2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread-Part 10.

[MrsSpringsteen]

YouTube - Part 2 - The McCain-Palin Mob in Strongsville, Ohio

[VintagePunk]

Originally Posted by U2isthebest

I give him credit for helping to end the Cold War and standing firm to Gorbachev

IMO, he gets far too much credit for this. The fact is, the political, economic and social climate in that region was ready for it, and it would have happened regardless of who was in power. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

[MrsSpringsteen]

AFP

Rednecks for Obama' want to bridge yawning culture gap

by Michael Mathes Thu Oct 9, 9:50 AM ET

When Barack Obama's campaign bus made a swing through Missouri in July, the unlikeliest of supporters were waiting for him -- or rather two of them, holding the banner: "Rednecks for Obama."

In backing the first African-American nominee of a major party for the US presidency, the pair are on a grassroots mission to bridge a cultural gap in the United States and help usher their preferred candidate into the White House.

Tony Viessman, 74, and Les Spencer, 60, got politically active last year when it occurred to them there must be other lower income, rural, beer-drinking, gun-loving, NASCAR race enthusiasts fed up with business as usual in Washington.

Viessman had a red, white and blue "Rednecks for Obama" banner made, and began causing a stir in Missouri, which has emerged as a key battleground in the run-up to the November 4 presidential election.

"I didn't expect it would get as much steam and attention as it's gotten," Spencer told AFP on the campus of Washington University in Saint Louis, the state's biggest city and site of last week's vice-presidential debate.

"We believe in him. He's the best person for the job," Viessman, a former state trooper from Rolla, said of Obama, who met the pair briefly on that July day in Union, Missouri.

The candidate bounded off his bus and jogged back towards a roadside crowd to shake hands with the men holding the banner.

"He said 'This is incredible'," Spencer recalled.

It's been an unexpectedly gratifying run, Viessman said.

Rednecks4obama.com claims more than 800,000 online visits. In Denver, Colorado, Viessman and Spencer drew crowds at the Democratic convention, and at Washington University last Thursday they were two of the most popular senior citizens on campus.

"I'm shocked, actually, but excited" that such a demographic would be organizing support for Obama, said student Naia Ferguson, 18, said after hamming it up for pictures behind the banner.

"When most people think 'redneck,' they think conservatives, anti-change, even anti-integration," she said. "But America's changing, breaking stereotypes."

A southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, defines the stereotype as a "glorious lack of sophistication".

Philistines or not, he said, most rural southerners are no longer proponents of the Old South's most abhorrent ideology -- racism -- and that workaday issues such as the economy are dominating this year's election.

"We need to build the economy from the bottom up, none of this trickle down business," Spencer said. "Just because you're white and southern don't mean you have to vote Republican."

To an important degree, however, race is still the elephant in the polling booth, experts say, and according to a recent Stanford University poll, Obama could lose six points on election day due to his color.

Racism "has softened up some, but it's still there," Viessman acknowledged from Belmont University, site of Tuesday's McCain-Obama debate in Nashville, Tennessee.

Despite representing the heartland state of Illinois, and having a more working-class upbringing than his Republican rival John McCain, Obama has struggled to shoot down the impression that he is an arugula-eating elitist.

Surely he alienated many rural voters earlier this year when the Harvard-educated senator told a fundraiser that some blue-collar voters "cling to guns or religion".

But Viessman, who says he owns a dozen guns, said Obama "ain't gonna take your guns away."

The South traditionally votes Republican -- victories for southerners Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were exceptions -- but with less than a month to election day, four states in or bordering the South are considered toss-ups: Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia.

Viessman says he'd like to think his grassroots movement could sway enough people in small-town America to make a difference.

"There's lots of other rednecks for Obama too," he said. "And the ones that's not, we're trying our best to convince them."

[Strongbow]

October 9, 2008
Obama’s Race May Be as Much a Plus as a MinusNot much different from the impact of McCain’s race


by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ -- While 6% of voters say they are less likely to vote for Barack Obama because of his race, 9% say they are more likely to vote for him, making the impact of his race a neutral to slightly positive factor when all voters' self-reported attitudes are taken into account.

At the same time, 6% of voters say John McCain's race will make them less likely to vote for him, with 7% saying it makes them more likely to vote for him, leading to the same basic conclusion: McCain's race, like Obama's, is on balance neither a plus nor a minus.

These conclusions are based on eight dimensions potentially affecting the vote for both candidates. The dimensions were included in Gallup's Oct. 3-5 poll, and analyzed overall by Gallup's Jeff Jones.

One of the dimensions tested for each candidate was "his race." More specifically, as was true for each of the other seven dimensions, respondents were asked to indicate whether each candidate's race made them more likely, or less likely, to vote for him for president. The data are presented in the charts here.

Eighty-five percent of voters say Obama's race makes no difference, and 87% say McCain's race makes no difference. This makes race the single dimension out of the eight tested that is the least likely to have an impact on the vote.

As noted above, the self-reported impact of race for both Obama and McCain is mixed, with about as many respondents saying race will make them more likely to vote for each candidate as say race will make them less likely to vote for each.

The potential impact of Obama's race on the election has been the more scrutinized this year. These data, taken at face value, show that if anything, his race could be a net plus, in the sense that it makes slightly more voters want to vote for him than not want to vote for him.

There is, as expected, a difference by the race of the respondent in answers to this question.

Among nonwhites in the sample, there is a net difference of 11 percentage points in Obama's favor in terms of the likelihood to vote for him because of his race. Among non-Hispanic whites in the sample, there is a slight net negative for Obama of -1 point.

The impact of McCain's race among nonwhites, on the other hand, is -8 points. Among whites it is +4.

Implications

Much has been written about the impact of race in this year's election, a not surprising fact given that Obama is the first black major-party candidate in U.S. presidential history to gain his party's nomination.

The data analyzed here -- based on voters' self-reports -- show that the impact of Obama's and McCain's races appears to cut both ways. Enough voters, particularly nonwhites, say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of his race to offset the small percentage who say they are less likely to vote for him because of his race. And the same is true in reverse for McCain: the impact of nonwhites' saying his race is a negative is offset by those who say it is a positive.

More specifically, to review perhaps the most important finding in these data, 7% of white voters say Obama's race makes them less likely to vote for him. But 6% of white voters say Obama's race makes them more likely to vote for him. And among nonwhite voters, Obama's race is a significant net plus.

It is important to note that these data are based on self-reports of survey respondents, and may not reflect the unconscious impact of race and/or the willingness of respondents to admit that the race of a candidate affects their voting behavior. But the racial data discussed here were collected in a grid of eight different dimensions, which may have had the impact of downplaying any particular significance to race as a concept that respondents focused on.

In the final reality, it may be impossible to tell exactly what impact the fact that Obama is black and McCain white may have on the outcome of the Nov. 4 election. These results suggest that the large majority of American voters at this point say neither man's race will be a factor in their vote decision. Certainly it's true that a small percentage of white voters say Obama's race will be a negative to them, and a small percentage of nonwhite voters say McCain's race will be a negative. These results are offset by the fact that each man's race is a plus to other voters. Perhaps more importantly, in the context of other candidate dimensions tested in the recent research, race is actually the least important factor tested.

Obama’s Race May Be as Much a Plus as a Minus

[Utoo]

Got this from a friend, who got it from a friend, etc....

A nice little vid expressing concern about McCain's character. I think they could even have pulled in some more impressive people to comment...

YouTube - John McCain's Rage is a National Security Concern

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by U2democrat

27 days out I'm feeling cautiously optimistic...

I'm partly quietly optimistic........... with a lot of prayers thrown in, too.

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by anitram

I'm embarrassed on behalf of my entire country for them too.

did you ever see the sites....
sorry (from the non-Bush voters in 2004 ) and the apologies accepted (people around the world) --
funny, moving, sad

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by JOFO

In all seriousness, I hope Obama gets the absolute best of the best in security, because there are alot of racist muthafukas in America that would love to take a shot at him.
That, God forbid, would be enough to drive me out of here....

if you have any kind of belief in some power/energy beyond what science currently says.......

....just imagine a While Light around Barack, Michelle, & their kids....that's what I've done for him/them & hillary (when she was running)
It's very protective....

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by Earnie Shavers

The guy with the camera should have pulled out a world map and asked each of them to point to Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s been a guaranteed laugh for 7 years now when interviewing these types of people. “God Bless George Bush! Saddam Hussein deserved to die for 9/11!” (can you please point to Iraq on this map?) “Here?” (points to Brazil).

you so gud, ES

BTW...I just heard the ES name in reference........oh damn.....oh yeah...a famous USA boxer last night when 2 ppeole were talking on the radio about Muhhamed Ali....

[U2democrat]

A moment of levity:

YouTube - Joe Biden Laugh at ABC

[dazzledbylight]

thanks for the article Mrs S!

cori.......
American has often had a anti-intellectual stream running through it. What I don't know is whether at certain times it comes out more than other times.

OH yeah and being an intellecturally smart, and curious woam myslef; back in my growing up....eeehhh.....it was even more looked down upon by a lot of people.
Luckily my parents didn't stifle that or my artistic side either.

[dazzledbylight]

BTW U2dem......

One of the things that Obama didn't highlight when McSame brings up "The Surge" he keeps forgetting to SAY.... that the surge is partially working because we keep FUNDING the Sunni Insurgents NOT to fight any more!

Every time Barack has an opening to bring that up......he's hasn't!!!

[Harry Vest]

Originally Posted by dazzledbylight

if you have any kind of belief in some power/energy beyond what science currently says.......

....just imagine a While Light around Barack, Michelle, & their kids....that's what I've done for him/them & hillary (when she was running)
It's very protective....

[kellyahern]

McCain questions Obama's link to '60s radical - John McCain News - MSNBC.com

I don't get it. My parents and I are both watching our retirement funds dwindle away each day ( Dow falls through 9,000 and picks up speed - Stocks & economy - MSNBC.com ) and McCain is talking about some guy from 40 years ago who has no impact on what happens now at all.

The economy's in freefall, yet McCain wants to focus on a "60s radical"

[Harry Vest]

Originally Posted by U2isthebest

Nice deep impression. I'm still trying to figure out how President Clinton looks younger now than he did in 2000.

You're kidding right????

Bill Clinton does not look younger now than he did then.

He looks way older!!!

[namkcuR]

Originally Posted by Harry Vest

You're kidding right????

Bill Clinton does not look younger now than he did then.

He looks way older!!!

He looks wiser, more intelligent, and more sophisticated now though. He wasn't as thin back then, and when I look at pictures of him from 1992, he looks far more 'south' and 'hick' than he does now. He looks much more like a statesman now, imo.

[Irvine511]

i'd take this with a big grain of salt, or at least a healthy shot of skepticism, but Obama is pulling very close in elitist-hatin' WVA. one poll even puts him up by 8 points.

West Virginia 2008 Presidential Ballot

[U2Fanatic4ever]

Originally Posted by U2democrat

A moment of levity:

[toscano]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

i'd take this with a big grain of salt, or at least a healthy shot of skepticism, but Obama is pulling very close in elitist-hatin' WVA. one poll even puts him up by 8 points.

West Virginia 2008 Presidential Ballot

But here's the problem, too many people still think like this (an actual email from my brother-in-law during a friendly debate on the relative merits of the candidates, just how DID the christian loonies get fixated on this ? WHERE did Jesus go on about this ???, doesn't god have more to worry about ???? Darfur maybe ??? The Middle East ?)

"Yes it seems all politicians are corrupt in some way. However when Obama and his VP say they support gay marriage, it makes me wonder if God won't get sick enough of America's lack of morals and allow the same thing to happen to us that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? On this part of the debate I have to side with the republicans who openly state that marriage is between a man and a women. I, like Christ have compassion on those who have this "different lifestyle". However, God is able to deliver any of us, no matter what our sins or bad lifestyles, so my prayers go out to those people"

[deep]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

i'd take this with a big grain of salt, or at least a healthy shot of skepticism, but Obama is pulling very close in elitist-hatin' WVA. one poll even puts him up by 8 points.

West Virginia Presidential Ballot

maybe those Hillary voters

you had such disdain for

are coming over your way?



here is a button

americans-working-together obama button


to go along with your avatar