Rush the vote: is "operation chaos" killing obama? Or are democrats?

The myth of Saint Barack is unraveling and Rush Limbaugh is taking the credit.

He and Laura Ingraham (KKOL m-f, 6-9a) are urging listeners to switch party affiliations and vote for Hillary Clinton to keep Democrats guessing all the way to the convention.who will be their candidate.

Limbaugh (KTTH m-f, 9a-12p) calls it Operation Chaos, and it's helping elect John McCain, a flawed candidate whose own Party dislikes him and ought to be polling in single digits.

While Big Pants' "campaign" is mostly hot air -- the kind that's made him the highest-rated radio talker in the history of the world. In Pennsylvania, where the crucial April 22 primary is closed to independents and Republicans, there are reports that at least some Republicans are switching their party registration by the March 24 deadline.

But Democrats are doing the best job of making sure John McCain wins in November.

While liberal pundits lead a chorus of praise for Obama's wonderful, groundbreaking, out loud white paper on race -- the average schmuck probably never heard it all at the same time.

What they've heard are snips of the speech with scornful commentary by such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Fox News has kept the Pastor Wright mishegoss front and center in their coverage and made it the filter through which all campaign news is filtered. The fiery sermons are looped over and over.

Of course, most liberals we know don't pay any attention to right-wing media. They're oblivious to one of the most important ways the pulse of America should be taken.

And there's no sign yet that the speech had any effect whatsoever on the spiraling Obama numbers.

Tracking polls show the precious, vital but volatile and fickle independents are having second thoughts -- in big numbers. Clinton's numbers have swung upwards by 9 points in week.

(These polls are notoriously unreliable at this stage of the race, but Obamers have been pointing to them for months as measures of his great popularity and ability to reach across all political boundaries).

Of a sudden those independents who loved Obama and considered him "just black enough," are thinking: maybe he's a little too black like the scary preacher turns out he's been hanging out with all these years.

We're worried about Obama's base supoort. Is he Howard Dean 2004 except with the black vote?

Obama has energized African-Americans in a way no one ever has. Stands to reason, of course: he's kick-started participation from people in the black community who have never seen a viable black presidential candidate or felt they had much of a stake in American elections.

That said, many African-Americans who have sat out other elections feeling disenfranchised are by definition politically unseasoned and a little naive. In a community where the idea of being disrespected is taken very personally, they may not understand that the shit-flinging is equal opportunity here in political America.

They may be already thinking this is just business as usual and feeling dissed by the gloves-on campaign jabs by Hillary Clinton. We doubt they'd turn out in November if Hillary beat Obama  -- Obama's negative and self-righteous campaign has seen to that.

With the other large segment of Obama support -- young voters who have a perfect record of being reliably unreliable, the campaign's base looks troublingly effervescent.

Big Pants' audience aren't all right-wing hatemongers, mind you. There's a shitload of those blessed, sought-after independents listening too. His huge audience is huger than that's apparent looking at his numbers. Significant, too, are his many imitators, and clones across the country who do what he does, grokking correctly that his broadcasting instincts are correct. and they can ride his rhetorical coattails to ratings success.

(This is nothing new, of course, the AM talk radio industry has been built on this strategy).

That's why the stirring bloviations of Pastor Wright aren't going away. That's why Obama's numbers are volatile --  independents are scared -- and, having taken a chance by considering him in the first place, are going, if not due south, at least sidling southwest.

Meanwhile, Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the controversy's "shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional candidates." 

No shit. There'll never be "new politics" any more than there'll will be "new human beings."

This is about the transferring of power of the most powerful country in the modern world, here. Not becoming America's Idol or chairman of a sociology department.

The Republicans play it that way, the Democrats don't. The Republicans win with bad candidates, the Democrats lose with good ones. 

Pastor Wright will be out of the news eventually. But these videos of him ranting like a Black Panther are a direct link to the racial politics Barack's been trying to stay above. He's not put it away, and cannot. It's the crack in the plaster icon the R's have been praying for. All future attacks will emanate from it.

Race anger will be the subtext of the Republican campaign against Obama forever more.

It had to happen, but what's the most maddening and troublesome is that the amoral, craven Republicans have hijacked the highroad on race.

Lord have mercy, god damnit...

Comments

[abob]

Rev James Manning sez Hillary Clinton is a better choice for President because Obama is a
Mack Daddy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khuu-RhOBDU

[chucks]

Michael
This is the most up lifting post that I have ever seen you write. The only point that I find objectionable is when you state that the Democrats lose with good candidates. I look back as far as Eisenhower and do not see one time that a good Democrat candidate has lost. Can only think of one really bad that did win. Carter.
Anyway, thanks for the post.
Your "delusional fan"
Chuck

[abob]

Obama has a major problem. His entire campaign is built on the premise that his good judgment mitigates his inexperience. Obama's 20 year association with a race baiting, America hating pastor erodes the foundation of his appeal. White voters will begin to doubt the basis of Obama's candidacy; his good judgment.

[BART]

I so agree with you, Mr. Hood. Hillary has been totally trashed by the Obama campaign. She cannot win, now and neither can he. Race will be the subtext of every issue discussed in the Fall campaign if he's nominated, which he will. Dems love to feel good.

[sparky]

As I said to Duffman, the latest polls were taken before Obama's speech. Let a few days go by and then see if he has gained any of it back, or not.

[howie in seattle]

I believe it was Mark Twain who said, "Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated."

[sparky]

Breaking news
2 State Department employees fired for illegal investigation of Obama's passport history.

[chucks]

It is another 23 months until November. Seems like it anyway.
It is going to be a long long campaign season.
Obama told 310WIP host Angelo Cataldi this morning "The point I was making was not that my Grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person".
Now I want to know what a typical white person is. Am I one? How about you Sparky? Maybe joanie and Trent Lott or cppi and W J Clinton? Is it Goldy or John Carlson?
Really doesn't matter. There is no such thing. If he keeps coming up with that kind of ammo, he won't be around. It will be Clinton or McCain.
Pretty sure McCain and Clinton will say stupid stuff as well, but that statement is "special". It will be used in October. Maybe not by McCain, but by some PAC.

[abob]

To paraphrase Adalai Stevenson:

Every thinking person in America will vote for Obama. But unfortunately he needs a majority.

[joanie hussein for Obama]

...independents are scared...

Hear that boys? He's talking fear again. All you seem to respond to is fear. That's your trump card - that's your only card. What a bunch of cowardly losers.

...the amoral, craven Republicans have hijacked the highroad on race.

No. Quit giving them credit where credit's not due. High road? Damn, you don't know the high road anymore if you think that. Sound bites do not make the man. The high road is taken by those of us who have an understanding of what went before. By the actions that led to the words.

These guys didn't need a preacher to change their minds. They were looking for reasons. If it weren't the preacher, it would have been something else. That's how white ignorance works.

I don't think Americans know what the high road is anymore.

And I still say Obama will overcome this if he stands strong, committed and sticks to his convictions. The last thing he needs to be is Kerry.

I don't care if the Dems win. I care that America wins. If the fools that take sound bites over substance, who demand more of a black man than they do of themselves, and who prefer war over education and health care give us another round of fascism, then so be it. In the end, they will have lost far more than the rest of us. The rest of us will have seen it coming.

BTW, it is the children and grandchildren who will suffer the most. And all because they took the low road. Let's put the blame where it belongs.

Sometimes those who digs holes end up falling in them themselves.

[Duffman]

Hang on folks...Mrs Clinton is changing the math. It 'had' to happen. This is SOoooo cool, you will soon see that she will be 'leading' in the popular vote. Sen Obama (& entourage) will be scratchin their heads sayin 'whaaat happened'...we were leading. Haha...welcome to Politics 101 'Clinton-style' Senator...you did well, far much better than expected. We'll see you on down the road.
Try to get to Church once in a while. :)

[PugetSound]

Try to get to Church once in a while. :)

Posted by: Duffman | March 20, 2008 at 06:55 PM

"no.no.no.no.nooooo, not god bless hillary, i say god damn hillary...

[Duffman]

Yo Puts...what's up; can't you feel the 'tension' herein in regard to Sen Obama. It's the 'unknown' element and the fear factor that 'WELL....YES I guess I will be voting for Mrs Clinton..even tho I don't really want to. In Tommy008's words: Bwahahahahaha :)

[PugetSound]

Hey Duff
It is amusing to see the usual suspects doing cartwheels in not addressing the problems of Obama vis a vi Rev Wright. Or the fact that Hillary may well get the nomination after all.

Very amusing.

[Duffman]

...and now it appears that someone has been tampering with Sen Obama's passport files...Oh My Toto...indeed we're not in So Chicago any more. Welcome to 'hardball, USA'. :)

[PugetSound]

Hey Duff
You see the legitimate outrage over the Obama passport files. Compare that to the hundreds of raw FBI files that the Clinton Administration requested and received from the Whitehouse under the guise of security clearances.

[Duffman]

Yep...she's 'got the goods' on many and she'll pick the time to use it. Can we say 'super-dels'...sure we can boys and girls. It gets better. Hey Sen Obama...not quite like the Illinois Legislature, eh? :)

[joanie hussein for Obama]

From the NY Times, Nicholas Kristof:

"The outrage over sermons by Mr. Wright demonstrates how desperately we as a nation need the dialogue about race that Mr. Obama tried to start with his speech on Tuesday.

Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his church say that is an unrecognizable caricature: He is a complex figure and sometimes a reckless speaker, but one of his central messages is not anti-white hostility but black self-reliance.

“The big thing for Wright is hope,” said Martin Marty, one of America’s foremost theologians, who has known the Rev. Wright for 35 years and attended many of his services. “You hear ‘hope, hope, hope.’ Lots of ordinary people are there, and they’re there not to blast the whites. They’re there to get hope.”

Professor Marty said that as a white person, he sticks out in the largely black congregation but is always greeted with warmth and hospitality. “It’s not anti-white,” he said. “I don’t know anybody who’s white who walks out of there not feeling affirmed.”

Mr. Wright has indeed made some outrageous statements. But he should be judged as well by his actions — including a vigorous effort to address poverty, ill health, injustice and AIDS in his ministry.

...What should draw much more scrutiny in this campaign than any pastor’s sermons is the candidates’ positions on education, health care and poverty — and their ability to put those policies in place. Cutting off health care benefits for low-income children strikes me as much more offensive than any inflammatory sermon.

Of course, this might be a tad to long for your limited attention spans and it does contain several compound sentences; however, you might find it a bit enlightening if you choose to be informed at all.

Then and again, I'm probably wastin' my time trying to reason with ignorant human beans.

[J.Hova]

As Bill Maher just quoted, Obama is the Jackie Robinson of politics.

Maher compares Obama to Jackie Robinson, because just like Robinson was when he broke the color barrier in baseball, Obama is held up to such a higher standard. He must appear flawless in a way that no white candidate would be expected to be. Would Obama's experience or patriotism be as obsessively attacked as it is if he weren't Black? I don't think so.

He also says what I think a lot of progressives are afraid of--"that we're one terrorist attack away from John McCain rising in the polls by ten points" because he's perceived as "tougher". But Maher correctly states that "McCain is not the toughest on Iraq, he's the dumbest."

[KS]

Agree with PS about the Obama passport situation. The Clintonista moles may have had something to do with that - won't put it past them.

The Right-wing talk show hosts think they have the inside on this election, when if you remember they did not want McCain. They have lost credibility with their actions. In other words, I am sick of this election manipulating by the right.

McCain will incur the wrath of the corrupt mainstream media who will try their level best to get a Democrat elected president. Most of the so-called reporters are despicable when it comes to reporting politics by conveniently leaving out the meat of the story, if it interferes with their political agenda. There is no such thing as reporters anymore. Why don't they do something useful for a change like go look for an interview with Osama bin Laden hiding out in Pakistan ?

[Tommy008]

Evil White Mens why they want to hate on Barack its them evil white mens why all the hate holmes? you all evil white mens barack is a prince Pastor Wright done saved his soul ain't nothing hateful about that preacher, Johnson he's a big old teddy bear sure he said you all the enemy cause you're evil white mens he only telling the truth, dog big old kindly teddy bear sure Pastor j said Americe deserved 911 had it comng with all you evil white mens chickens comin' home to rest, dog cause you evil white mens brought it on your own danm ugly selves, G.D. evil white mens G.D. America! you go, Pastor J.! talking about them evil white mens

[joanie hussein for Obama]

Get some sleep, tommy. Or get a brain scan. You lose the book deal?

[abob]

Obama is not the Jackie Robinson of politics. Obama gives good speech but can he hit a curve ball?

[joanie hussein for Obama]

You flunk metaphors in high school?

Figures.

BTW, didn't know curve balls counted in politics...I guess that's a conservative thing, huh?

[joanie hussein for Obama]

Richardson, long-time friend of the Clintons came out for Obama. That's a boost at the right time. Sorry Duffman.