In all my dealings with Obama people, as well as the man himself, there’s always been this sense that they’re constantly telling people, “Trust us. We’ve thought this through. We know what we’re doing. It’ll work. Yes we understand that you’re uncomfortable with this, or that you think it’s wrong, but really we know what we’re doing.”
And then those of us in the cheap seats think that there’s no way all of those new/young voters show up to vote in Iowa, that Obama’s inclusive rhetoric doesn’t have the appeal he imagines, etc… etc… And then he pulls it off. Maybe he does know what he’s doing.
I read that he got the highest youth vote turnout since JFK. Listening to his Iowa victory speech, I think he’s the greatest antidote to cynicism that I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s kind of funny to watch Clinton’s popularity contest bandwagon get caught like a deer in the headlights.
I like Obama but don’t get too carried away with the Iowa results. One stat I heard last night was that he barely beat Hillary among registered dem’s, which means his margin was in attracting independents. There are a lot of primary’s where the independent impact is much less than in Iowa.
That said, he should do well in Vermont with it’s independents and South Carolina because of it’s ethnic makeup (not my observation, but that of several pundits last night).
In the general election, get your party out to vote and then get a lot of independents, and the holy grail of crossover votes (remember Reagan Democrats?) and you sweep the board.
Hillary is the presumed party favorite, so even “barely” beating her with the registered Dems (in an all white state) is pretty impressive. She flew in 1000 “friends” to help her in this campaign, outside of the inside the state workers, and spent $400 Billion dollars (ok, I made that last dollar figure up, but the 1000 is real) and came in 3rd. The joy in my heart is overflowing, even if it only lasts the next 5 days. ;)
I asked in this forum some weeks ago - is there any candidate you could passionately support? The answer was crickets chirping (other than the Ron Paul fans.) I think Obama could be that candidate.
I don’t disagree. My point is that Hillary still has a good shot of winning a number of key states as long as the core of the party is behind her, that’s all. Obviously, Obama does look like a much better general election candidate than she does at this point.
I think the problem is being so used to backlash threads about games. The moment something becomes a breakout hit, we have a backlash thread. The same just happened with Obama, so it’s natural to expect a similar effect.
I did find it confusing, but I was mostly kidding about starting a new thread.
And is that really a good thing? The republicans are dead set against universal healthcare, rolling back tax cuts to balance the budget, corprate reform, and doing anything else I think should be done. What we need is a cynical, coniving bastard who will exploit republican weaknesses, welcome their hatred, and actually get stuff done. Thats why I’m an Edwards man. That time as a lawyer has to have been good for something.
They remain the dragon that he needs to slay. Unless the GOP gets their shit together and nominates McCain - which ironically Huckabee’s victory might scare them into doing.
