There is no way in hell that Obama is going to win.
I wouldn't say there's no way in Hell, but it seems to me Barry "Goldwater" Obama's chances of winning the election are as close to "nil" as one can get, without getting to "nil."
I suspect I have better odds of winning the Powerball.
Of course, many here seem to disagree with me, and I think I know what the problem is.
Hearing people tend to spend far too much time paying attention to what others are saying.
Despite the healthy skepticism displayed for the mainstream media, for example, hearing people are affected by it. And if the mainstream media, as usual, canonizes the Democrats, liberals, and primitives and denigrates the Republicans and conservatives, some of that DOES rub off, get absorbed by, hearing people.
We all know from listening to college football commentators on television that they don't know excresence about college football, and most of us tend to dismiss those chattering heads.
One has to do the same thing with news reporters and political news reporters, and instead contemplate the history and sociology of the United States, and using our unpharmaceuticalled brains and sensitive guts, try to get a feel, or a sense, of what's most likely to happen.
None of us are God, but God did give us some skills to, roughly, figure out what's going to happen.
It's not likely Barry "Goldwater" Obama's going to be the first "black" president.
It's probably more likely franksolich is going to win the Powerball lottery.
So my suggestion to the pessimists and skeptics here is, "stop listening to what other people say."
Frank, I have great respect for your opinions in this area, and can, to a degree, understand that as a non-hearing person, you rely on other sources to formulate those opinions. That said, the great unwashed out there does not resort to that sort of introspective consideration of the issues. The media has a large influence on the attitudes of the electorate, and the same mentality that makes "reality television" so popular is the mindset that will propel the "magic negro" into the White House".
When you combine the abysmal performance of the Republicans when they controlled congress, with the poor quality of our candidate in this presidential cycle, I see disaster looming. I will vote (reluctantly) for McCain in November, but I supported Bob Dole in 1996, and I see this campaign shaping up almost EXACTLY like that election. In 1996, with the Republicans controlling both houses of congress, the national party chose to run an old, tired senator from Kansas, who also happened to be a war hero......his military record, or strength on national defense didn't help him a bit. IMHO the only difference between this presidential election and Dole vs Clinton is that Dole was running against a popular incumbent president. In this election we have another old tired senatorial retread running in a party that has lost its identity, and is not only increasing unpopular, but is losing more of its identity with each issue that arises to the national attention.
I simply do not believe that the voting population of this country is sophisticated enough to consider all of the nuances of either the issues, or the candidates' qualifications.......the country is fed up with high fuel prices, and like it or not, they are going to take it out on the Republicans this fall. The voters are tired of the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, and right or wrong, the Republicans are going to pay a price for that.
Politics runs in cycles, and I, having been born in the waning years of the fourth term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, have seen many of these cycles......I think that we are moving into a "bread and circuses" cycle, where the populace will find the "Hope and Change" mantra very seductive, even if the "change" is largely undefined and unexplained. Most of the voters don't care what Obama stands for, they are just looking for a scapegoat to vent their collective frustrations with what they perceive as a long, unsettling time in American politics.
Had the Republicans started grooming a young dynamic leader after the 2004 elections, and started queuing him/her up for this election during this period, things might have been different. When this is coupled with Bush selecting Cheney as VP, who announced early on that he had no presidential aspirations, he plugged a natural stepping stone for elevation of a secession within the party leadership. That didn't happen.....it didn't happen because the republican party had no leadership that was/is capable of planning anything longer in scope than the next two-year election cycle.........the same party leadership (or lack thereof) that should never have allowed McCain to become the candidate to begin with......
As a political discussion board, we, as a group, can never forget the fact that we are not typical of the American voter.....we are not even close.....by definition, we are here because we take an interest in politics in general, and conservative politics specifically.........we are no more typical of the American electorate than the denizens of DU are.....we forget that at our peril.....
Just my thoughts, but I certainly smell a Bob Dole moment coming on........
doc
