent for former senator John Edwards (N.C.). New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson received 11 percent. The results are only marginally different from a Post-ABC poll in late July, but in a state likely to set the tone for the rest of the nominating process, there are significant signs of progress for Obama—and harbingers of concern for Clinton.The factors that have made Clinton the clear national front-runner—including her overwhelming leads on the issues of the Iraq war and health care, a widespread sense that she is the Democrats’ most electable candidate, and her strong support among women—do not appear to be translating on the ground in Iowa, where campaigning is already fierce and television ads have been running for months.
television ads have been running for months
Dude, it would suck to watch TV in Iowa right now.
I just may have hope that Obama will pull this off. PLEASE anyone but Hillary PLEASE!!!!!
Gooooooo-bama!
God, I want him to get the nomination so badly.... Anyone but that robolezbo Hillary. Shit, I'll take Kusinich over Hillary...fuck, a real donkey over hillary.
He gives good prepared speeches, but too bad Obama isn't actually qualified for the job of President of the United States.
He will get trounced in the general election.
That glimmer you see is hope.
Mahtli69 @5:
Hmm, let's follow the logic here:
If not qualified for presidency...
Then will get trounced in general election.
Mahtli69, you're assuming American voters are good arbiters of who's qualified to be president. After eight years of G-Dub, this strikes me as a pretty wild assumption.
BTW, there was another tall fella from Illinois -- good speaker too -- who wasn't qualified to be president either. His name was Abraham Lincoln.
Quick, somebody get the time machine. Let's go get Lincoln and run him for the Republican nomination!
@ Greg, Too late! I am working on bring FDR into the present and getting him to run.
I've spent a lot of time in Iowa, and the people are friendly and all, but it never fails to amaze me that a batch of rural white farmers get the first call on deciding America's next President.
I like the plan where they choose four different states each four years (one big, one small, one western, one southern) and have those four run simultaneous primaries/caucuses.
@5:
trounced by who? rudy? obama is handsome as fuck, and rudy is FUGLY. people who don't think much vote for attractive people.
Obama will definitely win the Presidency if he chooses an ex-gay Mormon for his VP who starts pushing for an invasion of Iran to keep the war over there.
I hope BO is reading this...
@7 - You are correct. You can hope for some sort of weird Dubya-esque personality cult to develop around Obama which will carry him next November.
And, I didn't say Obama was a good speaker, I said he gives good prepared speeches. Shooting from the hip, Obama is a complete boob. He has been horrible in the debates. Yes, given American voters, maybe that doesn't matter, but do you really want to count on that?
My biggest worry about Obama, based on his performance so far, is that he will absolutely crumble under the spotlight of the general election. He loses his composure too easily. Did you see him get booed the other day at the debates? He might have crapped his pants. NOT VERY PRESIDENTIAL.
@9 - FDR was the Hillary of his time.
Yeah.
Read Krugman in the NYT today -- says Obama is taking up the Republican position that social security is in crisis.
That Obama is preaching bipartisanship when this means giving in to the conservatives and the issues that confront us are partisan.
Mahtli69 @13:
Oh, really? I'll leave it to anyone here who is interested to judge for themselves how Obama does "on his feet" so to speak. Here's the transcript of his Meet the Press interview from a couple weekends ago:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21738432/
Hey, Edwards got booed too. Why? Because there was a large contingent of boorish Hillary supporters, apparently, unfortunately. I take that booing as a judgment more of Hillary and her machine than of Edwards or Obama.
Anyway, Mahtli69, I can understand, watching the proceedings on TV, you could be a good judge of whether someone got booed. Now if you can also be a good judge from the same vantage point of whether someone crapped in his pants, you obviously have some extraordinary sensory perception.
It makes sense he's preaching the bipartisanship line. His mentor was Joe Liebermann, champion of the bipartisans!
Obama far and away outpolls HRC and all other Democratic candidates according to http://www.whowouldtheworldelect.com
I'd love to know why Kucinich and Gravel outpoll Edwards at that site.
Remove Paul and his votes from the Republican candidates pool and the GOP doesn't seem to be popular outside the United States...
It makes me wonder how US thinking differs from the rest of the world's...
lord help us.
unPC @15:
Here's the Krugman column:
Played for a Sucker
I blame Obama for making a lame political maneuver here, but keep in mind, there isn't much daylight between any of these Dems on Social Security. As Krugman himself notes: "I don’t believe Mr. Obama is a closet privatizer."
BTW, about that other tall Illinois fellow who was a good speaker... When he was running for president in 1860, Abe Lincoln did not run as an abolitionist. He actually ran as quite the cautious moderate on the slavery issue.
@20 -
For chrissakes, stop it already with the Lincoln comparison. They are both tall and from Illinois. So is Dick Butkus.
@20: thanks for the link. the problem is this is not just one lame move, but it results from his overall message/philosophy which is naive. The fuller quote from Krugman is this:
"I don’t believe Mr. Obama is a closet privatizer. He is, however, someone who keeps insisting that he can transcend the partisanship of our times — and in this case, that turned him into a sucker.
"Mr. Obama wanted a way to distinguish himself from Hillary Clinton — and for Mr. Obama, who has said that the reason “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions” is that “politics has become so bitter and partisan,” joining in the attack on Senator Clinton’s Social Security position must have seemed like a golden opportunity to sound forceful yet bipartisan.
"But Social Security isn’t a big problem that demands a solution; it’s a small problem, way down the list of major issues facing America, that has nonetheless become an obsession of Beltway insiders. And on Social Security, as on many other issues, what Washington means by bipartisanship is mainly that everyone should come together to give conservatives what they want.
"We all wish that American politics weren’t so bitter and partisan. But if you try to find common ground where none exists — which is the case for many issues today — you end up being played for a fool. And that’s what has just happened to Mr. Obama."
COMMENT DELETED: Sock-Puppetry
We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.
I miss Canada's 90 day election cycles.
I really really do.
Ah, to have our elections be even ten times longer would be such a sweet relief.
p.s. @4 - choose an acronym like Will (location or bar or whatever) - it's confusing when we have so many SLOG participants named Will ....
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).