<p>I believe that he made a terrible mistake running this time out with no national experience. He could have been an unassailably qualified candidate if he had put his nose to the grindstone in the Senate for eight years. But, that’s his flaw…he’s never stuck around in any office long enough to actually do any work or build a record. As a result, he’s a sitting duck for the “vacuous celebrity” fame without portfolio charge. </p>
<p>His inexperience contributed to his splitting the Democratic Party apart, something that is likely to cost the party a sure win in November with long-term ramifications. It was unconscionably stupid to drive a very popular two term Democratic President with a record of peace and prosperity to the sidelines. Having Bill Clinton sit on his hands is devastating to the party.</p>
<p>Even if he were to win, his lack of experience and naivete would almost certainly doom him to a Carter or first-term Clinton kind of Presidency. The military will “roll” him just like they rolled Clinton in his first month on gays in the service.</p>
<p>Downticket races are in shambles. Chris Van Holen is already telling vulnerable House members in purple districts to distance themselves from Barack Hussein Obama and to not even go to the convention in Denver. Proclaiming that the Democratic Party no longer needs working white voters in the coalition was suicide in many states and districts.</p>
<p>Idad, I do agree that it would have been much better had Obama waited a while and seasoned a bit before running for President. Believe it or not, I do have serious reservations about his candidacy. It fills me with the queerest mixture of anxiety, pride, hope, dread…you name it. A sizable part of me thinks the best thing that could happen would be McCain winning in Nov. Because of his age and health status, it’s not likely that he would be around longer than 4 years, and I seriously doubt he could be a worst disaster than Dubya has been. (Please, God!) I worry about him escalating war in the Middle East to include Iran, though. And I worry about the Supreme Court becoming completely dominated by extreme conservative ideologues on the order of Scalia and Roberts. </p>
<p>But, I’m sure America will be so desperate for a Democrat in the White House by 2012, not even the Democratic Party will be able to get in their own way:rolleyes: I think you’re right about the Democrats’ uncanny ability to hit the self-destruct button. I thought Edwards had the best chance of bringing about a somewhat clean slate in Washington, but now, even he is shrouded in a smoldering and noxious semi-scandal.:rolleyes: </p>
<p>I’ve about had it, and there’s yet three more months of this increasing nastiness. I don’t know how you sustain the level of venom you display so often here. Emotion of that sort is poisonous to long term good health—at least for me it is. </p>
<p>I guess I’m feeling pretty fatalistic about the whole process at this point. Truth be told, I suspect our collective a** is grass, no matter who wins in November.</p>
<p>Poetsheart: Interesting, parent2noles, that you believe Obama will win the election. I don’t believe he has an iceberg’s chance in hell of winning. And that’s probably a good thing for many reasons, not the least of them being that it won’t be possible to blame the errors of the next President on Obama. If Obama were to win, it wouldn’t matter whether he was actually a good and effective leader, an abysmal failure, or somewhere in between. He would be invariably be reckoned a failure (the threshold of tolerance for any errors on his part, being especially low), and his failure would in some way be attributed to some “pathology” inherent in his race. Then hell would become a hospitable place for icebergs before another black person of any political persuasion would have a chance of being elected POTUS.</p>
<p>Let’s consider this a bit, PH before we agree to anything.</p>
<p>First - Senator Obama has a reasonable chance of winning in November, in my opinion. He has made some considerable errors, but so has his competition. The field is not strong this year.</p>
<p>Second - Senator Obama is half white (“grandson of a typical white person”) which is conveniently overlooked in all the hubbub over Obama being half black. You seem to imply (please correct me if I’m wrong) that Senator Obama is doomed simply because he’s partly black. I strongly disagree with this attitude. Obama may be doomed because he’s presumptuous and a northern liberal, but certainly not because he looks black. Were Colin Powell to run - even as a Democrat - he’d win, in my opinion. I wish Obama had joined the Marines and served, even for two years.</p>
<p>Here I part ways with African Americans who regard themselves as perpetual victims. If you think you’re defeated, you are. Rise up and possess the land - not as African Americans, but as merely Americans. Join the family with the rest of us genetic mutts. :)</p>
<p>Well, Roosevelt did have a kind of rustic, bully-pulpit charm. (Whatever that means!) … The current Smithsonian magazine has a wonderful article highlighting notable Democratic and Republican primaries of the past. One of them was 1912 when Teddy challenged Taft for the Republican nomination. Taft’s side argued against Roosevelt’s inclination to expand government, and they beat him. After this, the Republican party evolved into the smaller government party. …</p>
<p>I simply cannot imagine a less forgiving yardstick than the one used to judge the current “white one” in office. God help Obama if it is possible for him to be treated more cruelly.</p>
<p>The man currently in office was measured by such a lenient yardstick, and given the benefit of the doubt to such an extent as to get elected to office for a second term. What has been so “unforgiving” about America’s ultimate assessment of his performance?</p>
<p>Poetsheart -
True - he was reelected. My point was about how he has been criticized, lampooned, etc. It really couldn’t get much meaner. I hope that, whoever is elected in November, some return to at least a minimum level of respect for the office returns. I’m all for vigorous crtique and debate, but what happened to Clinton, and even moreso to Bush, went way too far. It’s just not good for the country at a certain point. In the quest to destroy the man and his politics, some of what we all need as a nation ends up in the crosshairs.</p>
<p>And about your point that a person of a different race could be treated worse, it is difficult to imagine how much lower things could go.</p>
<p>Spideygirl: I agree with you – to a point. As a society, we’ve elevated late night lampooning of candidates and presidents to how we get our opinions about them. This is part of the cheapening of the presidential selection process. Bush has been mightily lampooned. Clinton was. But putting that aside, there are a lot of people that felt with both these candidates there was a huge double standard: Clinton was essentially impeached for getting sexual servicing by an intern in the White House, and then lying about it. While it was stupid and detestable, its impact was chiefly on him and his own reputation, IMO. Many people feel Bush lied to get us involved in a war that was not strategically smart to enter into, and nearly nothing of importance has been done to him. This has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans. Apart from how one feels about the war itself, a president should be held to account for short-circuiting the process to get us involved in a war like the Iraq war. Bush has gotten off extremely easy, in this regard.</p>
<p>^I see the Clinton and Bush lambasting as identical in the following way. In each case those who disagreed with the politics attacked the man’s character and intentions way beyond that which could ever be known. And the whole nation took a hit as a result. </p>
<p>Anti-Clinton folks (and I was one of them) “saw” a whole lot of scary things going on - a trail of dead bodies, financial corruption, a sitting president putting himself in a compromising position and then lying under oath, which we felt justified the crucifixion of this person. It could be debated that if Clinton wasn’t so enmeshed with saving himself from an all-out assault, he might have been able to pay more attention to Bin Laden, Al Qaida, and the build-up to what Bush inherited moments after entering office.</p>
<p>The reality is that it came down to politics, and our quest to advance our own (in my opinion, of course). The same is true today of what is happening to Bush. </p>
<p>I see that the best intelligence available justified a military move in Iraq. I personally don’t care after the fact anyway, as I am 100% in favor of imbedding a democracy right smack in the middle of the spawning bed for Extreme Islamic Fundamentalism. I believe it is imperative for our national defense to fight this scourge on the planet, and to ensure the future of Israel. I believe the war was strategically smart to get into, and I also think that the wave of anti-war negativity from within our borders has undermined the effort. I also see that Bush was right – it appears that the Iraq situation is moving in the right direction. My politics (as we already knew, right?) are very different from yours on this matter.</p>
<p>There is more than one way to look at both the Clinton and Bush eras, yet in both cases, deconstructing the man happened as a result of politics (and it got so severe that we probably undermined the nation as a result).</p>