<p>Just because there are three great choices for Democrat nominee and Dems are arguing who is best hardly means the party is self-destructing. That’s really funny.</p>
<p>I can’t believe this topic is actually being discussed. We’re talking about Ted Kennedy. Like he really has a lot of credibility or integrity. Please!!! Even CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and CBS news said that Kennedy’s support of Obama is nice for free airtime because it’s a story, but Kennedy’s endorsement will have little if any affect on the voters. The only reason Kennedy even get’s re-elected; which they say has been getting more difficult the last election or two; is that Mass is still heavily populated by a lot of old money and they have a different economic system. In other words, in most states, Kennedy wouldn’t have survived this long.</p>
<p>Anyway; his endorsement means nothing.</p>
<p>^^Actually all three network national news shows tonight led with the news of the Kennedy endorsements, and they reported that it will likely help Obama’s standing among Hispanic voters and unions, since they apparently like Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy family very much. That doesn’t sound like nothing to me.</p>
<p>Not to stray from the topic, but how in the world did Mitt Romney ever get elected Gov of Mass-being a Republican and not a Kennedy? Can someone please explain this one?</p>
<p>While I have enough problems with the political commentaries of cnn, msnbc, fox, and others; I have even less respect for the so called NATIONAL NETWORKS; ABC, NBC, and CBS. Yes, some said that some hispanics like Kennedy, but there’s also many commentaries saying it will have little to no impact.</p>
<p>Of course, this is ALL THE DEMOCRATIC party spin on things. Both the Obama and the Clinton teams. It has little to no meaning for the republicans. Generally speaking, few Rep switch to Dem on the General Election; as does few Dem switch to Rep on General Election day. That’s what will make the election interesting. If a person hates Hillary enough and she wins the nomination for the Dems; many will say screw it and stay home. Same for Obama, McCain, Romney, etc… The only difference will be “Who hates Who More”. In a quote from Golda Meir when asked if there can ever be peace in the middle east; she said “Peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”</p>
<p>So, whether Kennedy has any real influence over the Hispanic voters or not, come the general election, the Dems will vote Dem; the Reps will vote Rep; the Indep will swing along with those from the 2 parties that decide not to vote. Again; it will depend on who hates who more. I believe Republicans if they HAD to lose the election, would rather have Obama in office than Hillary. If the Dems HAD to lose the election, they would rather have McCain than Romney. (McCain is a very liberal republican) (Hillary has almost no respect among Reps. Obama has some).</p>
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<p>Just like Hillary flip-flopped on the war, Mitt Romney recently flip-flopped on… well… pretty much every major social issue.</p>
<p><a href=“http://marchtoadifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2007/01/mitt-romney-flip-flops.html[/url]”>http://marchtoadifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2007/01/mitt-romney-flip-flops.html</a></p>
<p>Christcorp,
Okay, well you didn’t state or imply in your first post that you were talking about the general election. In that case, you are right, there won’t be much effect from the Kennedy endorsement. The impact is on the primaries.</p>
<p>Notredame AL:</p>
<p>Romney is not the first Republican to be elected governor in MA. Not long ago there was William Weld (I actually voted for him over John Silber of Boston U). And before that, there were other Republicans of the Northeastern variety, namely moderates, fiscally conservative but socially fairly liberal. GHW Bush would fit that mold, and I could see him elected in MA. Remember that MA is not just Boston/Cambridge but Western MA as well, which is more rural and more conservative. Romney ran on a moderate platform and has since tried to distance himself from everything he achieved or espoused in MA. Too bad, because he was not a bad governor at all.</p>
<p>Best thing that could happen to HC, who trying to be in the middle. A K endorsement would give people the impression that the candidate is to the far left. </p>
<p>Likewise, an endorsement from W, Delay, Lotte, and the one who left his wives, would be fatal for any R candidate.</p>
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<p>I admit I haven’t been following the Democrat debates lately, but is there now a Democrat who wants to pull out of Iraq and will take preemptive war with Iran off the table? If so, please tell me who it is!</p>
<p>I was a huge Bill Clinton supporter, but Hillary Clinton’s negatives are too huge to ignore. She would lose in a head-to-head with McCain, I’ve come to realize. The fact is Obama may too, but it would be less certain to happen. And the other fact is he’s simply much more inspiring. I can’t believe the Clintons have fallen into the trap of making her into a wife again. After all the hard work she’s put into defining her own path and cutting her own swath. That’s pretty much all gone as far as I can see because she started to depend on Bill’s attacks. Wow, at just the time when she needed to stand on her own two feet.</p>
<p>The past week or two have put me solidly in the Obama camp. If the Dems are on the way to losing, at least I want a guy who inspires while losing. Not a person who appears rigid – though apparently is not in person – and who has just undone a lot of good she had done for herself. </p>
<p>Go Obama!</p>
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Go look up obama and edwards. Surely you heard of them?</p>
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<p>How in the world would a Clinton fare worse in a head-to-head with McCain than a candidate that is a minority? Obama stands much more chance of being utterly creamed by McCain.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>You have to look at her negatives to figure that out. But the fact is all her fifty tons of baggage will be exhumed in a general election – and rather than running a high-road campaign that could’ve argued to somewhat forget about her husband, she’s done the opposite. It has made even me, a Clinton supporter, a bit queasy. And then I realized Obama would be a more inspiring and inspired choice.</p>
<p>Clinton’s the safe choice – and safe doesn’t win this election.</p>
<p>I think Clinton could beat anyone but McCain, handily. But I think McCain will be the nominee and that he would win by drawing enough independents willing to give the Republicans another try (as long as the surge continues to keep US casualties relatively low).</p>
<p>With Obama, I think there is a very good chance he would beat McCain.</p>
<p>
I do, thisoldman. I remember a lot about the Kennedy/Nixon election, the Kennedy presidency, the Justice Department under RFK, the JFK assassination and its aftermath, and the RFK assassination. I remember the song “Abraham, Martin, and John.” It wasn’t “Abraham, Martin, and Lyndon.”</p>
<p>It would be typical of the political tone-deafness of the Clintons that they probably never saw Teddy’s move coming. First Bill race-baits for the sake of expediency. Then Hillary disses the best part of the Kennedy legacy by giving the credit to Johnson. Maybe a former Goldwater Girl wouldn’t remember that Johnson helped push through the Civil Rights Act in memory of the slain president who initiated it and at the insistence of that president’s brother who had helped craft the act and had protected civil rights demonstrators with federal marshals. Maybe if neither Bill nor Hillary were raised in a Catholic household they wouldn’t know what it meant to the nation’s Catholics when Kennedy was elected. But older black Americans and Catholic Hispanic/Latino/Chicano Americans wouldn’t need any reminders. Those households never hung portraits of MLK and Johnson or the Pope and Johnson in their living rooms.</p>
<p>I suspect Teddy, like a lot of people, not just Democrats, was disgusted by the Clintons’ tandem race-baiting and saw no good coming from it–for the party or the country. According to news reports, Teddy even implored Bill privately to dial it down. I suspect Hillary added fuel to the fire by ignoring Teddy’s brothers’ legitimate legacy on civil rights. The Clintons have tried hard, over many years, to curry the image of Bill as JFK’s political heir, e.g., the photo of a teenage Bill and JFK, the newly elected Clintons vacationing with Jackie. They have actively and repeatedly sought Teddy’s endorsement. Obama, brilliantly, pushed the right button: He compared Bill to Nixon; he compared himself to JFK.</p>
<p>Who knows what was the last straw? Was it Bill’s veiled reference to Obama as Jackson? In any event, Teddy got his revenge. He shut the pretender to the throne out of Camelot once and for all and slammed the gate. He was angry, and it showed to anyone who was listening. The rightful heir, eloquently and unequivocally crowned by the blood heir and only surviving member of the immediate family–coincidentally and in a delicious ironic twist, an African-American man. Full circle. And Teddy did it with style and grace in true Boston Brahmin, if not Arkansan upstart, manner. </p>
<p>He will probably campaign very effectively and tirelessly for Obama. He knows his audience, he’s good at what he does, he’s a senior member of the Senate and the party, and now the family legacy is at stake. If nothing else, Teddy does take his role as family patriarch seriously. Oh, the Kennedys will never rock the Democratic boat too strenuously; some minor Kennedy cousins will still endorse Hillary, Caroline will still contribute money to her. But the point has been made. Game, set, match. Bravo, Teddy. Well done.</p>
<p>Caroline endorsed Obama before Uncle Ted did.</p>
<p>And to call a Kennedy a Boston Brahmin is the ultimate insult. Brahmins are Yankees–that is, New Englanders of English descent whose ancestors came over before the American Revolution. They loathed Irish-Catholics. See The Last Hurrah and other books.</p>
<p>“Then Hillary disses the best part of the Kennedy legacy by giving the credit to Johnson.”</p>
<p>Wow…how many different meanings of one sentence. Blacks are offended as well as Kennedys. Am I the only one who can not read people’s mind and their intents?</p>
<p>wouldn’t you loved to have been able to hear that last minute phone call by Bill Clinton imploring Ted not to endorse Obama?</p>
<p>actually, I thought Caroline very eloquent when she cited seeing the campaign through the eyes of her newly voting for the first time child as helping sway her endorsement.That resonated with me as the mother of a kid who has been galvanized by Obamas campaign and is now a volunteer(by the way he is a NY’er attending college in South Carolina,right in the thick of the events of the past few weeks).</p>
<p>I think Caroline is the epitome of grace, she is definetly her mother’s daughter.</p>
<p>I heard today that Ted actually called BILL to tell him, not Hillary…this leaves the question why he called Bill?</p>