Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Opinion

John Aloysius Farrell

Obama Had Better Not Celebrate Before Actually Beating McCain

October 09, 2008 01:52 PM ET | John Aloysius Farrell | Permanent Link | Print

Rob, my colleague here at Thomas Jefferson Street, has invited us to quarrel with his declaration that the presidential race is over.

So, here goes.

In the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, which showed Barack Obama with a 49 to 43 percent lead, voters were asked to choose between two statements.

Statement A: We need a president who will provide changes from the current Bush administration policies and create a government with more active oversight to protect consumers in areas such as housing and financial transactions.

Statement B: We need a president who will provide changes from the current policies in Congress and deal with waste and fraud in the system to protect taxpayers from government inefficiency and pork-barrel spending.

A big majority—58 percent—of those polled chose Statement B, the McCain-ish position. Only 38 percent chose Statement A, the Obama-like declaration.

As Democratic pollster Peter Hart put it in his latest analysis: "The reason this election is still ahead of us is that voter anger could turn into a stampede in any number of directions."

Yes, our economic turmoil has given Obama a nice surge. And conventional wisdom loves a straight-line projection.

But there is a point where angst morphs into fear, and a tough guy looks appealing. Then, things change. All the more so when wild cards like race and religion are involved.

As Hart notes, "40 percent of all white voters, 40 percent of swing voters, and nearly 20 percent of white Obama voters say it bothers them that 'Barack Obama has been supported by African-American leaders such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton.' "

Obama and his team better learn from the example of Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who got so excited about catching a touchdown pass against the Cowboys last month that he flipped the ball in celebration before reaching the end zone.

All McCain really needs is the precise formulation of a simple question to put in peoples' heads as they walk into the polling booth: Do you really want to put a crumbling economy and disintegrating foreign policy in the hands of a strange and unknown rookie?

McCain has not gotten there yet, but is it so crazy to imagine that he will?

If so, the Electoral College looks much more promising to the Republicans.

The state polls, right now, have the map trending blue. But mostly, in the battlegrounds, Obama's leads are within the margins of error. Given the results of the last four presidential elections, is it really such a stretch to suspect that a fast-closing McCain will end up capturing Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina?

And, given Obama's unproven ability to get votes in the Appalachians, would we really be stunned if he lost Pennsylvania?

McCain's biggest problem is still the double-headed chore he confronts. He has to employ nasty and divisive tactics to get the Republican Party's conservative base fired up and to the polls, while at the same time looking like a unifying leader—a president—who can steer us through the very troubled days ahead.

Obama, on the other hand, has but a single task—to be presidential. His base is energized, and he and his campaign have performed so superbly that I don't doubt that they will continue to impress for another four weeks. The fundamentals of public opinion—presidential approval rating, right-track/wrong-track numbers, partisan alignment—are all still in the Democrats' favor. I believe that the Democratic ground game will more than match the Republicans on Election Day.

So, right now, the 2008 election looks like a Big One—a Hope election like 1932 or 1980, with Obama playing the role of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.

But the Democrats still need to worry that this year will end like 1948, in uncertainty and fear, with McCain playing Harry Truman.

Tags: presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | John McCain

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Reader Comments

Wake up AMERICA !

“Just a year and a half ago in January 2006 the main estimate of pollsters and the mass media was that it would not be possible to change control of congress. The change was bigger than most anyone anticipated. We are now building on the victory.”

“The main emphasis in the Senate is to hold onto and enlarge the Democratic majority.”

The sad reality is that because Communists hide behind words such as “progressive,” and “democratic,” they have been able to sell their agenda to the public. They claim that:

“Voters favor Democrats in congress on the issues (52 - 37 on the war; 59-29 healthcare, 54-29 energy, 56-33 social security, 55-38 jobs) A majority even prefer Democrats on the issue of deficits (51-38).” (Battleground 2008 July poll by Celinda Lake).

If this is true, it means that the majority of people in America support the agenda of the Communist Party. Joelle Fishman is correct when she says:

“Who wins the presidency and the size of the majority in Congress is of crucial importance. These elections offer a chance to deliver a decisive blow to the ultra-right and to change the course of the country.”

Should the 2008 elections go to the Democrats, as the Communist Party USA is working to accomplish, the direction of the nation will change dramatically. The direction will not be toward individual freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, and the pursuit of individual happiness. The direction will be toward the values of communism, which holds the state as the grantor of all rights, including socialized medicine through universal health care; amnesty for all illegal aliens who want to come to America; cradle-to-grave education by the state; surrender in Iraq; and acquiescence to all threats of violence; no right to own guns; and a state-assigned job for everyone.

There is a reason why Communism failed in the Soviet Union. There is a reason why China is unleashing its economy in favor of free enterprise, even while denying political freedom to its people. Communism cannot carry its own weight. Eventually, the workers realize that there is no reason to work harder than anyone else, since reward is determined by the state, not by achievement. Eventually, the “rich” from whom much is taken, become poor, and the source of the redistributed wealth vanishes. The result is inevitable: kaboom, viva la Soviet!

The influence of the communist philosophy has already permeated the government of the United States to the point of vulnerability. While the Communists say:

“In 2008 it is possible to enlarge the Democratic majority in general, and at the same time to enlarge the progressive Black and Hispanic caucuses and union members in Congress by engaging in some primaries.”

It is crucial that those Americans who want no part of the Communist Manifesto in the United States, get off their duffs and get to work for candidates who will disavow the policies advanced by the Communist Party USA.

The fight for America is not limited to the presidency, nor to Congress. The battle is being waged in every city council, county commission, and state legislature election. There are candidates campaigning right now for policies that originated with the Brundtland Commission, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, then-vice chair of the World Socialist Party.

When a candidate uses terms such as “smart growth,” and “sustainability,” don’t take these words to be meaningless. Know that they come from Agenda 21, a product of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. This is the same conference that produced the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Climate Change Treaty.

Agenda 21, and its policies seek to take elected officials out of the policy-making arena and place that authority in the hands of appointed “stakeholder councils,” and the like. “Stakeholder councils” serve much the same function as “soviets” in the old communist regimes.

The elections of 2008 certainly do have the potential to change the direction of America - from the land of the free, to the home of the enslaved.

By Henry Lamb Monday, October 8, 2007

Agenda 21, Smart Growth, Sustainability

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/149

THE PERFECT STORM FOR A DEPRESSION ...

THE PERFECT STORM FOR A DEPRESSION ...

A far left Media ...

A far left President ...

A far left Congress ...

A far left Senate ...

A far left Supreme Court ...

This would eliminate all the checks and

balances that our democracy is based upon.

Barack Obama formed his political and economic

ideology, and his radical associations, during the

TWENTY YEARS ... yes, that's TWENTY YEARS ... when

he followed Marxist Black Liberation Theology, in

Jeremiah Wright's anti-American, racist church.

And, now, with our country on the brink of depression,

Obama wants to impose new laws which would change

America into a third world country.

You may be upset with George Bush, but in spite

of Obama's slogans, John McCain is NOT George Bush ...

so don't over react to Obama's 600 million dollar

Propaganda campaign designed to highjack America !!!

A vote for Obama is a vote for changing America beyond

recognition ... and, it would be a vote for voter fraud,

a corrupt media, socialism, and the end to America as we know it.

Keep America free, strong, safe, and American ...

Elect McCain/Palin on November 4th.

dumb animals

Poor Appalachians. What pathetic white trash to vote Republican, but what else would you expect from substandard sheep? I mean, human garbage. They're not real Americans. They're dumb animals.

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John Aloysius Farrell is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. An award-winning Washington reporter, he has written for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century and an upcoming biography of the great American defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

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