Hillary’s Growing Shadow
By Victor Davis Hanson

Barack Obama and John McCain are running neck and neck.

Impossible?

It would seem so. Republican President Bush still has less than a 30 percent approval rating. Headlines blare that unemployment and inflation are up — even if we aren’t, technically, in a recession. Gas is around $4 a gallon. Housing prices have nosedived. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been indicted — another in a line of congressional Republicans caught in financial or sexual scandal.

Meanwhile, the GOP’s presumptive candidate, John McCain, is 71 years old. The Republican base thinks he’s lackluster and too liberal.

So, everyone is puzzled why the Democratic candidate isn’t at least 10 points ahead. It seems the more Americans get used to Barack Obama, the less they want him as president — and the more Democrats will soon regret not nominating Hillary Clinton.

First, Obama was billed as a post-racial healer. His half-African ancestry, exotic background and soothing rhetoric were supposed to have been novel and to have reassured the public he was no race-monger like Al Sharpton. On the other hand, his 20-year career in the cauldron of Chicago racial politics also guaranteed to his liberal base that he wasn’t just a moderate Colin Powell, either.

Yet within weeks of the first primary, the outraged Clintons were accusing Obama of playing “the race card†— and vice-versa. Blacks soon were voting heavily against Hillary Clinton. In turn, Hillary, the elite Ivy League progressive, turned into a blue-denim working gal — and won nearly all the final big-state Democratic primaries on the strength of working-class whites.

Americans also learned to their regret how exactly a Hawaiian-born Barack Obama — raised, in part, by his white grandparents and without African-American heritage — had managed to win credibility in what would become his legislative district in Chicago. That discovery of racial chauvinism wasn’t hard once his former associate, his pastor for over 20 years, the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spewed his venom.

Obama himself didn’t help things as he taught the nation that his dutiful grandmother was at times a small-minded bigot — no different from a “typical white person.†And in an impromptu riff, Obama ridiculed small-town working-class Pennsylvaniansâ€&am p;tr ade; supposed racial insularity.

The primary season ended with a narrow Obama victory — and a wounded, but supposedly wiser, Democratic candidate.

Not quite. Without evidence, he unwisely has claimed his opponents (â€theyâ& euro ;) will play the race card against poor him. In contrast, on the hot-button issue of racial reparations, he recently played to cheering minority audiences by cryptically suggesting that the government must “not just . . . offer words, but offer deeds.†He later clarified that he didn’t mean cash grants, but his initial words were awfully vague.

Second, many are beginning to notice how a Saint Obama talks down to them. We American yokels can’t speak French or Spanish. We eat too much. Our cars are too big, our houses either overheated or overcooled. And we don’t even put enough air in our car tires. In contrast, a lean, hip Obama promises to still the rising seas and cool down the planet, assuring adoring Germans that he is a citizen of the world.

Third, Obama knows that all doctrinaire liberals must tack rightward in the general election. But due to his inexperience, he’s doing it in far clumsier fashion than any triangulating candidate in memory. Do we know — does Obama even know? — what he really feels about drilling off our coasts, tapping the strategic petroleum reserve, NAFTA, faith-based initiatives, campaign financing, the FISA surveillance laws, town-hall debates with McCain, Iran, the surge, timetables for Iraq pullouts, gun control or capital punishment?

Fourth, Obama is proving as inept an extemporaneous speaker as he is gifted with the Teleprompter. Like most rookie senators, in news conferences and interviews, he stumbles and then makes serial gaffes — from the insignificant, like getting the number of states wrong, to the downright worrisome, such as calling for a shadow civilian aid bureaucracy to be funded like the Pentagon (which would mean $500 billion per annum).

If the polls are right, a public tired of Republicans is beginning to think an increasingly bothersome Obama would be no better — and maybe a lot worse. It is one thing to suggest to voters that they should shed their prejudices, eat less and be more cosmopolitan. But it is quite another when the sermonizer himself too easily evokes race, weekly changes his mind and often sounds like he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

In a tough year like this, Democrats could probably have defeated Republican John McCain with a flawed, but seasoned candidate like Hillary Clinton. But long-suffering liberals convinced their party to go with a messiah rather than a dependable nominee — and thereby they probably will get neither.

We kind of have this honor system here that if you find out you have posted something somebody else has soon afterwards, you delete the blog.

It's common courtesy. Easy to do, easily deleted. No hard feelings, I have done it myself.

long tome no see. :-=)

Obama's playing the calendar. It's just what Bill Clinton did in 1992. Before the convention, in the dead of summer, Bill Clinton was an unknown, and those who did know him most likely identified him with the Gennifer Flowers scandal. It wasn't until the Democratic Convention, with the help of a tremendous short film by Harry Thomason, that the nation was introduced to "The Man from Hope."

Right after this, the next poll from NYT/CBS in 1992 showed the largest bounce for a candidate in history. Clinton vaulted ahead 55-31. The organization he had built over the summer was put into overdrive, and he never looked back. George H.W. Bush was left to eat his dust.

Will history repeat itself? Who knows... but Obama is playing the calendar perfectly right. Elections aren't won in July, when only political nerds and 24-hour cable commentators are hanging on every word and every survey. You'd think all the talking heads would remember that.

For full article:

Link

In my opinion, there are several things running against Obama.

1) There are people who feel Obama did not wait his "turn" and it is Hillary's "turn" so Barack is not doing well among Hillary supporters.

2) Barack has the wrong color skin and some people will NEVER vote for him because of the color of his skin. I do not feel that people are neccessary racist for those views or preferences but like some black people do not trust white people, there are some white people who do not trust black people. It is what it is.

3) Barack is new to many people and McCain and Hillary were both allowed to define him on their terms and now he must fight that.

4) It is still early. If you look back in history, Bill Clinton was almost in the same spot in the polls that Obama is in. Clinton was new to the scene.

5) Once the American people see Obama and McCain side by side hammering out policy, they will see that Obama is much better and smarter than McSame.

6) Polls are inaccurate as an article pointed out last week.

Obama has work to do and it is early. Keep the faith, keep working hard convincing people to vote for the Democrat and we will be all right!

Fair enough, Donna. However, in your opinion, how many voters do you think will not vote for Sen. Obama becuase he is African-American and what does that say for our fellow Americans?

Donna,

People have been intereviewed on television and stated, they do not feel comfortable with a black man. Watch 60 minutes.

... who this writer voted for in the primary. None the less, his points are worth addressing, barely.

1. If anyone is playing the race card it is the writer of this article. And if you ain't smart enough to figure out why the polls are relatively even, look to the guy dressed in the white sheet saying, "I'm voting for McCain".

2. If you think Sen. Obama is talking to "down to you" then it is obvious you need to look up to Sen. Obama. Sen. Obama is one of the most articulate and intelligent politicians I've seen in my lifetime.

3. Agreed. Further clarification of his positions are warranted. For Sen. Obama's position on anything click here: Link

4. If he is so inept as a speaker, explain to me why he has unprecedented crowds clammering to see him and 24/7 MSM coverage.

In closing, Mr. Hanson should stick to the facts and leave the opinion pieces to people who can qualify their opinions with sound logic as opposed to sour grapes.

There are well over seventeen million Democrats, 1766 Democratic Delegates, and 463 Super Delegates who would strongly disagree that Sen. Obama "is not good enough".

Have you ever see the statistics of how Africa America (my key does 't work!!) vote for Preside t? About 90% for Dems a d 10% for GOP. Seei g as the Dems have ever had a black omi ee before (sorry, all, I k ow this is hard to read!), I do 't quite see what's racist about it.

People vote for the ca didates they thi k will do best for THEM. Period. Everybody k ows it, really.

don't want to know what i think.

Read ALL the internal links.

Link

A few highlights:

error 1 – let’s start with the extreme case: a has 45% and b 41%, this is within the sampling error margin for a sample of 600. using the recognized statistical calculation called ‘power of the test’ (berenson, 1996), the probability that b is tied with or ahead of a is 2%. hence, there is a 98% probability a is in the lead. now, test the least extreme situation. even though a is ahead 45% to 41% assume the tie occurs at 43%. the ‘power of the test’ still shows a is the likely winner, although the probability drops to 84%. a third scenario would be to have the poll show only a one point spread, 45% to 44%. even then the ‘power of the test’ produces a probability of 69% that a is the leader. in short, you would rather be ahead in the poll, no matter the margin, then behind.

error 2 – the media misuses its own interpretation of ‘statistica l dead heat.’ using the above example, they are calling it a dead heat if a and b are within four points of each other. it should really be within eight points since if b goes up by four points, then a will come down by four. using this logic, a spread of 39 to 47 should be called a dead heat.

There is a TON of info linked to in this article.

And, need I remind everyone that National percentage polls (especially this far out) mean NOTHING. This is an Electoral College race now, and Obama is smoking Grampy McSame on that all important measure.

PS, Victor Davis Hanson is a right wing hack who writes for Clown Hall.

Link

His credibility matches Hannity's.