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James Carville is right. Pounce!

I never thought very highly of James Carville. The Democratic strategist and ‘political critic’ in my view boasts a big Cajun mouth, but he never really achieved that much. The Bill Clinton presidency? If Ross Perot hadn’t taken in all those Bush-votes in ’92, Clinton would very likely still have been governor of Arkansas. And Carville knows this. But he has for the past 48 hours been bashing the Democratic Convention in Denver for not rolling out a Central Message. And he’s dead on.

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The Pope of Hope is losing

Back from my holidays in Morocco and Spain (it was fun, thank you – we sorta followed the ‘Moorish Trail’), and lo and behold! Barack Obama no longer seems to be in the lead. As the electoral college polls over at the (pro-GOP) Realclearpolitics.com and (more neutral) Fivethirtyeight.com websites show, John McCain has closed the gap. Obama needs to get worried.

The reasons why Obama is losing? It ain’t rocket science:

  1. He has not been able to convince voters that he’s made of the right stuff.
  2. People doubt him.
  3. He’s black. (Well, sorta.) Which doesn’t help, not in the USA anyway.
  4. They’re Americans; they can’t handle the truth!

In short, the four reasons that have been toiling in the back of my head ever since Obama became the Democratic candidate-in-waiting.

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Closing the deal

Yesterday, I wrote an article called ‘Deconstructing Obama’. In it, I gave a very short rundown of the only strategy that seems to be left to McCain: go personal. The reason being that Obama has had the initiative since day one, it seems.

But perhaps I was wrong. The tracking polls are starting to show dents in Obama’s armour. Over at Real Clear Politics (I’m always careful with these guys as they’re clearly pro-GOP), the latest rundown of tracking polls shows that although Obama is still leading, the margins seem to be getting smaller, not bigger.

That spells trouble for Obama. Of course, Americans being Americans, I would not be surprised if they once again elect someone who will tear their country even further apart. Because that’s what Republicans do: they pretend to be all Christian morals, but before you know it, they’re out with TV-ads calling people traitors and sodomizing your 3-year-old.

Either way, Obama has not yet been able to close the deal and I’m afraid that that’s because people are still very doubtful of him. Of course, American pigheads being American pigheads, they keep noticing that Obama is black. Perhaps that’s it. It can’t be because of ideological reasons. Because how many average Americans read candidate platforms these days?

I‘ve said from day one, so even before the primaries, that Americans were very capable of electing a carbon copy of George W Bush into office. I also predicted that the election would be very close.

When the new King of Expectation beat the Oracle of Chappaqua, I said I was convinced that any generic Republican would win the election. Now, I’m going back to that position. I’ll be keeping it until Obama truly starts improving his poll numbers and significantly moves away from McCain.

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John Nichols, Obama and Afghanistan

John Nichols of thenation.com is getting a bit infatuated with Barack Obama. That’s fine, a lot of journalists are being sucked in. John McCain should stop bitching about it – he was yesterday’s sweetheart for a long time, but that’s what he is. Yesterday’s news, just like Hillary Clinton was.

So it was refreshing to see Nichols criticizing Obama for a change in an article pasted here, but unfortunately, Nichols missed the mark. He was right to criticize Obama, but for the wrong reason.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain are right: more troops are needed in Afghanistan, but with one unifying mandate, not two different ones that cancel each other out. As is currently the case.

So I wrote Mr Nichols an email. To which he didn’t respond, of course.

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Keeping up appearances: the US economy

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” shouted John Lydon, singer of The Sex Pistols, at the end of their last (real) gig. One can only wonder how many Americans wake up each morning, and feel that somehow they’ve been cheated as well. Millions of them grew up with mom and dad telling them they work, and work hard, they could make quite a decent living for themselves. What are the moms and dads of today telling their kids as they load up the U-Haul trailers, to move away from the house they can no longer afford?

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Objectivity is always the victim of competition. Go ask Politico.com

Last week saw yet another victim of the war on two fronts that is coverage of political campaigning on one hand, and fighting off the competition on the other hand. The editor of Politico.com, a new political news website that shot to prominence, admitted that he allowed an article put up on the site which completely mischaracterized a candidate. Just as the original writer at the newspaper, which is vehemently opposed to the candidate, had intended. Said article in the New York Post took one sentence completely out of context, in an apparent drive to damage the candidate.

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Rita Verdonk, de nieuwste koude kermis

Rita Verdonk’s opmars in de peilingen lijkt onstuitbaar. Dat zal ook wel even zo blijven. Haar partij zal mogelijk in een volgende regering stappen – en dan zal Trots op Nederland een enorme duikeling maken. Want ook Verdonk’s partij zal gaan hervormen, en de rekening daarvan moet hoe dan ook betaald.

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These people are allowed to vote.

[youtube:www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&feature=related]

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Bye, Hill. Hello John?

hill21.jpgHillary Clinton should give up. She has lost. As predicted on this website before she got into the situation she’s in now, she cannot win the nomination without causing an implosion of the Democratic Party. The ‘Nuttyroots’ have hijacked the party; they are die-hard Obama fans, if only because most of the nutters are young and completely blinded by their love for Obama. Never mind that he’s just as much a calculating pol as is Hillary. (Christopher Hitchens has a fantastic article about that here.)

But now there’s another problem for the Democratic Party. Hillary’s die-hard supporters won’t jump over to Obama’s ship that easily, either. The Clinton campaign has succeeded in showing who the True Barack Obama is: a calculating politician. Doh. Those who believe that any politician can get to where Obama is now without culling dozens on the political battlefield need to go back to school.

And because of that, John McCain will win. Unless Hillary withdraws now.

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Stupid American Voter

For all the criticism levelled at Team Clinton for her so-called harsh treatment of Team Obama, the latter should be happy and thankful for it.

Why?

Because Team Obama can learn a thing or two from the attacks, knowledge it will need during the general election.