Tag: mccain

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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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Obama’s blunting strategy

There’s a strategy in nuclear war, believe it or not, that’s called Bravo-Romeo-Delta. The B stands for ‘blunting’, R for ‘retardation’, and D for ‘disrupting’. A blunting attack means that you’re trying to blunt the opposition’s capacity to strike you, retardation means you’re trying to take out your opponent’s communication infrastructure, and disruptive means you’re going all-out, in an effort to destroy your opponent’s means to conduct war. The Delta-stage is usually the last, and most destructive phase of nuclear conflict.

Over at RealClearPolitics, the GOP-leaning Tom Bevan looks at Barack Obama’s chances in getting 7 ‘red states’ to come over to his column. Bevan doubts that Obama’s strategy will work. But that’s beside the point. Obama’s campaign team is trying to ‘Bravo-Romeo-Delta’ the McCain team all at once. And the reason is that Obama simply has more money to buy ammunition, and the timeframe to do it.

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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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Deconstructing Obama

John McCain is on the offensive, and for all the wrong reasons. He has to find a way to dent Obama’s armor. For all intents and purposes, Obama is able to keep the initiative, constantly forcing his adversary to react and take on a defensive position. He is almost constantly asked by the media to respond to new Obama ploys.

In an effort to break that spell, McCain seems to have started a new offensive, directly attacking Obama’s persona. That puts him right where team Obama wants him. Unless something odd happens: if this continues, Obama will win the election.

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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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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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The Case Against Barack Obama UPDATED

obamabarack.jpgBarack Obama is destined to be the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. The young (46) Senator for Illinois has a number of advantages which he can exploit to the fullest. However, there are also two giant negatives that could pose severe problems for him during the general election — an election which will be just as closely fought as 2000 and 2004.

 

UPDATE: And now he’s starting to piss off the press corps.

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The Case Against McCain

mccain.jpgJohn McCain is destined to be the next nominee for the presidency on behalf of the Republican Party. Many Republicans don’t agree with him leading the pack, but votes are votes and all things being equal, McCain has decisively won most of the states during the Republican primary. And there are a number of traits and advantages that will help McCain in his fight against Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton. But there is also a very strong case against McCain; like Clinton, he carries a lot of negatives. And no, his age isn’t one of them.

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Prediction: she’s going to lose part II

The prediction still stands. It’s over. And yes, this had a LOT to do with it. (But then again: I basically wrote that story already on January 28.)

The media folks simply wanted a fresh body to suck on.