Quote:
Originally Posted by Vegas Vic
I haven't heard him say it during this election cycle yet, but James Carville has a funny quote that I've heard several times before. "What do you call a candidate who is relying on first time voters?" "A loser."
The republicans won't have to resort to smear tactics. They'll heavily publicize his voting record, which as noted before, is to the left of Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton. That's going to be a very hard sell for Obama to the small percentage of voters who decide presidential elections, regardless of his wonderful and inspiring oratory skills.
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I think people are miscalculating the voter frustration. This election is going to be studied for a long time as evidence of people who missed the point and didn't see the trees in the wider forest, because they were too busy heading towards the valley outside of it.
As for the whole first-time voter thing, I said in the GOP thread that the major if is that he's staking his campaign on the 18-29 year olds. But they're not enough of the electorate to do anything other than tip the scales.
I think he's relying far more on his ability to capture independents, figuring that the base will come along with him in the end anyway. All of that math would point to a victory for him.
People are severely underestimating his ground game and how ridiculous it is that he's even in this situation. He's a first-term Senator from Illinois with all of these things that could be scrutinized and attacked. But it seems that because he's so likable, no one wants to say anything
too swarmy about him and the obvious skeletons that anyone would want to dig up and throw out have been scoured for and the whispers haven't scared anyone off yet except people who weren't going to vote for him to begin with.
The bottom line is, if this guy gets into the general election..he's going to present the right with something they haven't seen before. He's not George McGovern. He's not JFK. But he's galvanized an entire generation and gets new converts every day who don't care that he's a modern liberal who doesn't tell you how he's going to pay for anything, that he's got too many ideas that relate to what government "ought to do for people" and all of that.
What they want, is a chance to believe again. And he's speaking to that. Warmongering, scaring people into believing he's a Muslim and even talking about race incessantly isn't going to be enough to beat him.
It's going to take... ::gasp:: innovation and creativity. Maybe even a little inspiration.
It's not rocket science, but maybe this is what the old guard needs to realize that the game isn't as monochromatic as it used to be.