Anyone else out there just not getting the "Obama factor"?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Maybe the fact that he doesn’t want to say anything that can be used against him.</p>

<p>Leal. I actually expected more from you,his skin color is just pigmentation and we should vote for a president based on their credentials and not skin color…how we will ever get past racism, sexism or bigotry if people keep saying “he’s black was merely a bonus” if someone said “She’s a woman was merely a bonus” or Rudy is “white was merely a bonus” …can you hear the screams, I will be lucky not to be banned for this, but at least I fell on my sword and said what people fear to say.</p>

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<p>What also bothers me since we are all being brutually honest is that I feel he is playing the race card. Last night I couldnt’ sleep, turned on the tube to hear the clips from all day, Hilary’s victory, Bill out of sight, the media got it wrong,etc…THEN they show Obama and for the life of me, and for a brief moment I thought I was actually watching a baptist ministry mass or some kind of evangelical confernce, I feel like he was very much using his “blackness” to do a gospel kind of speech with the crowd chanting everytime he piped the refrain something to the effect “because we can” or “we can do”. I mean come on, I mean isnt’ this so transparent even to the average person? He talks about ending he war in Iraq and bringing the troops home, has he spoken of just HOW he plans to do this? I mean this is no easy task as we all recognize. how he plans to have middle-class tax cut into the pockets of the working Americans who deserve it, how 9/11 was a “setu” for votes, etc… I am so over him and he hasn’t even begun yet. I am just floored that people are not more on to this guy and not DEMANDING specific answers. I personally felt that at the debate, Hilary blew him out of the water, at least, she had specifics to discuss, like her or not. He might be a passionate speaker, might have a lot of vigor and excitment in his words, but look at the message carefully, its empty rhetoric, vague promises that hold no credibility, another smooth politician in a different package.</p>

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<p>My prediction : Hillary is the dem nom. </p>

<p>Why? looking through the threads too many people are questioning Obama’s credentials…now toss my opinion into the circular filing cabinet because I am not voting for either one !</p>

<p>CTMOM I totally agree with your post</p>

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<p>If by some chance Obama DOES secure the nomination…say hello to four more years to the GOP.</p>

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<p>Now now no need to get our hopes up :)</p>

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<p>I support Obama and feel that another Clinton nomination would be a weaker proposition against the GOP than an Obama/Anyone ticket. That’s clearly not the opinion of lots of people, but I see Hillary as a divider and Obama as a uniter.</p>

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<p>A democratiic uniter maybe, but what about the nation? Do we actually vote for someone with no experience because he might unite the democrats…what about the dems that don’t vote for him or the republicans…</p>

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<p>Whoa, I think you misunderstood my point. I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I would never vote for anyone based on skin color!!! Nor even by party affiliation, I might add, as I am demonstrating by now supporting a Republican candidate even though I have been voting Democrat for nearly 30 years.</p>

<p>The top criteria is that the candidate have credentials, integrity, and a platform in alignment with what’s best for the country. That’s obvious.</p>

<p>If the best candidate just so HAPPENS to be black (or female, or Mormon, or Jehovah Witness, or Pagan, or Buddhist, or Hispanic, or whatever…) then it’s a bonus in the sense that it’s indicative that the people have finally evolved enough to the point that they are able to discern who is the best candidate without regard to any minority status.</p>

<p>In other words, if the best candidate were black (female, Mormon, whatever) and the public could not determine that because they were too prejudiced, then that would be a damn shame.</p>

<p>But if they WERE able to get past any outdated prejudices, and elect the best candidate, that would be a significant achievement in terms of how far we’ve gotten past those old, narrow-minded ways of thinking.</p>

<p>So the significance is how the people respond to the candidates’ minority status, NOT that I would vote for someone based on minority status.</p>

<p>I feel a twinge of regret that Obama (Hillary, Romney) is NOT, imo, the best candidate. I would have loved to see a historic event in getting a minority elected. But alas, I would not vote for the minority just because s/he is a minority. Proof of this is that the candidate whom I have chosen, who HAPPENS to be white and a member of the less popular party, is not young and handsome, (though he is said to have an infectious smile), etc. But none of that matters. What matters is that he’s the best candidate, imo. It’s more important to elect the best candidate than it is to have a historic event. Plenty of time for historic events when the right minority candidate appears. Unfortunately, I don’t think that person is Obama. At least not yet.</p>

<p>I feel sad for those who think they MUST vote for the minority, because they will somehow have let down their minority status if they don’t. I have an LDS friend who said ‘my heart is with Romney, OF COURSE’ as if she would betray her church if she didn’t support him.</p>

<p>It’s as though they think ‘this is our chance’ and have no faith that they’ll get another chance. If they really understood that there will undoubtedly be more candidates who are minorities, some of them excellent candidates, it’s just a matter of time before the best candidate happens to be a minority candidate. It already signifies progress, that we now have 3 minorities running, when they couldn’t even have run before. That alone is significant. (4, if you count Kucinich, who is a vegetarian! If I were voting strictly on minority status, I’d be supporting Kucinich, since I am a vegetarian also.)</p>

<p>I hope this clears up my point.</p>

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<p>Thanks Leal, you have clarified that point…I was shocked by that remark and I am glad that you took the time to clear the air… I do know and understand your beliefs, but I hope that you can understand how it could be mistaken.</p>

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<p>Not just Obama, but really all the candidates outside of a couple seems so full of fluff.</p>

<p>They all seem to go strictly for emotional appeal and buzzwords. Obama especially puzzles. All he ever does is use the word change without saying anything substantive, and people act like he’s the Messiah.</p>

<p>Meanwhile the people who talk about actual ISSUES -Paul, Gravel, and Kucinich- are all treated like fodder.</p>

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<p>That is th 64,000 dollar question…why are people not looking deeper?</p>

<p>OH G*D, I just realized people are asking themselves what does she mean by the 64K question…that is so sad :(</p>

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<p>bulletandpima: I think people are beginning to do just that (looking deeper). I predict that Obama’s charisma and evangelical rhetoric (with no substance to back anything up) will get old after a while. His fluff factor will become more and more evident as the field gets smaller and smaller. I would really love to see a debate before the SC primary, which would now include only Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. Some Republicans need to be eliminated to make that field smaller, but I do think the smaller the field becomes, the more he’ll get scrutinized. More hard questions will be asked, and he can only get so far on “change” and [now] “hope” (which he’s now using-- and isn’t very original).</p>

<p>Hopefully, the media will start to get honest too. Throwing support, yet again, behind my favorite, John Edwards, I do find it interesting that Edwards is the only one in SC right now. Hillary is resting/regrouping, and Obama is in NJ. ?? I don’t get it. People don’t like to be ignored. I’d sure be down in SC if I was either one of them, regardless of what the polls say.</p>

<p>I understand the $64K question. ;)</p>

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<p>“What also bothers me since we are all being brutually honest is that I feel he is playing the race card. Last night I couldnt’ sleep, turned on the tube to hear the clips from all day, Hilary’s victory, Bill out of sight, the media got it wrong,etc…THEN they show Obama and for the life of me, and for a brief moment I thought I was actually watching a baptist ministry mass or some kind of evangelical confernce, I feel like he was very much using his “blackness” to do a gospel kind of speech with the crowd chanting everytime he piped the refrain something to the effect “because we can” or “we can do”.”</p>

<p>Honestly ctmomof3, if Obama’s oratory style qualifies as “using the race card” in your book, than your definition of the term must be incredibly broad. If his rhetoric was racially divisive, if it in any way resembled the rhetoric commonly used by either Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson during their candidacies, if most of the AfAm community supported Obama (FYI: the majority of AfAms support Hillary Clinton) for President, owing to the fact that he “pandered” to its traditional interests, I could perhaps see why you’ve leveled the “race card” charge at Obama. But personally, I don’t see it. To be "brutally honest, it makes me wonder if perhaps you’re merely annoyed that a black man has the “Audacity of Hope” to believe he has a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected President. I don’t know…</p>

<p>In case you’ve not paid attention to American political speeches aimed at rallying the troops in past elections, Obama’s use of a “chant slogan” has been the politician’s stock in trade since time out of mind. “We can do it!” OMG! Now, there’s a racially charged slogan if there ever was one!:rolleyes:</p>

<p>FYI: I agree with many here that Obama seems lite on the details, and that bothers me. That’s one reason why I’m an Edwards supporter. As an AfAm woman, I am amazed and pleased by the amount of support an AfAm male candidate for President has thus far received. It’s a hopeful indication that we are evolving toward a Nation that can look beyond race.</p>

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<p>Bulletandpima - you’re not old enough to remember the $64000 Question are you? </p>

<p>I think experience is highly overrated when it comes to being a good president. At least I haven’t seen any evidence of it. The two things I want a president to do is to surround him/herself with people smarter and more experienced than he/she is and to appoint the Supreme Court justices that agree with me. That’s all.</p>

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<p>How can we not get behind this message?</p>

<p>"The American people, the most generous on earth, who created the highest standard of living, are not going to accept the notion that we can only make a better world for others by moving backwards ourselves. Those who believe we can have no business leading the nation. </p>

<p>I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose. We have come together here because the American people deserve better from those to whom they entrust our nation’s highest offices, and we stand united in our resolve to do something about it."</p>

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<p>I don’t get Obama either, and I did read his book. He obviously inspires people; he doesn’t inspire me. I guess I prefer a more secular approach; there just seems to be too much righteousness and religion around Obama for me.</p>

<p>I agree with Curm from another thread. I want to be the boat with the sinners, and Obama seems to want to be with the saints. We know the Clintons aren’t saints.</p>

<p>The religion and righteousness just remind me too much of a present administration.</p>

<p>I am also disturbed by both dem frontrunners supporting the death penalty. Another thread also talked about barbaric acts, to me nothing is more barbaric than the state feelng that it has the right to execute someone.</p>

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<p>I itch when anyone compliments the Ameican people in this wa. Who designated us the most generous people on earth? And I think after two regan administrations, and three Bush administrations punctuated only by Clinton’s tenure in office we’ve had “right-speak” for so long I’m not sure I trust the instincts of the American people. In any event, it’s hard to imagine any truth tht begins in flattery.</p>

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<p>Well how about this one? </p>

<p>I hope, I hope, nobody in this great hall tonight, or in our beloved country has to go through tomorrow without a vision. I hope no one ever tries to raise a child without a vision. I hope nobody ever starts a business or plants a crop in the ground without a vision. For where there is no vision, the people perish.</p>

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<p>Mythmom, if Americans are not the world’s “most giving” (I’m thinking in terms of donations and volunteerism, both at home and abroad), who are? And why would such a claim so offend you?</p>

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<p>poetsheart, I am referring to a few speeches he had both in New Hampshire and prior to the Iowa Caucus. I am certainly not the first to note this, there have been several (probably more) articles in this vein, and frankly I don’t find it offensive, as much as I do phony. I think it underestimates and frankly insults the American people to think that that kind of “slick” talk is going to sway a nation. You might be saying, but is already is, I say I don’t think in the end, it will be enough for him to get the nomination. He is weak on the issues, and fails to deliver a specified real plan for much of what plagues our nation right now. He is as many others have noted quite light on the facts that count but a virtual expert on talking about dreams, hope, change, history, youth and reinventing the political agenda. I see his appeal to younger voters, his enthusiasm, his unique style, he is charismatic if you fall for that kind of thing (I do not). I would not ever vote for Huckabee but greatly admire his genuine persona and find him refreshing to listen to, he is sensible, intelligent, quick on his feet, and impressive. Obama’s impressive in a way that might appeal to a youngster or someone who might easily be impressed with a movie star, because he does have that electric energy but I do not at all think that will carry him through the long haul. I did read his book, Audacity of hope and liked it, so much so that I was totally open to potentially voting for him, however I have come full circle and since decided he is in my opinion not the man for the job at this particular time. Furthermore, I feel his uniting with Oprah, Jesse Jackson and other prominent African Americans sent a message, and frankly I don’t think it was an effective message not as effective as it would have been had he teamed up with an equally prominent person outside the political arena, why did Jessie Jackson endorse him…because he is black is my answer. Why did Oprah endorse him and abandon Hilary who she long supported, because he is black is my answer. For him to accept and pony up to these endorsements doesn’t resonate well with many and does not go unnoticed. HE is the one playing the race card and it is my opinion that this will further isolate a certain segment of potential voters. The only one who will bring down Obama is Obama himself…The Oval Office is no place for affirmative action. We need someone who is a real leader, not a self-imagined leader. I am sorry I just don’t see it happening.</p>