2006 Mid-Term Elections

[KayJay]

Proof positive



It says:

"Notice:

The Pwesident of the United States (aka King Geowge) is once again hunting fow wacky wabbits to fill as many positions as possible.

Qualified applicants must be Wepublican and must have the ability to look and sound mowe stupid than the cuwwent Pwesident of the USA.

Apply in pewson only.

P.S.
Be vewy vewy quiet pwiow to intewview."

[sisyphus]

damn.

haha... annals of the world....so desperate for the perfect order....

i'm really scared. anyone else? how do we keep these guys in check without imposing on their rights? seriously. anyone ever read "skinny legs and all" by robbins? (sometimes that author makes me laugh my ass off, and other times i think he's a complete twit, but i liked that book...) seriously though, they're truly funding wars in the middle east so they get jesus here sooner for a grand second cumming.

[sisyphus]

lol. nice kayjay.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Oxycotin: the other white heat.

[shin]

I wub you too Skvor

[kmc]

I like it.

[phil]

DeLay: 'Hillary Will Be the Next President'

by Robert B. Bluey
Posted Dec 12, 2006

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said today that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) would be elected president in 2008 and would probably tap Senate colleague Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) as her running mate.

DeLay met with conservative bloggers at a weekly lunch meeting hosted by HUMAN EVENTS and the Heritage Foundation. He is making the rounds in Washington to promote his new blog and activism website, TomDeLay.com.

DeLay said he was motivated to start the blog and create the Grassroots Action and Information Network after observing the success of liberal organizations such as MoveOn.org, the Media Fund and Americans Coming Together. He said he hopes to utilize some of the same tools to help Republicans win elections.

It’s this liberal coalition, working in concert with the news media, that will propel Clinton to the White House in 2008, DeLay said. “Hillary will be the next president of the United States because they have built a coalition,” he said.

DeLay also implored conservatives to start digging into Obama’s past. He said Obama’s record in the Illinois Senate was on par with a “Marxist leftist.” Citing defeated U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford of Tennessee, DeLay said Obama was attempting to disguise his liberal views. (Read Amanda Carpenter’s report on Obama and his conflicting rhetoric.)

DeLay named Clinton loyalists Harold Ickes, Sidney Blumenthal, James Carville, Paul Begala and Joe Lockhart as the masterminds behind the left-wing coalition. He said that these groups, more than anything else, contributed to the GOP’s fall this November. “I have never seen a more powerful coalition,” he said.

One such example of the coalition’s power played out precisely as planned in California’s 11th District. Republican Rep. Richard Pombo was toppled after facing an onslaught of attacks from the left.

DeLay said his goal in creating the new organization is to turn ideas into action. He said he will reach out to the diverse coalition of conservative groups and bring them together to rival the coalition built by liberals. Prior to the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, DeLay said he employed a similar strategy that the GOP has gradually abandoned.

One day after launching the new website, DeLay said he’s had 100 people pay the $52 per year to join the Grassroots Action and Information Network.

[Galactus]

It's interesting that most of the people convinced she'll run are conservatives. They want her to run because she'll lose, right now most of her interest is name recognition and the harder she campaigns the more support she'll lose. They're scared of Obama though, he'd be very hard to run against.

[rockysigman]

I don't know. A lot of people love him, and there's a lot of hype about him. But I don't think it would be any hard to run against him than anyone else. He doesn't have much of a record to campaign on (remember, he's only been a Senator for 2 years). He doesn't have a whole lot of dirt I guess, but there is some past drug use that he's been open about -- not that that should be an issue, but you know that it would be.

Of course none of us really have any idea how good he'd do on the campaign trail. He's never really run a closely contested high profile campaign. I don't think his experience campaigning for the Illinois state legislature will count for much when it comes to a full scale national campaign, and his '04 Senate run might as well have been uncontested, as the Republican nominee got booted out of the race due to sex scandal pretty early on, and his replacement was Alan Keyes, of all people. So we really don't know how he'd handle a hotly contested high profile race.

So yeah, I like Obama and I agree that at the moment he looks like a pretty good candidate, but I'm a long way from certain that he'd coast.

[Galactus]

Right now he'd be the hardest guy to run against, if he runs we'll see if he can keep it up for two years. Honestly, I think he should wait until 2012 to run...but who'll knows what'll be going on then? Here's what I know - if the dems run Hilary Clinton they will lose. Period.

[rockysigman]

ded said:

Right now he'd be the hardest guy to run against, if he runs we'll see if he can keep it up for two years. Honestly, I think he should wait until 2012 to run...but who'll knows what'll be going on then? Here's what I know - if the dems run Hilary Clinton they will lose. Period.

I agree on all counts. The only reason that Obama should run in '08 is if literally no other viable candidates emerge from the Democratic Party (which really doesn't seem that inconceivable). As of now he just doesn't have enough to run on, but I'm very hopeful for him in a few years. However, waiting until 2012 is a little risky. If the Dems win the White House in '08, then Obama is not likely to challenge an incumbant for the nomination in '12. And if that incumbant were to win re-election in '12, then by 2016 people might be ready to put a different party in the White House depending on what happens (or maybe even not depending on what happens -- sometimes people like to change parties just for the sake of changing parties every once in a while). So it's possible that this is as ripe as it will get for Obama.

I really hope that somehow Hillary can be convinced not to run. I could easily see her coasting to the nomination, and then getting obliterated in the general election. It would not be pretty.

[Kensterberg]

I'm not so sure that having a big record to run on is an advantage in the current American political climate. Carter was a one-term governor who defeated a sitting President with an extensive Senate record. Likewise, Clinton was a former governor of a small state with a rather skimpy record of actual accomplishments who defeated first a sitting President and former VP with a record of public service that stretched back to WW2, and then downed another war hero who had decades of service in the Senate. Similarly, George W. Bush served only one full term in the weakest governorship in the country before defeating (stealing the election from) the sitting Vice-President, who also had an extensive record of accomplishments in the Senate prior to his eight years sitting a heartbeat away from the Presidency. And we all know what Dubya did to John Kerry in 2004 -- using Kerry's record in the Senate to paint him as a "flip-flopper" by removing all context or nuance from his record.

Americans vote based upon personality and perception. A candidate has to have enough experience to make them credible, but once you've crossed that bar -- which IMO Obama certainly has -- then it's about making people trust and like you. The more experience that you accumulate, the more of a record you have, the easier it is for your opponents to use it as a club against you, or to use it to paint you as something you're actually not.

By the time of the 2008 election, Obama will have four years in the Senate, and four years as one of the highest profile members of his party. That's plenty of seasoning. If he's going to run, this would be the perfect time. He's established on the national stage, but he's still enough of an unknown that he'll be able to largely control the way that people percieve him (assuming that he has the right kind of handlers, etc., who will be in front with shaping his image rather than letting the Republicans or other Dems define his persona via attacks and allegations).

I don't know for sure if he's my top pick right now, but I think that Obama has to be one of the Dems on the very short list for best candidates for 2008.

[Kensterberg]

The other lesson of American politics from 1976 through the present: we look to governors rather than Senators or Congressmen for our Presidents. George H.W. Bush was the last Pres. who wasn't a governor first, following Reagan and Carter who both earned their Presidencies via time running California and Georgia, respectively. So of the last thirty years, we have had only four years in which the man in the White House wasn't a former state governor.

[rockysigman]

Right, but pretty much everyone isn't too happy with the current one. And a lot of people don't like the one before him either. So maybe things will be a little different now.

I see your point about Obama being able to control his image better without having a long record, Ken. That definately makes sense, although I still think that that will be an area in which he's likely to be attacked.

It's really his lack of campaign experience that could be the bigger issue though. He's proven himself to be articulate and poised, but he's never really had to face a really strong opposing campaign before. I suspect that he'll handle it well, but we really can't be certain until it happens.

[Kensterberg]

rockysigman said:

It's really his lack of campaign experience that could be the bigger issue though. He's proven himself to be articulate and poised, but he's never really had to face a really strong opposing campaign before. I suspect that he'll handle it well, but we really can't be certain until it happens.

I agree completely with this. And really, the way that Congressional elections work now, he's unlikely to face a strong opposition candidate unless he runs for higher office.

Much like with Bill Clinton, the challenge for Obama is to surround himself with the right advisors -- people who know how to handle the pressure of a Presidential campaign. He doesn't need James Carville (there's a man whose time has passed), but he needs his own Carville.