Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Australian Federal, State and Local Politics
Forum rules
Don't poop in these threads. This isn't Europe, okay? There are rules here!
Post Reply
User avatar
Mattus
Posts: 718
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:04 pm
Location: Internationalist

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by Mattus » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:05 pm

JW Frogen wrote:The polls are even again.

Obama 301 McCain 224 Ties 13

Even? Palin's been great, but the silly fluffy bunny can't hit a 3 pointer for the cameras like Xavior Obama. What we have here is Black Jesus vs White Moses. VPs don't even matter.
"I may be the first man to put a testicle in Germaine Greer's mouth"

-Heston Blumenthal

User avatar
JW Frogen
Posts: 2034
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:41 am

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by JW Frogen » Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:43 am

McCain, Obama in dead heat, poll says
John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, September 6, 2008

A new national poll puts Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain in a dead heat - 42 percent to 42 percent - as they begin their two-month sprint to the Nov. 4 presidential election


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 12P0NG.DTL

Some times VP choices don't matter somes times they do, in this race they matter.

For Obama it mattered because he was being attacked for his sparse political record and almost zero foreign policy experience.....bam Biden and he can counter some of that.

It matters more for McCain for several reasons.

It is a Dem year, the economy is down, the Republican President is unpopular. The war, while being won, is unpopular. It should be a Democratic landslide everywhere and the Republican base is demoralized. They also tend to disagree and distrust Mac, as unlike Obama, Mac really has brought change even when it meant challenging his own party, which he has done time and time again on big issues.

So Mac was not been raising much money from traditional Republican sources and they looked like they might sit the election out.

Then Palin.

The conservative base fell in love with her almost instantly; sje brought them back on board and re-energized the convention.

Now with his base solidified he can use her record of reform (once again she, unlike Obama, challenged her own party to change), and say that she is more proof about how this is going to be a reform (Teddy Roosevelt) type Republican White House.

She also polls well with a group Obama has not, blue-collar workers.

She may pick up more female votes, although women seem so conflicted as to just what feminism is, (many of the group believe it consists solely of reproductive rights (or the right to kill if one is honest), that many will not come her way.

Palin has helped in another way, the press has practically fawned on Obama, every statement he makes is "historic" (Obama eats a "historic lunch at Maccas ect) or reporters abandoning completely any journalistic ethics such as Matthews saying Obama gives him a tingle up his leg (Matthews had hoped for a late night, one on one interview), Obama has had the lions share of media time, Palin has changed that, she has pulled some of the media oxygen from the Obama love fest and refocused some attention the other way.

Still it is remarkable that the Dems have nation wide double digit leads in so many races and a Presidentail candidate who is a great orator (different from a great leader or thinker) that the Presidential race is this close.

This is a testimate to the decisions Mac has made.

He picked Palin, an act of outragous political courage and it is paying off.

Palin has kept him in the game.

User avatar
Mattus
Posts: 718
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:04 pm
Location: Internationalist

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by Mattus » Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:53 am

Hasn't she's pulled as much media attention away from McCain as she has pulled it away from Obama? Is Moses is in danger of looking old and weak and not at the head of his own campaign?
"I may be the first man to put a testicle in Germaine Greer's mouth"

-Heston Blumenthal

User avatar
JW Frogen
Posts: 2034
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:41 am

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by JW Frogen » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:07 am

McCain was getting little media attention.

For instance as the gains in the surge become more and more apparent the Iraqi story subsided (the media not being interested in successful war stories) and so his one big difference with Obama has received little media attention, that Obama would have surrendered, left the country in civil war and at the mercy of our enemies, and Mac, for a long time almost alone, argued for the winning strategy, one Obama now concedes "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

Obama has attacked Mac for being out of touch with working class families, he can get away with this because the media practically ignored Mac's Mid West and Eastern rust belt tours where he for weeks visited economically hard hit areas and took the issue head on.

The fact is most of the media is superficial entertainment, a good looking black male running for President will get tons of Paris Hilton like coverage, he need not detail any policy or say anything of substance at all, while a serious, accomplished leader, if old and unattractive will not.

Palin can do both, grab media attention because she is attractive and novel, and then focus it on her and Mac achievements.

User avatar
JW Frogen
Posts: 2034
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:41 am

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by JW Frogen » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:21 am

The Palin bounce along with the straight talk of Mac's speech (which got as high a viewing audience as Obamas) is continuing.

Gallup Daily: McCain Moves Ahead, 48% to 45%

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110050/Gallu ... 48-45.aspx

I think Obama is making a mistake right now, he knows Palin has dramatically changed the dynamic of the race so he has been legitmately attacking her record but this puts him into the old school type politics he claims he does not practice, I would have him give some more grand set peice speeches about the top campaign issues, the economy and jobs to start with.

When he does this he gets poll bounces, when he gets into the quick and thick think on your feet political fights he drops.

He may be Martin Luther King Jr. Lite but he is no Mohammad Ali, he can fly like a butterfly but he can't sting like a bee.

User avatar
JW Frogen
Posts: 2034
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:41 am

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by JW Frogen » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:23 am

The Palin pick has been a masterstroke, Mac is up in most polls, his fundraising has sckyrocked, for the first time in the entire election he is getting more press than Obama, and now he is drawing larger crowds on the campaign trail.

Obama is making a huge tactical mistake in my opinion, he should do what he does best, set peice speech full of Oprah like platitudes of hope, instead he is detroying the message he has made for over two years, that he is new and does not do dirty politics, he panicking and trying desperately to sink them rather than give his own message.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/ ... a_pig.html

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new "change" mantra.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig."

"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

"We've had enough of the same old thing."

The crowd apparently took the "lipstick" line as a reference to Palin, who described the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull in a single word: "lipstick."



As long as he does this he will drop, he needs to go back to the old "I am the messiah" message.

User avatar
Mattus
Posts: 718
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:04 pm
Location: Internationalist

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by Mattus » Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:01 pm

MATT DAAAAAAAAAAAAMON!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anxkrm9uEJk

P.s. how do you embed youtubes on this bitch?
"I may be the first man to put a testicle in Germaine Greer's mouth"

-Heston Blumenthal

User avatar
JW Frogen
Posts: 2034
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:41 am

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by JW Frogen » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:40 am

Matt Damon only supports Obama because Obama promised to make him CIA director given his experience on the Bourne films. Obama said (afterall you have more experience in the CIA than I do at any executive job.)

And then we have Ego Joe Biden.

Even he thinks Obama’s judgment is bad and Hilary should have been placed on the ticket.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/11/ ... /biden.php

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America," Biden said Wednesday in Nashua, New Hampshire. "Quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me."

I like Ego Joe; he would be great to have a drink with, as his candor and proclivity to say what he thinks, as he thinks it, would make for great conversation.

But it does not make for great election results.


It is getting close, even the Congress is back in play.

Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks CompetitiveDemocrats’ double-digit lead on the “generic ballot” slips to 3 points

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110263/Battl ... itive.aspx

I will keep saying this, Obama needs to climb out of the Palin trap, forget the tit for tat exchanges and go back to set peice speeches, grand, if vauge themes, of economic and foreign policy change and regeneration.

User avatar
Mattus
Posts: 718
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:04 pm
Location: Internationalist

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by Mattus » Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:59 pm

JW Frogen wrote:I will keep saying this, Obama needs to climb out of the Palin trap, forget the tit for tat exchanges and go back to set peice speeches, grand, if vauge themes, of economic and foreign policy change and regeneration.
Well I agree with that. But I'd have to say if it comes down to the debates.. and it probably will.. Obama will be able to fend off McCain with his set speeches and charisma, but Biden will shame Palin.
"I may be the first man to put a testicle in Germaine Greer's mouth"

-Heston Blumenthal

User avatar
JW Frogen
Posts: 2034
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:41 am

Re: Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

Post by JW Frogen » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:42 pm

I am not so sure, debates are an up close and personal format where there is no time for sweeping rhetoric, one has to think on their feet and Obama does not appear to be great at that.

Humor is important in a debate format as well (see Reagan diffusing the age problem by saying he would not exploit Mondale’s “youth and inexperience.”) Obama seems very self-serious, bordering on messianic self-parody, he is clumsy when he attempts to use humor, some times disastrously so as with the “lipstick-pig” gaffe.

In the first McCain-Obama debate McCain actually rose a bit in the polls.

McCain was giving straight, clear and concise answers, Obama was giving airy fairy slogans that really did not answer the question, such as his “that is above my pay grade” answer to the question does life begin at conception. Obama himself now admits that answer was a mistake and cost him support.

Biden is certainly more knowledgeable than Palin, in particular on foreign affairs but she is a clever one, I image she will goad him into either being condescending (not good if Obama wants to have any hope picking up all those white, female voters he is loosing to Palin) or angry.

She might goad him into a Rick Lazio moment during the 2000 NY Senate race, Hilary was calmly dissecting Lazios record and then Lazio got really aggressive with Hilary ; most commentators believe that gave her the election.

Do not underestimate how clever this woman is, I imagine she will work on Ego Joe's ego and see if she can glean a "Biden moment" of inconvient honesty.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 23 guests