The Runaway O Train

A lot of what I am putting up today concerns Obama. The New Hampshire results mean that he is far from inevitable but he is still a serious threat to the good governance of the USA. The excerpt from Bob Parkes immediately below is one viewpoint about why Obama is doing as well as he is so far

It would appear, unless he commits the mother of all gaffes, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. Why the finality here? Because we've been there, done that.

Less than two years ago, a similar train left the station. In Massachusetts, it was the D Train. Deval Patrick carpetbagged into the state, campaigned on "Together We Can", and sought to become the first Black governor of The Bay State. There was the allure of history being made and the guilt-ridden bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

His opposition was a female Republican that, unfortunately, delivered the same old, antiquated message. We got the same old AARP-era, focus group vetted, plastic deliveries. Deval Patrick spoke from the heart, while the Republican stuck to the script. Patrick went on to a resounding victory over an opponent no one has heard from since.

When Obama takes the oath, will he be all that he promised? Deval Patrick should be in a wheelchair, considering how many times he's shot himself in the foot. The state of Massachusetts is in a financial quagmire, hemorrhaging businesses and people fleeing unchallenged liberal regulations and taxation run amok.

Barack Obama has offered mucho "change" and "hope". "Change" and "hope", when it comes to politicians, often has a hefty price tag. When history is made, the moment will be, we'll all feel special, and people move on. The D Train lost its luster, and so will the O Train.

Source

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Yuk!: "Obama's appeal in part is that he incarnates the Democratic Party. He is both a highly educated member of the upper middle class and a half-minority. As one of my acquaintances put it, referring to the way Obama blends an educated articulation of policy positions with the uplifting cadences of the African-American preacher: "Who better to represent us?" Some continue: "Who better to heal our racial wounds?" When I press them on this point, explaining that I live in the most racially diverse neighborhood in the U.S. and that I'm not looking for a priestly President who can absolve me of my sins, I'm told that such absolution is a good thing-whether I want it or not."


Obama - A Clean, Well Spoken Idiot: "It's almost like the "Second Coming", but not of Martin Luther King, as Hillary notes. But to see how the MSM and a lot of America is fawning over Barak Obama is indicative of how gullible we have become. After all this is the America that celebrates third-rate, drug addicted trailer trash - such as Britney Spears, and yet still considers her a "celebrity"..... it appears that the fact that Obama, who is even more of a leftist than Hillary Clinton, who can speak well and - in the words of Joe Biden is a - "A Clean Black", is wooing everyone into submission (did I say submission?). Which is more indicative of just how stupid we have become as a nation. Forget the substance, just sit dumbly and get mesmerized by the music. Note that no one is talking about his ideas which in the case of foreign policy border on the insane, or even of his background, much of which has yet to be answered for. It's all about how he looks and talks, as if those were the only criteria. So we may have an idiot as the next president, albeit a well spoken one."


A remarkably sober comment from a Leftist: "Obama has a great deal of crossover ideological appeal, based primarily on style and mood rather than policy substance. By standard measures, Obama is on the most left-hand side of the respectable political distribution (things like ADA and ACU scores). Now, these may not be great predictors of his behavior in office. In fact, my gut tells me that he's not highly committed to Democratic government producerist interests, and that he has a considerable libertarian streak. But there's just no way to know, and it's not quite clear that he even really knows, since he hasn't had to figure out what his abstract positions mean when faced with lots of zero-sum choices between alternative courses of action (see above on experience). A considerable part of Obamania syndrome (of which I am a victim) is a tendency to project our own beliefs onto the guy. So, more moderate Democrats and even conservatives extrapolate from the fact that he is respectful toward their views, that he is sympathetic to them. Which may be true, but probably isn't"