The Kind of Things That Ensure Obama’s Defeat in November
June 8th, 2008 at 05:27pm Matt Margolis
It’s stories like these that prove that Obama’s general election electability has been grossly overestimated by his loyal followers.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who wrapped his party’s presidential nomination just this week, is already besieged by liberal constituencies demanding that he cut military spending to boost social programs.
Two influential liberal groups have sent the presumptive Democratic nominee a letter pressing him to support cuts to defense programs to pay for universal preschool, relief for Americans facing foreclosure on their homes and expanded benefits for military veterans.
The demands carry weight because the groups, the Black Leadership Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), represent two constituencies that are important to Obama’s political strategy: blacks and Hispanics.
Their calls for defense cuts have drawn the support of leading House liberals, many of whom gave Obama crucial support early in his contest against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
[...]
Since clinching the party’s nomination on Tuesday, Obama has already tacked to the right on security issues in preparation for the general election. During a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Wednesday, Obama proposed sanctions on Iran that analysts viewed as far tougher than what he suggested before.Now Obama must balance tough talk on national security with the desires of many Democrats to slim American military power.
Of course, his desire for tea parties with terrorists isn’t exactly what I call tough talk on national security, but the point is still relevant. Liberal special interests don’t want our country to be a military power — and I’m certain Obama doesn’t either, but he can’t be too honest about it on the campaign trail, especially now that he needs to appeal to general election voters, not just the far left voters of the Democratic Primaries.
I think that the closer we get to Election Day, the more Obama will have to find some balance between his far left ideology with general election rhetoric. How can he please the liberal special interests while maintaining electability in November? He can’t.
Obama won’t be just feeling pressure from liberal special interests, but from within the Democratic Party itself.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the rapid growth of defense spending compared to domestic spending in recent years is “outrageous.” She wants to slim defense programs and boost education and healthcare funding.
Lee and other House liberals would like to see about $60 billion in defense spending cuts. Specifically, they want to steer money away from what they call “Cold War-era” weapons systems, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Liberals have also called for cuts to the ballistic missile defense program, the F/A-22 Raptor, the V-22 Osprey and the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer.
“This is one of many issues the caucus will be talking about to him,” Lee said of plans to press Obama on defense budget cuts. “I’m definitely going to present this.”
And we’re definitely going to be interested in Obama’s response.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats
24 Comments
1. SEW | June 8th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
You mean kind of things like this from the highly touted Obama website?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30245_At_the_Official_Obama_Site-_The_Israeli_Connection_to_9-11/comments/#ctop
Barry, you da man.
2. JustAnotherTaxpayer | June 8th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Gas just reached a national average of 4 dollars a gallon, the highest price ever, and is poised to go higher still, the Dow lost 400 pts last friday on news that the unemployment rate rose a half point in a month for the first time since 1986, according to AP Rev Jeffrey Dillon asked his parishners during mass in a NY Catholic Church not about abortion, the homosexual agenda, or going to hell, instead asking , “Do subprime mortgages scare you?” and having already eclipsed Jimmy Carters fall in the polls, Bush is trying to take the title of least popular President in the history of polling away from Truman.
What’s McCain gonna do? Beg the recipients of the Iraqi welfare program to give us a little bit of help in exchange for the 4000 lives and half trillion dollars we’ve sacrificed thus far? And the image of welfare cheats living in marginal apts on food stamps is being ecliped by loser CEO’s who use the Bush tax cuts to hold onto even more of their multimilion dollar severance packages recieved for destroying thier companies so they can continue to live in their mansions and ride their limos, while their former employees look for ways to keep their homes from going into foreclosure.
Please, Mr. Margolis, who are you kidding? After looking at the headline, I didn’t even bother to read your post. This isn’t about the Dems, who were hijacked in 1964 by secular libs lead by Johnson. They got their spanking in 1994, and have been lame ever since.
This is about the hijacking of the republican party by religious liberals lead by Reagan who took the 1 trillion dollar debt built up by 39 predecessors, 96 congresses, and 205 years of national existence and turned it into a 9.4 trillion dollar debt of which 26% or 2.3 trillon is owed to foreigners. That’s double the 1988 percentage when Reagan left office, and roughly 16% of the GDP.
The socialist hijackers have had their party, and have stuck us with the tab. Nobody wants the hijackers anymore. This preseidential campaign has moved beyond an “Anybody but Bush Movement” to anybody whose not a republican.
Oh, yeah, Obamas headed for defeat, and Santa Claus is going to restore the equity in your home, and the easter bunny is going to stop all foreclosure proceedings in homes where children leave him their teeth, and praying against gay marriage will bring down the price of gas, and wearing American flag lapel pins made in China will save our jobs…sure.
Have a nice day!
Oh…and before you or one of the other sensible Bush supporters whose lost equity in their homes, or their home, or their job, declare my post “a ridiculous rant”, I wonder, have you tried explaining how the Bush tax cuts that benefit loser CEO’s also help people who are having their homes forclosed, yet? If so, how did it go? Anyone else give it a try?
3. SEW | June 8th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
“What’s McCain gonna do?” JAT
McCain will have huge problems, primarily a Dem Congress that has done absolutely nothing since 2006. About all he can do is what Dubya did, veto the tax and spend socialist agenda.
“Gas just reached a national average of 4 dollars a gallon, the highest price ever, and is poised to go higher still, the Dow lost 400 pts last friday on news that ”
Hussein Obama is the presumptive nominee?
Wall Street responding to the $4 a gallon that started with the Dems controlling Congress. Be afrain, very afraid. Socialism has never worked and the economy is fearful and responding appropiately.
4. Casper | June 8th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
SEW,
Keep trying. I have a feeling the Bush administration will the the credit for the economy. Nice try though.
5. phnx | June 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
“After looking at the headline, I didn’t even bother to read your post.” JAT
This surprises no one.
6. JustAnotherTaxpayer | June 8th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
SEW
I agree with you 100%! The dems are lame, and have no more power to control events than the republicans.
We have spent ourselves into oblivion.
The editors of this blog summed it up well when they said they were social conservatives.
Not FISCAL conservatives. The reality is that they are religious liberals, they are liberals, socialists!
And like their secular counterparts, they are interested in using govt to redistribute wealth
to a minority through tax schemes, and in the case of no bid contracts, outright giveaways.
What’s more, while secular liberals want to force me to pay for the mistakes of the poor, at least they want me to do it for people who live here. Their religious counterparts want me to pay for the mistakes Iraqis made in allowing someone like Saddam to become their leader.
SEW, I don’t want to pay for the mistakes of the poor, I don’t want to pay for the mistakes of the rich, and I don’t want to pay for the mistakes
of the Iraqis. And I don’t want anybody to pay for mine.
I am responsible for myself, and my family. Neither the secular, nor their religious counterparts
understand that idea of individual responsibility.
Both believe in centralized power for the sake of redistributing income to people who did not earn it, and who will waste it to the ruin of themselves, and larger society.
Giving taxbreaks to a fool like Angelo Mozilo runing a casino called Countrywide, to return to people in the form of no doc, nothing down, arm loans is the same as spending on any welfare program, here at home, or in Iraq. But the breathtaking scale of the sub prime mortgage welfare program exceeded any secular liberals dream. Well, the religious liberals have failed now, too.
Barry Goldwater ran as a republican in 1964, fiscal discipline, a military as strong as it needed to be(He did not advocate using nukes in Vietnam. He said we should we use everything we have to end the conflict on terms acceptable to us as soon as possibe, or stay out of it. Advice Bush wouldv’e done well to heed.)including, if they wanted to serve, gays. He didn’t think it was the buisiness of govt to police the activities of consenting adults.
Mind your own buisiness, pay your own way, pull your own weight. Gosh, what a country we would be if a real republican was running it.
One good thing may come of the socialists failure, now that it is complete. Maybe a real republican will eventually get the chance to.
One things certain:we can’t keep going like this.
7. JustAnotherTaxpayer | June 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
phnx,
And a literate, educated man like Bush doesn’t read either! And is proud of it!
I’m emulating your leader.
Isn’t that a good thing?
Have you taken up the challenge to explain how the Bush tax cuts that benefit loser CEO’s also help someone whose home is getting forclosed on?
I could use that to help me explain the benefits of the Bush tax cuts to a serviceman I’ve mentioned in other posts who can’t sell his home though he’s reduced the asking price to $76,000 less than he’s paid for it.
He’s changed realtors after 5 months with not one look, and no asking price is posted now. It’s make an offer.
Come on guys! Help me out here. We need to support the troops when they’re home to. Not just when they’re overseas.
Mission Accomplished!
Have a nice day!
8. SEW | June 8th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I want for a moment, however, to talk about those two sentences of Bloom’s about Bush and books. They piqued my curiosity: whatever could Bloom be referring to? Did Bush really boast of “never having read a book through, even at Yale?”
The closest I could come to the origin of the statement was a joke Bush made at a dinner. Bloom’s remarks seem to have been based on the following self-deprecating quip Bush made at a black-tie event prior to the 2000 election:
William F Buckley wrote a book at Yale. I read one.
Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d accuse Bloom of a lack of reading comprehension. Or perhaps it’s a lack of listening comprehension. Or maybe he just doesn’t get the difference between a joke and a serious declarative statement; certainly, his works don’t show an especially well-developed sense of humor, as best I can recall.
And what of Bush’s actual reading habits, not his Bloom-imagined ones? Well, he seems to like his books long:
Married to a former librarian, Bush likes short speeches and, judging from a recent reading list (Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, Joseph J. Ellis’s His Excellency: George Washington), lengthy books. Early in its first term the Bush White House established an authors lecture series, which enabled the president to pick the brains of David McCullough, Edmund Morris, Martin Gilbert, Bernard Lewis, and Robert Kaplan, among others. Bush has publicly acknowledged his debt to Natan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy, which distinguishes between “free” and “fear” societies, and exalts Ronald Reagan’s moral confrontation with Soviet tyranny. A recent New York Times story described his admiration for Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
I’m not sure how these works would sit with Bloom–but they certainly qualify as books. In addition Bush, according to the same article, reads the Bible or the works of Oswald Chambers (a Scottish-born chaplain) every morning. With Bloom’s emphasis on how the religious right is responsible for so many ills in America, I would have guessed that he’d be none too pleased with that reading matter.
But it turns out I’d be wrong. Here’s Bloom’s Western Canon, his list of essential books for the educated, literate person. It turns out that the Bible, King James version, is one of the first on the list. De Tocqueville doesn’t get mentioned, but surely Bush should get at least a tiny bit of credit from Bloom for his Bible study? Seems not.
Jose Canseco walked away from his mortgage also. He said the lender owned it, why should he continue to pay more than it was worth? And we have had 7 1/2 years of a very good economy, stimulated by Bush tax cuts that create jobs, not utopia. If BO wins, which I doubt will happen, too green, too much heavy baggage, anti whitey and anti American, but if he does, the economy will tank big time.
9. JustAnotherTaxpayer | June 8th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
SEW,
The economy is already is already tanking, big time. As far as Bush being literate, yeah, that is kind of a joke. But that’s part of the image he helped craft, and was sold by Rove to the American people. Now, it’s part of the fodder that’s tossed back at him.
But his reputation for being largely unaware of what’s going on when he should be engaged was, I believe, well earned. Typified by his repetition of the statement to close advisors as the invasion and insurgency unfolded in Iraq ” I thought they were all muslims.” failing to take into account, as he did with so many other things, the difference between Sunni and Shia. (McCain demonstrated the same ignorance.)
If you want speeches from a real republican, a real American try reading full speeches or quotes from Dwight D Eisenhower. Bush oughtta read about him, too. Both Kennedys are quoted far too much, and Eisenhower far too little. A few examples from an American who worked for the last 6 of his 8 years in office with a strong democratic majority, and left office highly respected by all.
“Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.”
“I despise people who go to the gutter on the right or the left and throw rocks at the people in the center.”
Bush oughtta read more Eisenhower cause he sure doesn’t act like him.
What does Jose Canseco have to do with this?
Have a nice day!
10. SEW | June 8th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
What does Jose Canseco have to do with this? JAT
“a serviceman I’ve mentioned in other posts who can’t sell his home though he’s reduced the asking price to $76,000 less than he’s paid for it.
He’s changed realtors after 5 months with not one look, and no asking price is posted now. It’s make an offer.” JAT
I was simply responding to your remark.
If his equity is greater than the loss I doubt he would walk away but that is the Canseco comparison. That being said, real estate prices fluctuate as do gas prices, hogs, soybeans etc. When in a real estate bubble, rent.
11. JustAnotherTaxpayer | June 8th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
SEW,
The editors here always talk about supporting the troops. Is this the best that can be done? This guys mortgae is too high to be supprted by a renter in this market.
And what of my comments about Eisenhower?
Would appreciate your thoughts.
12. Thrower | June 9th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Eisenhower was a very underrated guy. He lacked charisma and was inept at public speaking by current standards but he had incredible instincts and he saw the current crop of warmongers and profiteers coming more than 40 years before they appeared. He is one more great American leader who would be appalled at what the current crop of Republicans have done to the party.
13. Gaijin | June 9th, 2008 at 12:58 am
The US spends more on Defense than the rest of the WORLD combined. There is something wrong with that, when one in four houseless people is a vet.
Much of the economy, just like Bush’s “Ownership Society,” is smoke a mirrors. Sure house ownership rates went up, they were giving outrageous loans to people who had no business getting loans. What do you know, coporate America got rich and some people got screwed. Some rightly so, but while you lost $10-20,000 in value in your home cause two down the street foreclosed, that has to feel good. As for the economy, good jobs have been lost and outsourced. They have been replaced with servers, bartenders and fry cooks at McDonald’s.
Would you like freedom fries to go with your McSame today? Matt, you and your party are going to get PWNED this fall! Mark is at least smart enough to be wary of the elections. America is at a turning point, and you and your ilk are going to be left behind.
Peace, Gaijin
14. Jeremiah | June 9th, 2008 at 2:01 am
America is at a turning point, and you and your ilk are going to be left behind.–Gaijin.
Mirror mirror on the wall, Gaijin is the “smartest” of them all…
BWAAAAHAHAHAAAAA!
Keep dreaming, dude.
15. JustAnotherTaxpayer | June 9th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Thrower,
Thanks for listening. I’m glad somebody out there is.
Gaijin,
Where did you get that stat on vet homlessness? Would like to know.
16. Thrower | June 9th, 2008 at 3:30 am
I am listening to more than you JAT. I have tenants who have lost work, friends whose companies have defaulted on pension obligations, other friends with struggling businesses as too much of consumer’s discretionary income goes directly or indirectly to oil and gas interests, I am paying $4.40 for gas myself, I am appalled that we are burning up our military personnel with multiple deployments to a hellhole we never should have invaded in the first place, I am wondering who sat on Cheney’s energy task force and what their recommendations have done to the bottom lines of their companies, I hate the notion that we can’t offer current military personnel the same college deal my father got after World War II, I’m delighted the Clintons are gone from the national stage and I can’t wait for the Bushes to follow. And finally, I’m wondering just how badly Obama will beat a guy who is too tightly wedded to the folks who drove our great country into the ditch we all unfortunately occupy.
17. Upton Sinclair | June 9th, 2008 at 7:02 am
There is what is being called another Katrina in Mason City, Iowa.
The town is underwater and they have received absolutely no outside help. Bush’s FEMA abandoned them. People will remember this in November.
State of Emergency - Disaster Declaration
A state of Emergency has been declared and the area will be declared a Disaster Area. The water levels are reported to be stable on the news, but I can tell you thats not the case where we are. They are still rising. Here’s a list of what we are hearing on the radio and some local facts.
Mason City, Iowa is a city of about 30,000 people. Two Rivers converge in downtown Mason City. Mason City is located 25 miles south of the Minnesota/Iowa border near Interstate 35.
We have had over six inches of rain in the last 24 hours and over ten inches in the last three days.
A curfew is in effect and all businesses are closed.
Hundreds of houses and businesses are under water.
A third of the City is totally cut off and isolated by flood waters. I am in that area.
The Mason City water plant has been inundated and now the water is unsafe to drink and use for the entire City.
Large areas are being evacuated and City transit buses are taking people ten miles west to Clear Lake, Iowa where evacuation centers are set up.
Porta Potties are being set up around the city tonight because the sewer system is also failing and all 30,000 residents are being told not to use toilets etc. We still have water pressure because the water towers are not yet empty but unsure how long that will last. The City has a 5 million gallon underground water storage facility but that area is entirely underwater and they fear the entire water system is contaminated.
18. SEW | June 9th, 2008 at 8:24 am
“There is what is being called another Katrina in Mason City, Iowa.”
Bush induced Global Warming causing hurricanes in Iowa? Haven’t heard that one yet.
19. hermie | June 9th, 2008 at 8:55 am
FEMA cannot come in until the State of Iowa has taken the legal steps to allow it to come in.
What has the governor of Iowa and the mayor of Mason City done to facilitate FEMA’s entry?
20. SEW | June 9th, 2008 at 9:35 am
“Bush’s FEMA abandoned them. People will remember this in November.”
Too bad for Iowa Governor Culver, the 1st Democrat Governor since 1937. My best to the residents in the River City, where a levee broke. The levee and Democrat leadership is similar to the Category 1 and 2 winds that struck New Orleans, was blamed on Bush, but Democrats were responsible.
21. Danish Artist | June 9th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Being from New Orleans and one forced to relocate, there is one thing that is obvious that the citizens of that are must all be black or democrats.
Karl Rove must be trying to adjust the demographics in that area for November.
All I see liberals doing, as usual, is pointing fingers and bitching. How many are going to the area and helping? How many are sending cash to the regional Red Cross? How many are not fighting to get in front of the camera to blame Bush and any Republican?
Liberals can be useless when they don’t have someoneelse’s money to give out.
22. Viral Nexus | June 9th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Do me a favor, please. All of you go to AOL Political Machine or any other site that has tracked all of the precinct election results for all states. There is not one county in the United States where you won’t find this one dynamic- the votes cast for the 2nd place Democratic nominee outnumbered the votes cast for the 1st place Republican nominee. More often than not the votes cast were double that of the Republicans. Unfortunetaly the GOP has yet to realize that people are voting for the Democrats, they are voting against the GOP. The funny thing is that it took the Democrats 40 years to screw up the publics faith in them while it only took the GOP 8 years. Great job guys. Keep up the good work.
23. Viral Nexus | June 9th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Lets try that again. The GOP has yet to realize that the people aren’t voting for the Democrats, they are voting against the GOP.
24. ddg 1000 zumwalt&hellip | July 23rd, 2008 at 9:13 am
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