Obama General Discussion II

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b) The fact that America is still a country where this bullshit actually means leaders need to go through the motions regarding religion, whether they believe or not.

Do you know what religion Stephen Harper is? I don't. Nor do I care. I'm going to assume that he's a Christian, although what denomination is unclear. Nevertheless, as a Canadian, I have never once wondered about the religion of a federal or provincial leader. Whether he/she worships Allah, God, Buddha, Yahweh or whoever is of little consequence so long as they are an effective leader and move the country forward.
 
Trumpeting your religion in Australian politics is a definite negative. If a Prime Minister is known to be religious, great, everyone would absolutely respect that, but promoting that would be received at least in a way similar to a politician making some awkward comment about their sex life or something. A little bit, "Umm, thanks, but no-one asked..." And if they overtly weaved it into their politics, they'd get slammed for it. It's a real turn off, even for those who are very religious.

If the Prime Minister is a Christian, great, whatever. If he/she isn't (and our current PM is believed to be an atheist - but we don't really know), great, whatever. But it's irrelevant to your job, and thankfully, beyond that, it is completely and totally a non-event when it comes to electability or ongoing trust/credibility, or judgement, performance, or however else they may be measured or judged.
 
I think this mostly boils down to cultural differences in attitudes towards your nation's leader, and not (much) more or less. In the US, the President isn't just bureaucrat-in-chief in the mold of a Prime Minister; he's also something approaching a clan patriarch figure, and the notion that his possession of that status reflects in certain ways on you personally is felt rather keenly. So it's important to have some sense that you "really know who he is" as a person, some feeling for who he is as a family man and a friend and a thinker and what his "vision" of America is like, above and beyond the policy platforms and the resumé and so on. His religious self is another dimension that lends itself to this desire to "really know" him. I'm not saying we're explicitly taught this, of course; you won't find it in social science textbooks; I'm just trying to describe a perception which is there and distinct.

There have been changes in my lifetime in the nature of the role religion plays in US politics, certainly, the rise of evangelical conservatism and all that. There are religious organizations which seek the President's ear for explicitly religion-based political goals, and there's even a significant minority of voters who habitually speak in a judgmental way about which politicians are "true Christians" and which aren't, who say they can only trust and support politicians who know Christ as they do and invent revisionist histories to justify that all-consuming preoccupation. I don't trust these people; I believe they're guilty of bad faith (haha) towards the social contract which binds us all together, and that that is bad for our country. Still, I get the sense that more fundamental attitudes towards the Presidency which underlie and to some extent facilitate these trends are often lost on outside observers, who perceive the presence of religion in our political discourse as a peculiar aberration in an otherwise presumably similar political culture.
 
Trumpeting your religion in Australian politics is a definite negative.

Same in Canada. In fact, Stephen Harper has been remarkably good in muzzling his (Conservative) Members of Parliament during election season on anything that even remotely approaches a religiously-tinged issue (read: abortion, gay rights, etc) because he knows the public has no stomach for it.
 
i think i've heard once that the new zealand prime minister is a little bit jewish. no actual mention of a religion he follows, but he's a bit jewish. i almost want to put the little bit jewish in quotation marks, since i think that's exactly how it was reported.

our prime minister before that was openly agnostic.
 
This is what happens when people convince themselves that all information sources beyond the chain e-mails Aunt Sarah forwards them are fascist brainwashing propaganda from Big Brother.
 
*Puts head in hands, sinks lower into her seat, groans* Thank you so much, Iowa :doh: :banghead:.

Fully agree with the general sentiment here-I really, honestly, truly DO NOT CARE AT ALL what religion my leaders are, or even if they're religious at all. Are they doing their job to the best of their ability, that's all I need to know.

I just think it's deeply sad that because these are Republican voters, we're automatically assuming they'll be wary of Obama...and that some here fall into that very predictable stereotype. And I still want to know why it was perfectly okay for Bush to babble away about Christianity and how it should be more a part of our lawmaking, but if Obama WAS a Muslim, oh, we couldn't have him referencing HIS faith, that'd just be too scary.

Also, a request: Can we please, PLEASE shut the hell up with the comparisons to anything related to 1939 or the WW2 era in general? Sheesh.

Angela
 



and this is why Obama will win in 2012.

the educated Republicans with money are going to distance themselves from these people as fast as they can. no matter how little they care about the fact that 50m people don't have health care, they won't be seen dead with these people and their tin foil hats.

keep calling him a Muslim. and the more ridiculous it will seem when juxtaposed with the O'Reilly interview, where O came off extremely well and utterly normal.
 
It should be noted how shitty O'Reilly's interview style is. He interrupts frequently, and tries to end each line of questioning by sliding in his own two cents without rebuttal.
 
the educated Republicans with money are going to distance themselves from these people as fast as they can.
I suppose that's why the FOX guy repeatedly asks them if they understand the implications of presenting this as the face of Iowa Republicanism? Is that supposed to be a subtle injection of editorial opinion or something?
 
I suppose that's why the FOX guy repeatedly asks them if they understand the implications of presenting this as the face of Iowa Republicanism? Is that supposed to be a subtle injection of editorial opinion or something?

Also note that his implication isn't that it's delusional, it's that the librul media will attack them for it.
 
It should be noted how shitty O'Reilly's interview style is. He interrupts frequently, and tries to end each line of questioning by sliding in his own two cents without rebuttal.

There's nothing wrong with his style. It's meant to be less an "interview" and more a conversation, and Obama fully knows that. You and I both know that the alternative is O'Reilly asking two questions, each garnering a 7 minute response. I don't want to see that. Remember this is the guy that once gave a 15 or 20-minute response to a town hall question.

Also note that his implication isn't that it's delusional, it's that the librul media will attack them for it.

The role of a focus group moderator is not to inject his opinion. He can't exactly say "You think he's a Muslim? Well, you're an idiot." He has to say "Do you realize the potential political implications if a significant number of Republicans think that?" or something like that. And he didn't say liberal media, he said media. There are plenty of conservative outlets that fully reject the whole Muslim notion.
 
There's nothing wrong with his style. It's meant to be less an "interview" and more a conversation, and Obama fully knows that. You and I both know that the alternative is O'Reilly asking two questions, each garnering a 7 minute response. I don't want to see that. Remember this is the guy that once gave a 15 or 20-minute response to a town hall question.
I have a huge problem with his trying to sneak points in while moving on. He does it almost every time he intends to change the subject. It's not just with Obama either. It's an awful interview style, and I think pretty much anyone would agree with that.
There are plenty of conservative outlets that fully reject the whole Muslim notion.
Are there?
 
Iowa used to appear as a progressive state, and now we've let a few homophobes with money pretty much dictate everything.

Like most states, we have a budget and deficit problem. Instead of focusing on how to get out of the mess, we have to introduce bills that promote discrimination....all because gays may eventually be allowed to marry. Cause you know the next phase is marrying a horse, or marrying multiple people.

What I find a bit ironic is that these people who argue towards marrying animals deny that if you limit marriage to two people, man and a women, who's to say that you deny people of color to get married? Or different religions????

How about we fix our economy, the wars, and then we can sling mud at social issues. But republicans talk a big game in regards to fixing economy, and as soon as they have power, they focus on the social issues and for being a party of limited government, they sure want government to enforce how you live your life.

Bill in Iowa House aims to protect same-sex marriage objectors | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com
 
There are plenty of conservative outlets that fully reject the whole Muslim notion.

Do you think that the 11 people in that video who insisted that Obama is a Muslim are ignorant?
 
I have a huge problem with his trying to sneak points in while moving on. He does it almost every time he intends to change the subject. It's not just with Obama either. It's an awful interview style, and I think pretty much anyone would agree with that.


Yep. I bet he thinks its super clever. It is rare for him not to do it.

"Now, call me crazy, but I don't think there were anchovies on that pizza."
"Well Bill, it was salty as all hell and I could see little dark fish shaped things on it."
"So you are saying there were anchovies on there? Is that what you are saying?"
"Well there were salty little fish all over the thing, so I'd suggest they were anchovies."
"Alright, well we'll have to agree to disagree, okay?"
"Alright Bill."
(Spoken low and fast) "Everyone in the whole world knows for a fact that Joes Pizza have never had anchovies on their menu and that you'd have to be a pinhead to think otherwise so moving on then, have the far, far, far, far, far left people at my local corner store gone too far by promoting the 100% fruit juices that the First Lady advocates at the front of the store, while sending the 5% mostly artificially flavoured variety the regular hard workin' Christian American folks prefer closer to the back?"
 
I suppose that's why the FOX guy repeatedly asks them if they understand the implications of presenting this as the face of Iowa Republicanism? Is that supposed to be a subtle injection of editorial opinion or something?


that was my thought. though he did also play into their sense of siege, noting "what the media will say about you." so he was simultaneously encouraging these people to say more resentful things, while at the same time warning the folks at home that these people aren't terribly representative of the "broad tent" of the GOP. however, these are the voters that the 2012 candidates are going to have to play to, these are the people who have been motivated -- as evidenced through their recycled Beck/Hannity soundbytes about the "intolerance" of the "religion" of "liberalism" -- to get up and get out there and determine who walks out of Iowa with the momentum.

granted, there are more states than Iowa, and McCain was able to pull it together in 2008 by the time NH swung around, *and* to the GOP's credit, McCain was (at least then) considered the most mainstream, electable candidate of all the 2008 contenders.
 
And he didn't say liberal media, he said media.


yes, but to GOP primary voters, all non-Fox media is liberal.


There are plenty of conservative outlets that fully reject the whole Muslim notion.


agreed. and the GOP would be better off fully denouncing these people rather than letting them define the issues for the 2012 primary.
 
Personally, I can't wait for the Republican primaries to start. Palin or not, that's going to be unbelievably entertaining. And I actually think that the further Palin falls behind, the more likely it is she'll run, and do so in a way that is about deliberately creating said entertaining shitstorm. Brilliant.
 
And I actually think that the further Palin falls behind, the more likely it is she'll run

I was actually thinking the opposite. I don't think she'll leave the moneymaking scheme she has going on now if winning the primaries wasn't close to being a sure thing. :hmm:
 
Personally, I can't wait for the Republican primaries to start. Palin or not, that's going to be unbelievably entertaining. And I actually think that the further Palin falls behind, the more likely it is she'll run, and do so in a way that is about deliberately creating said entertaining shitstorm. Brilliant.

I was actually thinking the opposite. I don't think she'll leave the moneymaking scheme she has going on now if winning the primaries wasn't close to being a sure thing. :hmm:

Either way

:corn:




If she doesn't run, then she'll play kingmaker. Which will be :lol:
 
I don't think she'll leave the moneymaking scheme she has going on now



i do think it's pretty clear that Palin is in this for the money, and that she wants to be some sort of Red State Oprah, but perhaps the best media strategy of all is to get into the primaries so the boys can be mean to her, she loses but gains piles of sympathy and creates the same kind of bond that we saw with women and Hillary -- who now is kind of shockingly beloved by everyone, when she was incredibly polarizing through the 1990s and bitterly hated by the right wing -- thus making her brand ever stronger.

the issue would be if she won the primaries. that would be scary, but she'd have to know that she'd be crushed by Obama -- she's losing to him in, like, Kansas right now -- so maybe she does try to go all the way knowing that she won't ever win.

the mind boggles at what her long term strategy could be.
 
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