08-bama
 

I don't know if there's a thread for this yet but what does everyone think of Barack Obama declaring his intention of running for United States President?

He's from my home state of Illinois, and he's a man opposed to Iraq and he's a minority. Sounds like my kind of guy.

Now I know he won't win the election (even though he's the first black man running for US presidency, he won't be the first black American president {like Hilary being a woman}) but it's exciting to see diversity finally have some sort of impact on the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) grasp of the US government. :earth:

Jackson? Sharpton? Shirley Chisholm? Carol Moseley Braun? Who are you, Joe Biden?? :eyebrow:
(Okay, Carol and Shirley aren't men, but still...)

Hey wait a minute, there's a shitload of Catholics and Jews in the government.:confused:

My bad I thought he was the first.

He's the first to stand a chance of being recognized, endorsed, by the major parties, isn't he?:confused:

Dude. You're not even first on the thread topic...

He'll win the Democratic nomination then he'll win the general election and become President. You heard it here first. UT, feel free to mark the calendar.

This is done.

Alan Keyes? an R, no less.

He was also Obamas opponent in the Senate race.

:haha: Forgot about him.

[racist]He was also clean and well-spok... um nevermind.[/racist]

I'm with you on this one V. I think he's got it in the bag. My husband thinks Hillary will get the nod, but I think she's been doing too many backflips and it's going to cost her.

I also have to say that I like Obama's style. Here's a little anecdote for you.

Our illustrious Prime Minister Mr Howard was quoted as saying that if he were Osama, he'd be putting a ring around March next year and praying for Obama to win.

Mr Obama has responded by suggesting that Mr Howard should put his money where his mouth is and as another 20 000 Australian soldiers to head over to Iraq.

This was followed by our newly appointed opposition leader inviting Mr Howard to a public debate on the issue of Iraq and the Australian presence there.

Mr Howard has declined.

I hope Mr Rudd wins the next election here. I think he will make a most excellent Prime Minister.

I SAW THAT ON THE COLBERT REPORT (a TV show on Comedy Central in the States)! Yeah, it was a really funny bit where Stephen Colbert said to Mr. Howard FUCK OFF and stop talking shit about a United States citizen, that's our job to criticize our own.

Well, it was funny on the show; I can't emulate the hilarity sorry.

I can imagine it's doing the rounds there just as it is here. Howard has really forked up this time. It was about time his bubble burst anyway...in my opinion.

Hillary owns the entrenched powers in the Democratic Party and has the deepest pockets. Obama can win the general election. Democrats have to decide whether to do the smart thing (vote for Obama) or do what they'll be told to (vote Hillary).

Or neither. Too early to trim it down to two.:headshake

I'm with Bruce. You heard it here first: neither one of them will get the nomination.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I don't even know the another Democratic candidate other than those two. But maybe I'm not well informed on politics...

You have a year and a half, you will find out about the rest.

If anyone has a list, that would be appriciated.

Besides Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, Democrats who are officially running are:

Joseph Biden
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Thomas Vilsack

Bill Richardson is 'exploratory.'

the thing that amazes me is that there are soooo many candidates that are throwing their collective 'hats in the ring' this far out from the actual election.. either speaks of a growing displeasure from the 'masses', an emboldened democratic party (or dis-satisfaction among the moderates/republican base), or people who really want their personal lives destroyed by more than a year of mud-slinging.

You're right Bruce. If you could position yourself around #4 letting Clinton, Obama, and Edwards bloody each other while you play the statesman, you could keep it interesting on the cheap.

yeah, that's kinda been bothering me.. I mean the election is oh.. more than a year and 1/2 away isn't it? and boiling it down to just those two seems awfully limiting. and aside from that I really don't think that america in general is ready for either a female or african descendent to hold the presidency... VP? sure. I just don't see it happening yet.

The midwest sucks...and this is why.
 

Just in mentioning this to my mother the other day, about Obama possibly running for President in '08,

my mother says,"He's in with those people who bombed the towers."

"Mom, you mean he's muslim?"

"YES!"

Now I never vote, because I am a pessimist, and I believe all people in government lie...but my mother and her ilk, they vote like it's their religion....

Good Luck:thepain:

Welcome down to the Cellar, libragirl213.:D
What you're describing is how this country got where we are today. The informed can't be bothered to vote and the extremists can't be stopped from voting.

Not that I care, but Obama is a christian.

As seen here.

The other thing that bothers me is they feel campaigning is more important than the business at hand in Washington.
And if the do find time to do a little of the goddamn work, we elected and are paying them to do, nothing they do or say stands on merit. Any statement they make is vilified or praised, depending on political strategy.
It's like trying to be a butcher and promote PETA at the same time. :right:

You mean white America right? Because I'm sure black America is more than ready for a president with African descent.


I don't see how religion is important. I still find it sad that a Muslim or Atheist could never be president for the next twenty or so years.

Try century.

Wow I'm not good at quoting previous stuff, so I'll just comment in general.

Yeah, my school is posting all these discussion on politics in the dorms and stuff with posters like "Obama is he black? Is he white?" My (white conservative pro-Bush Republican) friend the other day made a great point; he said at lunch "it doesn't matter the color of his skin, you vote for the ideology not for the outter shell."

Great stuff, since I'm pretty much the opposite of him but I still respect his ideas and beliefs as much as my own.

An idealist meets reality. It sounds good, and highly desirable, but hardly realistic.

There's also a catch22 aspect in that it matters to me because it matters to others.
I have to take into consideration can he do the job or will he, if elected, be inefectual because other people care about color. Should I vote for someone else, that I think would be efectual, but I don't think is as good? Or should I vote for him, fearing he can't do it, just to make a statement? But if I do that I'm voting for color, which is just as bad as voting against it.

So it will always be complicated by other peoples positions. I can't see that it makes a hill of beans if a woman or black man/woman ever gets to be president, as long as the ones that are president do a good job, but I understand I'm in the minority(no pun) there. I couldn't understand the superbowl deal either, I thought the superbowl was about football.

I guess I'm not sensitive enough and need more diversity training.:D
I'm performance oriented and get annoyed with the bullshit that distracts them from the job at hand.

Tear that shit down or write "who gives a fuck" on it. I believe he is mixed so he isn't white or black, he's gray :D .

Grab a horizontal rope by its center and raise it. Those two flaying and fraying ends are called the left and right wing. They flay in the wind because they "vote for the ideology". Centrists don't vote for a political agenda because logic does not use ideology when making a decision. Therefore centrists in mass numbers last November voted against the neo-cons, their corruption, and an unjustified war based only in an ideology. Centrists grasp reality - which is why the center of that rope is higher on an intelligence scale. Meanwhile, those two frayed ends are banging on one another as the wind blows because their conflict is only about ideology – only about the wind.

An independent obtains facts from numerous perspectives; which sometimes come even from extremists. As both Ronald Cherrycoke and Urbane Guerrilla demonstrate, such extremists know using a political agenda - their ideology – what they are told to think from Rush Limbaugh, et al - rather than learn from history, reality, science, and the numbers. For example, Urbane Guerrilla posted extensively about his knowledge of Vietnam back in Aug 2005 in a discussion entitled “Understanding terrorism”. UG never even read the Pentagon Papers. But UG knows. His ideology includes ‘evil communists’ rather than first learn perspectives.

Ronald Cherrycoke even posts this extremist myth: Why didn't he cite a source? He knows using ideology. Ideology is sufficient as fact?

Centrists learn and then also learn the 'whys'. Even more important, a centrist wants numbers. Ideologues don't even care ‘why’. Subjective reasoning is too often sufficient. A political agenda machine told 'brown shirts' what to know. Extremists knew Saddam was evil even though Saddam was an American ally. Extremists just know; that latter fact be damned. Even Islamoterrorism is cited as proof. Classic ideologue reasoning; not what an informed American would say.

Ideologues demand that we hold the rope horizontally rather than in the center. So that extremists can be equal? Why? They could not bother to first learn – a prerequisite for intelligence? One could not even read the Pentagon Papers and yet knows all about Vietnam? One promised to discuss Thomas Barnett’s book on 9 Nov 2006. Then realized Barnett promotes “nation building” which extremists oppose. So he quietly stopped reading it. Only extremists would refuse to learn of things opposed to their ideology.

Meanwhile, a real patriot asks embarrassing questions, pushes out the envelope, constantly questions, demands numbers, has little need for a political agenda, and always wants to know the ‘why’. A patriot sees a world chock full of perspectives and has little tolerance for ‘black and white’, ‘good and evil’ concepts from ideology.

Grab that rope by its center. Notice how its extremist ends flay in the wind. Only an extremist uses ideology to vote.

yeah, I did mean white america. myself being both 'white' (more of a slightly pale peach colour really. fuzz included) and american. am more than ready for a change.. I'm really sick of old school ivy league skull and bones politically entrenched candidates. but peanut farmer joe down the street is so awash in misinformantion and bias that I don't think it's going to happen. now.. think of the VP as a gateway drug to the 'highest' office.. just getting people used to the idea will go a long way in terms of getting someone other than the aforementioned whitebread,cookie cutter, bland (but not too hard on the eyes) candidates. the system is screwed up and corrupt.. and I'd like to see it change.

But what white President wants a black VP, just a heartbeat(his) away from the Presidency....and vice versa. :worried:

well therein lies the trick.. I mean do you want dick cheney running the place? (all argument aside that he already is) the situation is much more palatable to the general public (as far as i've seen anyway) and geez.. when was the last time a prez got whacked/tossed out of office? Nixon? odds are that it won't be a problem.. sadly enough

There's nothing Bush did that Cheney didn't do double.

I'm less sure about that, there's some awfully crazy people out there. Granted the security for the Dynamic Duo at the top is heavy duty, but short of nobody gets to see them except on TV (which separates the Prez and reality even further), it's almost impossible to stop a serious Rambo. :(

I like Obama, but I'm concerned that something is going to "give." We saw it with Howard Dean as we grew closer to the Iowa caucuses. Obama has a flaw somewhere, and I fear it could be potentially devastating. Hell, someone has probably already printed it and no one's picked up on it yet...or cared enough.

true, someone who was dead set on knocking out one or both of the top dogs (as it were) could do it.. but quite a few of the whack-jobs that would be interested in that seem to have a heavy pro-white agenda and EEK! kill the top man and you've got a woman or a black man in charge.. and you only get one shot at something like that.. security is tight now.. but just imagine how tight it would be after an assasination (or attempt) and seeing as how this govt is not particularly pro-active about these sorts of things (or wasn't atleast pre 9/11). anywhoo! I think it would act as a bit of a deterrent.

A hero of song and fable, to rival Bill Brasky. :D

Goddamn, that is some funny shit. Someone should create a song/video in the vein of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?"

For all I know, it's been done already.

On topic, here's 2:47 of Obama, in November 02, on Iraq: practically prescient.

Compare/contrast the first 3 minutes of this, Hillary in March 2003.

Doesn't play for me in the embedded post. Here's the direct link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_KEWUU33Lg

Obama is certainly more articulate and more to the point in these two clips. Clinton comes across as a wishy washy politician trying to straddle the fence. She's also far more boring in her clip.

Okay, Joe Biden. :)

Obama is getting out ahead of this VA nightmare.

Did you hear that punk Army surgeon general try to blame the injured troops for the crap conditions in building 18? He's been relieved of command, prick outa be court marshalled.

Hear his latest scandal? He asks poor people for campaign contributions!

nothing like having a whole lot of people with a vested interest in your success. Even $5 gives you a connection to his campaign. That can make a big difference


Hillary must have some people worried. I'm getting tons of emails with Hillary jokes, doctored Hillary pics, and phoney news items There has been a steady trickle for years, but it's become a flood of late. :eek:

my bad, this clown is still in the mix.

As of this moment Obama is the uniter while Hillary is more Bushian. It is still way early.

bump - the calender is calling...... BigV

Looking good with the early call there.

And in a different context I thought this was excellent:
half :lol:, half, ouch!