Tired of Clinton vs. Obama?

I've noticed reports on the news claiming that there being no clear lead in the Democratic race was starting to wear on people. I don't feel that way at all. I'm glad for once to have an embarrassment of good candidates.

I support Hillary myself, but I have to say, if Obama gets the nod I will be happy with him too. Quite honestly after the last eight years I could even live with McCain. I'm just glad the Huckster is finally out.

I don't want this to turn into one candidate is better that the other. That might make a good thread too, but here I just want to know, is it just me or is the media trying to stir something up?

Yes and No. The media is definately stirring the pot, but they are being pretty mean to each other as well. I'm glad to have more than one person I could live with, but I sure wish it would end quickly. If Obama and Clinton keep going after each other McCain won't have to work hard to win because they will have already made everyone hate both of them.

The media and the Repubs want Clinton to win because they have this mistaken notion that any Republican can beat Hilary. As a result when you see Repub commentators talking about the dem race they are always poopooing Obama and touting Hilary. What I don't think they realize is the depth of feeling against BushCo that has been engendered, and with more stuff like "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain doesn't look any more stable than George.

I don't think the Repubs inside the beltway understand, this is not their election to win, regardless of who the candidates are. The only way they elect McCain right now is if Obama/Clinton destroy the party. This election is strictly for the dems to lose. There is nothing short of arranging a Theophany the repubs can do to win this election.

You know, I thought the same thing about the GOP wanting Clinton to win. But here in Texas we have open primaries (why, I don't know) and then we have caucusing.

I talked to several Republicans at the (Democratic!) caucus and some told me they were supporting Hillary because they thought McCain could beat her. Then others said they were supporting Obama because they didn't want another Clinton on the ticket.

Mostly it made me realize that an open primary sucks. (Look what it did to poor Cynthia McKinney-Mitchell.)

And I agree, yes, this election is strictly for the Dems. What the Republicans don't seem to realize is that when even they are spending more time talking about the lefty candidate than their own, that's a bad thing.

Whatever the case, I think the Democrats must make clear that the current cluster**** of the wars (Afghanistan and Iraq are totally different undertakings, but you all know that), economy, environment, religious fanaticism, etc. was created by the Republicans. If the last several years has demonstrated anything beyond a reasonable doubt, it is that:

THE GOP IS INCAPABLE OF GOVERNING!!!!

I'm not sure the Democrats have tried pushing that idea, but we need to start saying it, and repeating it. In other words, instead of defending against right-wing slurs, we need to start attacking oursleves.

#5: I recently heard an interview of someone by Sam Seder and his guest was talking about campaign strategies. Specifically, the guest noted that while the Democratic platform is closer to the issues that the people have been polled on as important to them, elections are swung more easily by personality cults than by stances on the issues (like the cowboy images of Reagan and Bush Jr.). So campaigning on the issue of who's not capable of governing (as if there were anyone who could) doesn't necessarily get us past the issue of the cult of personality. The thing that probably works against the Republicans in this election cycle is something that Seder brought up during that same interview, that while conducting an informal poll of New Hampshire Republicans during the primary every Republican voter (except the ones voting for Ron Paul) stated that they would have preferred to vote for Ronald Reagan over the candidate they were voting for in 2008. The cult of personality is on the other side of the aisle this year (and that's not necessarily a dig against Obama who's possibly the most intelligent public official I've ever seen).

#5 redmeatliberal - I agree that the GOP is incapable of governing and that the Democrats should be hammering that theme in the runup to the November elections. The other one is much more stark:

Vote for Obama if you want to end the war in Iraq
Vote for McBush (okay, McCain) if you want to continue this war (and start lots of new ones)

# 6 Lunar you make a very good point that some people will vote for whoever's most charismatic, and this time it is Obama.....

I'm making the assumption, of course, that Clinton is out of it, especially since John Edwards (my true first choice, actually) has endorsed Obama and so can probably deliver the blue collar workers.

- Did Obama promise to end the war? I remember him choosing his words very carefully on that topic.

- If he promised, is it a more meaningful promise than the one that got Democrats into Congress in 2006?

Amtep:

This is from http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

Though there are caveats in there (how many troops are "some"? what proportion of the occupation army is in "combat brigades"? will that embassy still be bigger than Vatican City? should it be considered a "base" due to the thousands of troops in its "defense force"? al Qaeda is already attempting to establish itself in Iraq, so why play games talking about "a base" -- is this a "base" of support, or a physical military installation sort of "base"? etc., etc.), it seems a considerably stronger statement than I recall reading about in the media. From what I recall of media reports from earlier this year, no leading Democratic candidate has been willing to commit to having less than ~100,000 troops in Iraq at the end of their first term.

Well I'm glad to hear that. It certainly sounds promising that he has an actual plan and even a date.

I've saved a copy of this page :)

I'm assuming Obama will hang on. Regarding the news reports, it's still the Silly Season and numbers don't mean much. The important stuff happens after Labor Day.