As we move towards the next primaries comes news that Obama's vaunted Republican fans may not deliver. Trying to be all things to all people may cost Obama the nomination. Let's hope so.
Senator Obama, a 'true' centrist in 2005.
According to Congressional Quarterly, Obama voted with his party 97 percent of the time in 2005—the same as John Kerry and three others—with only eight senators voting consistently more
Ranked Senators by Americans for Democratic Action in 2006:
Senate Heroes (100% LQ) 10
Biden (D-DE) * Durbin (D-IL) * Harkin (D-IA)
Mikulski (D-MD) * Kennedy (D-MA) * Levin, C. (D-MI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ) * Schumer (D-NY) * Reed, J. (D-RI)
Feingold (D-WI)
Whoever his friends and supporters say Senator Obama is, his record and his LQ ranking don't identify him in any way as a 'progressive'.
Mr. 97% centrist confirmed in 2007 what he thinks of us:
"One good test as to whether folks are doing interesting work is, Can they surprise me?" he tells me. "And increasingly, when I read Daily Kos, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s all just exactly what I would expect."
'It doesn't surprise me', claims the candidate. Gee, I wish I could say the same. His sermon on the evils of gambling was mildly surprising. When Obama handed the Dem microphone to a gay-baiting bigot I was more than surprised. I was I was shocked angry, offended. It was vile.
No Apology for the gay-baiting ever did appear despite some desperate pleading from the 'uninteresting' folks here. Which meant I wasn't really surprised to learn Obama invoked the name of Reagan and MLK to trash HRC and the Dems, who had, btw, plenty of ideas during the 70's, 80's and 90's; ideas like ending apartheid, and blocking the sale of nuclear components to Pakistan and South Africa, moves 'the party of ideas' consistently opposed.
Now comes this bad news from a series of polls in that well-known pro-HRC rag suggesting that straddling the fence isn't going to win enough Obama enough votes from Dems, no matter Republicans: (Tom Edsall)
While Obama is expected to pick up one out of five white Democratic primary voters, his margin among such voters in this deep Southern state lags from three to fourteen percentage points behind his support among whites nationally, depending on the survey. This lag, which appears at present to hold across the entire South, challenges one of the central claims of the Obama campaign: that he is a more viable general election candidate than Hillary Clinton.
Additional poll data from Mason-Dixon and SurveyUSA studies also produce findings which run counter to the hopes and expectations of many of Obama's supporters here in South Carolina.
Oops!. I've been hoping for a long, long time that Obama supporters would STFU about Obama's ethnicity, for a lot of reasons. Rather than tell us how awesome the Obama candidacy is for America and its 'image', give us some solid reasons to vote for his policies. My basic belief is that voting for a candidate because of race or gender is the same as voting against a candidate because of race or gender.
Why do I care? Because if, by some catastrophe, Obama gets the nomination, God knows, I want him to win.
Those threatening to leave if Obama isn't nominated? The largest part of me wants to say: go now. You're not helping. Threatening to put anything less than 120% effort into winning the White House back after 8 years of Bush for any reason is a threat of mind-boggling venality and self-agrandization.
Enough with the 'how awesome' it is that a person of color is running for the nomination for President. Shows us some facts, rec those diaries up instead of the whines, the heart-break and the 'we wuz robbed' stories, none of which provide folks with a persuasive reason to support Obama.
Quit with the threats and start producing the policy statements, and hard economic numbers that are the only argument scared and suspicious voters facing a full-scale recession in November are going to want to hear.