Yeah yeah, I haven't posted here in a long time. I'm insanely busy right now and am taking a quick break and just wanted to post some thoughts about the debate tonight on ABC.
I missed the entire thing because I was at a talk about God showing beauty in monstrosities (it was damn interesting, by the way). However, I'm watching clips and post-debate reaction and it seems the consensus is that it was the "pile on Obama" debate. The first 50 minutes didn't deal with any policy issues, but rather Obama and the Weather Underground, Obama and his lack of a flag lapel pin, Obama and Jeremiah Wright, and more Obama "bitterness".
It was pretty much fast ball after fast ball trying to knock Obama off his game. Hillary pounced on every response. The liberal blogs are flaming and ready to burn ABC headquarters to the ground. My response? Calm down. The fact that Obama had all these questions thrown at him is pretty strong evidence that he's on the path to the nomination. The Republicans are going to bring all of this up and the best way for Obama to get it out of the news is to address it all early. Let him get roughed up a bit. It's better to be pummeled now than to be pummeled in an "October surprise", y'know? The rumors have been out there for weeks that Obama has tons of superdelegates locked up and ready to endorse him. They won't do it until after North Carolina. The only way he loses the nomination is if he starts losing the states he's supposed to win, such as North Carolina, Oregon, and South Dakota. Relax Obama supporters, he's fine. He's the frontrunner, you've got to expect this treatement. Besides, there's been 20 debates already. Everybody knows where Hillary and Barack stand on the issues. We've gotta get the controversies out of the way.
There's also another reason for Obama supporters not to worry. When pressed on whether or not she believes Barack can win in November, she said "Yes, Yes, Yes!". Kinda hard to make the argument to superdelegates that Barack can't win when you just told a national audience that he can. Also, for as much "baggage" as Barack has, it doesn't even scratch the surface of what Hillary has. I mean, if you're Hillary Clinton, how do you explain to a superdelegate that you can win an election when only 39% of people think you are honest and trustworthy? How can she explain her "Screw em" comment to southern working class voters? The only candidate that potentially can't win the presidency is Hillary and everybody knows it. Half the country hates her. She's gone so negative on Obama that it's become apparent that she will lose the "Obama vote". Could her "Girl Power" rallying cry carry the day? I thought so, but now I'm not so sure.
Also, though Obama is going through the motions right now, being "vetted" as the pundits like to call it, John McCain is going to get his day. I predict the democratic nomination is going to end in 4 weeks. After North Carolina, you're going to see the party leaders end it. The reason is two-fold: first, no democrat wants to see Hillary fight this out until the convention. The reason being that it will be nothing but negative press until August. If that happens, John McCain continues his free pass, but as soon as the democratic race is over, everything will get quiet and the press will go in their predictable cycle and start paying attention to him and his policies. I guarantee you, you'll be hearing about the "Keating 5" this summer and everything else McCain has said and done the 10,000 years he's been in office. And his health records. And the rumors about his post-tramatic stress disorder from being tortured in Vietnam, etc. etc. McCain's not going to coast.
And during that time, Obama will be building his coalition, raising 500 million dollars, and preparing for the fall election. Then the media will hype his convention speech, he'll deliver it, it'll kick ass, and we'll get into the real race.
That's my prediction. Calm down Obama fans. You're invested in your guy and when the "Big Bad Liberal Media" piles on, the natural reaction is to lash out and be protective of your candidate. But everything's alright. Every0ne knows he wasn't going to win Pennsylvania. He's still going to lose it, but he's still got a grip on the nomination.
Unless he loses North Carolina...then he'll have a problem :)
