Thursday, August 07, 2008

Obama on the hustings & the "David Brooks question"

The following is from Mike Williams letter today. Check especially the "Snake oil salesman?" link to the American Thinker and share your thoughts on what you find there.


Thanks, Mike.

John
_____________________________________________________


So here’s Obama, on the hustings, answering a question from a seven year-old on why he wants to be president:

“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.”

Ed Morrissey:

Once again, Obama got off the teleprompter and put his foot directly in his mouth. He’s not selling Hope, he’s selling Despair, and himself as the snake oil that will cure us of all our ills.

Snake oil salesman?

Many people, including no doubt a goodly number of nervous Democrat super delegates, are asking themselves the David Brooks' question about Obama's standing in the polls: "Where's the landslide ?" After evaluating him for several months, voters in the middle still aren't ready to embrace him.

National polls show not only a tightening of the Obama-McCain race to a statistical dead heat but momentum toward a McCain lead, something inconceivable only weeks ago. The specter of an Obama collapse has to haunt more than a few super delegates.

Buyer's remorse seemed evident and growing among many Democrats toward the end of their primary season when Obama lost again and again to Clinton, even as the delegate math was by then stacked in his favor. That remorse was put on hold (but apparently not resolved) by Obama's seeming to secure the nomination and the subsequent popular boost he enjoyed at first. But lately the candidate with a difference has had a hard time living up to his promise to be a new kind of politician….

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I and others on this blog have been saying when the American people finally take a close look at St. Barack, his numbers will begin dropping. I believe we're seeing the first stage of that implosion. When the standard-bearer of the Democrat party is unable to open up a solid lead against a GOP candidate when the Republicans are the skunk at the garden party, then it's got to be St. Barack, not the Democrat party.
Tarheel Hawkeye

Anonymous said...

If the polls continue to slide for Obama, and given that Hilary has not withdrawn from the race, merely suspended her campaign, the superdelegates are not irrevocably committed and the Democratic party's US Presidency hopes are at stake, what are the chances of Hilary becoming the Democratic nominee at the Dem national convention instead of BHO ???

Or is my ignorance really showing??
:-) :-)

Anonymous said...

Danvers,

I believe you are clearly articulating what I have thought. It makes no sense for any candidate to withdraw from the campaign before the convention.

Anonymous said...

John -

What planet is St. Barack living on? He said: “America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was ... "

Let's see - before 1954 and the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, and before 1964, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, American of African descent were kept separate and (un)equal in a large swatch of the country; and generally were discriminated against in most of the rest of the country. Is that what St. Barack is recalling as the place America no longer is? (He of course could not be because he was born after 1960,so he must be channeling it just as John Edwards did in court, when used to channel thoughts of dead babies.) Does St. Barack aspire for Americans of African descent once more to be second class citizens in this country?

Of course, he could be recalling (more correctly, channeling) the memory of more or less intact black families of that era and the rapidly increasing incomes blacks were experiencing before 1970 or so, but I think not.

For Americans of African descent, the future could be quite bright if they only took advantage of the promises America has to offer them. Unfortunately, many (but not all) are mired in a culture of dependency and victimology, and from that there can be no redemption.

Many Americans of African descent (but again not all) seem to want yet more government handouts because they keep voting for the party that promises more handouts. But there are three things one should never believe:
I'll respect you in the morning;
The check is in the mail;
Hello, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you.


Jack in Silver Spring