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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Well to be fair, the Times didn't have a quote from Obama or an aide or anything - they were just commenting on a slowdown in campaign stops since PA. In reality, we're seeing Obama start training on McCain a little more frequently in remarks, etc. The primary is winding down and Obama is looking toward the election. Inertia will give him the nomination by a fairly wide margin. I don't have a problem with looking forward to November.

i edited my post while you were commenting. i guess disregard whatever is now irrelevant because of your comment.

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Originally posted by jerZ07002 i edited my post while you were commenting. i guess disregard whatever is now irrelevant because of your comment.

She needs to net 70% of the remaining delegates. Assuming they come out roughly equal in pledged delegates, that means she needs 85% of unpledged superdelegates in order to take the lead at this point. It's not entitlement on the behalf of Obama - it's a realistic appraisal of her chances.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov She needs to net 70% of the remaining delegates. Assuming they come out roughly equal in pledged delegates, that means she needs 85% of unpledged superdelegates in order to take the lead at this point. It's not entitlement on the behalf of Obama - it's a realistic appraisal of her chances.

you are free to call it whatever you want, but the fact is he hasn't locked it up yet. He still needs to close the deal. He is not entitled to say he is the nominee until he wins it. So by suggesting he is tired of the primary means he thinks he is entitled to the nomination. i just want this to play out until the nominee is decided. Making decisions based on assumptions of future occurrences is not definitive enough for me.

I think the two just need to fight to the death. I'll even accept a draw.

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Originally posted by jerZ07002 support that! you have no idea that if obama loses those independents that supported obama wouldn't support hillary. Just because they initially voted for obama doesn't preclude them from supporting clinton. You are also suggesting that they will only vote if obama wins. support that claim. If independents are mad about the way the republicans ran the country the last 8 years why wouldn't they vote for clinton (who you admitted has nearly the same stance on most issues)?

Brent Scowcroft (a Republican) offered a pretty good answer to this today. Obama's foreign policy agenda is strikingly different than either Hillary's or McCain's on this point, and I think it is one that resonates with moderates (like Scowcroft).

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Brent Scowcroft Echoes Obama: We Need To Talk To Enemies April 28, 2008 04:33 PM Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at [email protected]. *********************************** Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, said on Monday that he agrees with the position, stated mainly by Sen. Barack Obama, that the U.S. would benefit from having direct talks with the leaders of its most distrusted adversaries. "Absolutely," said Scowcroft, when asked by The Huffington Post whether he thought the next president should meet with the likes of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's hard to make things better if you don't talk." Scowcroft, a former Air Force general who is widely considered to be one of the preeminent foreign policy minds in the United States, was appearing at an event with Henry Kissinger at Georgetown University. His take on U.S. diplomatic outreach comes as Obama's position -- to meet with our enemies even without preconditions -- has gotten the Illinois Democrat routinely criticized as naive and inexperienced from his Democratic and Republican rivals. Scowcroft declined, when asked, to directly assess the foreign policy platform of any of the presidential candidates. But he briefly outlined what he thought was the best steps forward in Iraq. "Our goal in Iraq is to leave an Iraq that produces more stability in the region and not chaos. And that's going to take time," he said. "[It will take troop presence] for a long time...I think gradually security is improving and as it improves we can reduce troop levels. But what we need to do is provide an environment in which their political evolution continues." Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Scowcroft expressed public misgivings concerning the course of action. In 2002, he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, "Don't Attack Saddam," and warned that action against Iraq, without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "could turn the whole region into a cauldron and thus destroy the war on terrorism." Scowcroft has since warned about the dangers of a precipitous troop withdrawal from the country. In May 2007, he was quoted in the Financial Times as saying: "If we get out before Iraq is stable, the entire Middle East region might start to resemble Iraq today. Getting out is not a solution." In invading Iraq, "we created a revolution; a social and religious revolution," he said. The U.S. should "gradually withdraw from inter-sectarian warfare. Shia versus Sunni is not a problem we can solve." Yet a New York Times story published earlier this month identified Scowcroft as part of a group of Republican advisers concerned that McCain "might be coming under increased influence from a competing camp, the neoconservatives, whose thinking dominated President Bush's first term and played a pivotal role in building the case for war." "Scowcroft is said to have expressed reservations about Mr. McCain's call for creating a League of Democracies as a complement to the United Nations," the Times reported. "An associate of Mr. Scowcroft said he viewed it as an effort to diminish the United Nations -- a target of scorn among neoconservatives -- and inhibit engagement with enemies."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/...ob_n_99026.html

And I normally don't put a whole lot of credence into comments on news articles, but this one gave me pause:

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TotobiAyokoh23 See Profile This is the very reason why Republicans are scared to run against Obama in the Presidential election. He has the insight and the foresight to make right decisions at the right time on serious foreign policy issues that cannot be conveniently boxed into good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and if you are not with us, then you are with the enemy. The diabolical-enemy-image approach to foreign policy is not only anachronistic, it is indeed dysfunctional in the current international terrain of mutually inclusive national interest that demands diplomatic bargaining in the spirit of competitive alignment and delineation of idiosyncratic national interests. Obama has the intelligence, the judgment, and the wit to perform better in this post-post-Cold War world.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov She needs to net 70% of the remaining delegates. Assuming they come out roughly equal in pledged delegates, that means she needs 85% of unpledged superdelegates in order to take the lead at this point. It's not entitlement on the behalf of Obama - it's a realistic appraisal of her chances.

Then let her fail at not getting 70% of the remaining delegates. What's the rush, if Obama's got it in the bag already? For example, declining her request for a debate was a smart move on his part. The more nonchalant and unphased he is by Clinton's lingering presence in the race, the more successful he is as letting her run herself to the ground... But let her do that to herself, if that's for sure what's going to happen according to you. However, his surrogates' screaming on every talkshow, radio station, and news media interview for her to step down is doing him more harm than good. It's angering Clinton supporters, like me, and let's face it, the last thing he should do is alienate the 46% (and no, that's not counting Fla. and Mich.) of people who DIDN'T select him as their candidate. For once in this campaign, keeping silent and ignoring Clinton would do him a lot of good.

On another note, Reverend Wright isn't helping him one bit, today's been a very bad day for the Obama camp. Going back to yesterday's discussion, if you think race isn't going to be as important an issue as many people are saying it will (which you may have been right about early on), this Wright guy is making sure it is. Obama must be shaking his head right now, this guy's a maniac.

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Also, on another note, I found an interesting article about Karl Rove and some suggestions he made to Obama. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but this article shows that the threat of losing a state like Pennsylvania in November is a very very possible one. Remember I mentioned this yesterday and, of course, there are "poll numbers" that say otherwise. But I wouldn't put too much faith in poll numbers for November. Karl Rove is one person who is very skilled at rendering poll numbers insignificant and unapplicable. Once again, not saying I agree with everything he says, just trying to show you I'm not just ONE idiot who thinks Pennsylvania and similar states are at risk. It's a real threat. Just wanted to provide another person's similar view.

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Four months ago, you took the political world by storm in Iowa. The media were agog. They called your words "gorgeous," your victory "a message to the world." You "made history" and Americans could "look at ourselves with pride" in "a moment to marvel." Times change. The six weeks leading into Pennsylvania were difficult. You excelled at raising money and gaining endorsements, but got weaker as big problems emerged. Before you can fix them, you must understand them. In Pennsylvania, you won only 30 percent among Catholics and 29 percent among white working-class voters. Defections like this elect Republicans. Even liberal commentators who adore you warn you can't win with a McGovern coalition of college students and white-wine sippers from the party's left wing. Saying small-town voters cling to guns, faith and xenophobia because of economic bitterness hurt you; it reinforced the growing sense you don't share Middle America's values. So did asking about the price of arugula in Iowa, dismissing the "true" patriotism of people who wear a flag lapel pin, being "friendly" (as your chief strategist, David Axelrod, put it) with a violent, unrepentant '60s radical and having a close relationship with an angry pastor who expressed anti-American sentiments. http://www.newsweek.com/id/134322

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Brent Scowcroft (a Republican) offered a pretty good answer to this today. Obama's foreign policy agenda is strikingly different than either Hillary's or McCain's on this point, and I think it is one that resonates with moderates (like Scowcroft). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/...ob_n_99026.html And I normally don't put a whole lot of credence into comments on news articles, but this one gave me pause:

good point. this is also something that i like about his foreign policy. although i hope he isn't naive about what to expect from other countries. I don't know exactly how much we could trust iran or NKorea, but i don't see harm in attempting. Bush utterly failed with NKorea, as displayed by NK recent spat with south korea and their failure to abide by the agreement.

to be honest though, i just hope obama, if he becomes the president, starts alt energy initiatives like never before. we need energy independence more than anything right now. so many of our world problems revolve around energy.

I'm also big on us not being overly critical of other countries, ie., china. It's counterproductive. i hope obama takes that stance.

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Originally posted by DJ Eco However, his surrogates' screaming on every talkshow, radio station, and news media interview for her to step down is doing him more harm than good. It's angering Clinton supporters, like me, and let's face it, the last thing he should do is alienate the 46% (and no, that's not counting Fla. and Mich.) of people who DIDN'T select him as their candidate. For once in this campaign, keeping silent and ignoring Clinton would do him a lot of good.

The campaign IS staying silent though. The majority of people going on TV and calling for Clinton to step aside are journalists and superdelegates - not members of the Obama campaign. It's impossible for Obama to control what all three hundred of his superdelegates say. What's more, many of them are unaffiliated completely - I assume you are thinking of Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi among others who have recently called for an end to the Primary - neither has endorsed a candidate.

The Obama campaign, as noted by the NYTimes today, is staying silent and beginning to focus more energy on McCain.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov The campaign IS staying silent though. The majority of people going on TV and calling for Clinton to step aside are journalists and superdelegates - not members of the Obama campaign.

You're right on that, I stand corrected

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Here's an interersting article jerZ posted in the Wright thread, but I think it would be more relevant here. Many of you have regurgitated number after number after number of polls over the past few months, to which I've said polls aren't as important as you may want to make them. I still maintain this viewpoint, nothing's changing, but I did think this was an interesting article, and the numbers will REALLY make you think... The one and only conclusion I will make, based on the numbers though, is that I hope this is basis enough for you to agree that she shouldn't just STEP DOWN completely, it would be dumb.

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Associated Press Article AP poll: Clinton leads McCain, doing better than Obama BY LIZ SIDOTI Hillary Clinton now leads John McCain by 9 points in a head-to-head presidential matchup, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even. The survey released Monday gives the New York senator and former first lady a fresh talking point as she works to raise much-needed campaign cash and persuade pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight. Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent. Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago. Since then, Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary, raising questions anew about whether Obama can attract broad swaths of voters needed to triumph in such big states come the fall when the Democratic nominee will go up against McCain. At the same time, Obama was thrown on the defensive by his comment that residents of small-town America were bitter. The Illinois senator also continued to deal with the controversial remarks of his longtime Chicago pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. ''I don't think there's any question that over the last three weeks her stature has improved,'' said Harrison Hickman, a Democratic pollster unaligned in the primary. He attributed Clinton's gains to people moving from the ''infatuation stage'' of choosing the candidate they like the most to a ''decision-making stage'' where they determine who would make the best president. Added Steve Lombardo, a GOP pollster: ``This just reinforces the sentiment that a lot of Republican strategists are having right now -- that Clinton might actually be the more formidable fall candidate for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Obama can't seem to get his footing back.'' The AP-Ipsos poll found Clinton and Obama about even in the race for the Democratic nomination. Underscoring deep divisions within the Democratic Party -- and a potentially negative longer-term impact -- 30 percent of Clinton supporters and 21 percent of Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain in November if their preferred candidate didn't win the nomination. Obama leads Clinton in pledged delegates, but she has the advantage among superdelegates with about a third yet to make up their minds. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that one of the two must drop out of the race after the primary season wraps up in June so Democrats can unite before the late-summer convention and the fall campaign. He also urged undecided superdelegates -- members of the Democratic National Committee as well as Democratic governors and members of Congress -- to side with either Clinton or Obama before the August convention so the party can come together to take on McCain. The Arizona senator clinched the GOP nomination last month and has been campaigning freely since. Also on Monday, the head of the Republicans' House campaign committee said the party would rather face Obama in November because the GOP believes Clinton would be more of a threat to McCain among moderate voters. Said Tom Cole, a congressman from Oklahoma: Obama ``is by any definition very liberal, to the left of Hillary Clinton, in a center-right country. That is very, very helpful to us.'' Nearly half the people in the AP-Ipsos poll said the protracted Democratic primary will hurt their party's chances in November; more Obama supporters than Clinton backers said they had that fear. Overall, people said they trusted Clinton and Obama about the same to handle Iraq and the economy; McCain got similar ratings on Iraq but trailed both Democrats on the economy. And while roughly the same percentage of people said they trusted both Democrats to understand their problems, fewer trusted McCain. When pitted against McCain, Clinton now wins among independents, 50 percent to 34 percent, when just a few weeks ago she ran about even with him with this crucial group of voters. Clinton also now does better among independents than Obama does in a matchup with McCain. Clinton has a newfound edge among seniors, too, 51 percent to 39 percent; McCain had previously had the advantage. And, Clinton has improved her margin over McCain among people under age 30; two-thirds of them now side with her. McCain leads Obama among seniors, while Obama leads McCain among those under 30 but by a smaller margin than Clinton does. She also now leads among Catholics, always an important swing voting group in a general election, and improved her standing in the South as well as in cities and among families making under $25,000 a year. But she lost ground among families making between $50,000 and $100,000; they narrowly support McCain. The poll, taken April 23-27, questioned 1,001 adults nationally, with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. Included were interviews with 457 Democratic voters and people leaning Democratic, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.6 points, and 346 Republicans or GOP-leaning voters, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.3 points. AP Director of Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report. http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/512602.html

I repeat: I'm not a big fan of polls and don't use them to make my arguments, but to those of you who made your arguments with numbers, these numbers turn everything you may have tried to prove on its side.

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Originally posted by DJ Eco Here's an interersting article jerZ posted in the Wright thread, but I think it would be more relevant here. Many of you have regurgitated number after number after number of polls over the past few months, to which I've said polls aren't as important as you may want to make them. I still maintain this viewpoint, nothing's changing, but I did think this was an interesting article, and the numbers will REALLY make you think... The one and only conclusion I will make, based on the numbers though, is that I hope this is basis enough for you to agree that she shouldn't just STEP DOWN completely, it would be dumb. I repeat: I'm not a big fan of polls and don't use them to make my arguments, but to those of you who made your arguments with numbers, these numbers turn everything you may have tried to prove on its side.

my favorite number is that 30% of hilary's supporters would vote for mccain whereas 21% of obama's supporters would vote for mccain if their respective candidate lost. that goes directly against Lebs claim that obama will have more support in the general election, and it also suggests that i was correct when i claimed that obama would lose the votes of the more conservative democrats in the general election.