<p>That’s the thing, pmrlcomm, it’s not the conservatives. I got the full story on all of BHO’s recent “issues” just by watching David Gregory’s show at 6:00. That show has a pretty fair cast of commentators. Disillusionment with him has set in among many on all sides of the spectrum, and the general campaign has just begun in earnest.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve seen it on a liberal blog I visit now and then. And as a self-described liberal (at least on many matters), I took at as a good sign that in the case of foreign policy he was lining up a cast of advisors that are pragmatic and mainstream with a dab of idealism. Neither the whacky neoconservatives that McCain has lined up that think we can militarily conquer the world to grant the gift of democracy to all or some of the whacky leftists who think that pacifism can reign supreme (I wish it could too) through unilaterally wishing it were so.</p>
<p>But I think it’s funny that many people who claim that Obama has some mesmerizing messianic talent is actually living in the real world. I think that’s the real fear for them.</p>
<p>Again, Obama still has TONS of high ground: he’s called of the 527s, he isn’t accepting corporate lobbyist money, and now he has the high ground of being savvy too.</p>
<p>Go Barack!</p>
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<p>Really? What about moveon and the labor unions, they have started an attack ad on McCain already. </p>
<p>“Obama made no effort to stop unions that supported him from placing attack ads directed at Hillary Clinton, and he also remained silent on the rising tide of labor money that boosted his campaign in the later primaries.”</p>
<p>Obama, a typical dishonest polician.</p>
<p>Politician = No ability to have moral high ground…regardless of who they are or what their affiliation is.</p>
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<p>Well, that’s exactly why Obama shouldn’t disarm unilaterally. He doesn’t control these groups – he can only use moral suasion and he really has – and McCain certainly doesn’t control the Swift Boat style groups.</p>
<p>The MoveOn ad is not ad hominem; it goes to the policy McCain supports. It doesn’t say McCain fornicates with farm animals which isn’t far off from what some slime machines on the right are doing, and will undoubtedly do to Obama. But in this I am defending MoveOn, not the Obama campaign.</p>
<p>Again, Obama has TONS of high ground.</p>
<p>Again, Obama would have been a friggin’ idiot to unilaterally disarm against the onslaught of the following, for the sake of a principle that his opponent has already broken this year:</p>
<p>June 20, 2008 | WASHINGTON – Barack Obama has been running for president for 16 months. He’s written two best-selling books, has already spent more money on TV ads in most states than any presidential candidate in history and employs about 1,000 paid staffers – and a legion of unpaid volunteers – working around the clock to spread the word about him.</p>
<p>You’d think that would be enough to get some basic facts about the guy lodged in voters’ heads. But you’d be wrong. In recent focus groups in key battleground states, participants told Democratic pollsters matter-of-factly that Obama, if elected, would refuse to be sworn in on the Bible. In one group conducted on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, seven out of 12 independent Virginia voters taking part said they thought Obama was a Muslim (he isn’t), and some questioned his patriotism, saying he needs to prove he’s “for America.” That particular clump of “low information” voters was probably an outlier, but a survey in March found 13 percent of voters – up 5 points from the previous poll – shared their belief that Obama was Muslim. Another 44 percent weren’t sure what his faith was. And e-mails are flying around the Internet with winking implications that Obama isn’t really American (and, worse than that, he’s African, if you know what the writer means).</p>
<p>Obama’s multiracial background and globe-traveling childhood are, without a doubt, part of his appeal for millions of voters. But as the first black candidate nominated by a major party – and as a relative newcomer to the national scene, unknown to anyone but political junkies just a few years ago – Obama will probably have to work much harder tamping down whisper campaigns and rumors than any previous would-be president. “There are a lot of people out there with certain misconceptions,” said one Democratic strategist, who asked for anonymity to talk in more detail about what voters have been telling private pollsters. “From the broad to the specific to the crazy, there’s all sorts of that kind of stuff still out there … He is a somewhat exotic figure in the sense that he is the first African-American (nominee), he does have an unusual first and middle name. He even has an unusual last name, for that matter.”</p>
<p>Enjoy this story?Buzz up!Thanks for
your support.</p>
<p>For most of the winter and spring, Obama aides pushed back quietly – if at all – against some of the weirder rumors about him, preferring not to draw attention to them, just as they did not publicize incidents of racism on the campaign trail. They did not want primary voters worrying about their candidate’s vulnerability to innuendo in the general election. Now that Obama is the presumptive nominee, the response to the rumors has gone aboveground. The campaign unveiled a Web site, Fight the Smears, where aides can repeat – and debunk – some of the allegations making their way around the Internet. “Whenever challenged with these lies, we will aggressively push back with the truth and help our supporters debunk the false rumors floating around the Internet,” spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “It’s not enough to just know the truth, we have to be proactive and fight back.”</p>
<p>That’s not the traditional approach in politics when confronted with lies (nor is it the traditional way to fight urban legends). “The rule that I was sort of raised on was … you never respond at greater volume and in a bigger medium,” said Mark Blumenthal, editor of Pollster.com and a longtime Democratic pollster. “The problem with that is that no one ever held a press conference [to say Obama is a Muslim], there were no ads, no campaigns embraced the notion of Obama as Muslim, yet it’s everywhere.” Obama may be running a Web 2.0 campaign, but the most damaging attacks on him have basically been a throwback to the earliest days of the Internet – e-mail chain letters. (A trove of the chain e-mails and Obama rumors can be found here.) “If the information can be disseminated that easily, the old rule can’t apply,” Blumenthal said. “You cannot be passive and be reluctant to engage.”</p>
<p>The campaign’s new strategy for dealing with rumors may be driven by the sheer persistence of the false information. That isn’t necessarily surprising. “For independent voters, they’re just starting to tune in to the process,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster whose focus groups for the Annenberg Center have turned up serious gaps in what voters know about Obama’s life. “And then they hear what I call an urban legend, and they just sort of take that in as fact.”</p>
<p>Voters may know just enough about Obama to buy into the lies. “Obama has very high name recognition – everybody knows who he is,” Blumenthal said. “They know he’s black, they know he’s a senator, they know he gives good speeches, that he’s inspirational. A lot of folks know he has this controversial preacher, or he did. I’m not sure there’s that much more knowledge about him.” Indeed, some of the e-mails and Web sites Obama is trying to fight don’t even rely on false information. An e-mail circulating recently featured photos of Obama’s Kenyan family (all of them identified correctly, unlike a blatantly racist version that made the rounds earlier this spring), pointing out that his father and stepfather were both Muslims and quoting Obama’s own book. The effect is clearly negative, but because it doesn’t allege that Michelle Obama called anyone “whitey,” it won’t show up on Fight the Smears.</p>
<p>Others, though, don’t bother sticking to the truth. “There’s been a concerted effort to misrepresent who he is,” the Democratic strategist who requested anonymity said. “Extensive e-mail campaigns, talk radio campaigns designed to sow the seeds of doubt, designed to traffic in misinformation.” The e-mails spread virally through existing social networks and build on the limited things people already know – in a sort of sinister doppelg</p>
<p>Exactly Bedhead. We have never had a candidate who had to prove to a segment of the population that he is an American and not a terrorist operative planted here to one day slaughter us in our sleep. There are people who believe that and some of them live in Virginia - sorry Virginia, but I talked to some of them this past weekend. I don’t believe that these people will ever vote for Obama - even if he walks across the James River and then turns it into wine coolers. But he has to be financed like no other to even begin to fight this stuff - because the fight has barely begun.</p>
<p>There are segments that will never vote for anyone different than themselves. You can’t outlaw ignorance or stupidity. I wonder how many on the extreme left or extreme right would ever vote for a member of the other party. I doubt very few. These folks aren’t really any different than the ones referenced above.</p>
<p>“These folks aren’t really any different than the ones referenced above.”</p>
<p>Wow. So you think someone who is deeply anti-abortion, and would not ever consider voting for a candidate from the pro-choice party under any circumstances, has a lot in common with a racist who would never vote for a black person under any circumstances?</p>
<p>I don’t.</p>
<p>Of course pmrlcomm - that goes without saying. I have never and cannot ever see myself voting for a Republican but it is because of issues, not because I think McCain is an alien baby who came here in a pod. That would be the equivalent to me of some of the things said about Obama. I guess Kennedy felt the same way about the fear that the Pope would rule if he was elected and I guess Romney felt it a bit when people thought he would have 10 wives.</p>
<p>Always ready to read the worst of what’s been said… Of course it’s not equivalent to racism. Think about it though. The result is the same. They won’t vote for someone different than them under any circumstances.</p>
<p>I think Hanna said it best in post #14:</p>
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<p>In my opinion, this is a sign of a good leader. Circumstances change and so the actions taken need to reflect that. Making decisions and changing course to do what is best is a positive trait in my book. Staying the course is not always the best path.</p>
<p>pmrlcom…I agree with Hanna…this is not a good analogy. Not voting for someone who holds different views than you is not the same as not voting from someone who is a different race than you.</p>
<p>May be a poor analogy but the point is valid. There is 20% on either end that will always vote the same way (or not vote at all if they don’t like the option given them) regardless…</p>
<p>Is it ok to not vote for McCain based on his age?</p>
<p>Moveon.org is shutting down its 527.</p>
<p>No pmrlcomm - it is not because I wouldn’t vote for someone different from me. Obama is more different from me than McCain. It is that I won’t vote from someone who has different views, values, and beliefs.</p>
<p>So when Obama speaks about “change” he really means saying one thing one day and saying something else on another day.</p>
<p>He pretends to be something different, but in reality the man is no different than any other politician. All of the huffing and puffing about “campaign finance reform” blah blah blah, but when it’s crunch time he takes a walk. Change you can believe in. Sure.</p>
<p>Marite if they are shutting it down why will they be airing an ad in Michigan?</p>
<p>“it is not because I wouldn’t vote for someone different from me. Obama is more different from me than McCain.”</p>
<p>Right. To look for a POLICY match with your candidate is extremely different from looking for a DEMOGRAPHIC match. Policy positions are individual choices made by that candidate; they are products of the mind, not the body.</p>
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<p>If, as was suggested and this was based on, you were voting on a single issue then you wouldn’t be willing to vote for someone different than you.</p>