...................................................................................................................................... impossibility is a word found only in the dictionary of fools
That's true Houston. Obama won't turn those poor republicans away, why would he, if that's the chance he's got to win. Because not from the true Democrats. They support Hillary. But he's laughing at them. Did you hear what he said lately about the Obamacans?
And what are those redneck votes worth anyway? In 8 years they will turn away and vote for their red candidate. Not worth much to me.
The truth of the matter is Reps are afraid of Hillary and having a confrontation in the general election because they know they will lose to her. They will lose to Obama but at least he doesn't yet know how stupid and disloyal they are. Right now is the real fight between reps and dems, not in the general election because the outcome of that one is already cast in stone.
The primary season hasn’t been kind to Lou Dobbs. After spending the last few years beating the drums for a nationwide political insurrection, CNN’s favorite alarmist must face up to the fact that voters have rejected his polemics in which global trade and immigration are the twin evils threatening America.
Indeed, the failure of supporters of his views to gain control of either major party was enough for poor Lou to want to dump cold water on the red-hot primary season. Many of us who have looked on his jeremiads with increasing dismay are merely answering: “Amen!â€
While the Democrats will battle on into the summer, the Republican outcome is no longer in any real doubt. In particular, Mitt Romney, the last of the viable presidential candidates who thought an attack on illegal immigration was the ticket to success, conceded Sen. John McCain’s eventual nomination.
Along with the last two Democrats standing — Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — McCain had specifically opposed the anti-immigration hysteria that has become one of the major issues of the year, if not the decade. As a cosponsor of a sane, if ultimately doomed, attempt to reform the current unworkable immigration legal system, he was widely pronounced dead in the water last year specifically because he had gone “liberal†on immigration.
That he was joined in this heresy by other noted “left-wingers†such as President Bush and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal did not deter the talk radio hosts or the wilder members of the pundit class, such as the execrable Anne Coulter (who claims she will “campaign†for Hillary Clinton to demonstrate her disdain for McCain). They labeled him a traitor to his party for suggesting that 12 million people who were currently here without permission could not just be deported, and that the only economically rational and humane answer was to offer this population a path to citizenship.
Though McCain has wandered off the GOP reservation at times (most lamentably, with a campaign finance reform scheme that does nothing to help the problem it sought to solve while undermining free-speech rights), immigration was something different. To what seemed to be the majority of the Republican electorate, the charge of offering “amnesty†for illegals was supposed to be a third-rail offense in 2008. This was the year that nativism was going to triumph.
That was, at any rate, exactly what Romney and Rudy Giuliani, whom national polls showed as the leading Republican candidate for most of 2007, figured. Both of these men were defenders of immigration rights when they were, respectively, governor of Massachusetts and mayor of New York City. As candidates, they morphed into snarling, Dobbs-like alarmists about the danger allegedly posed to the nation by millions of hardworking, poorly paid busboys and maids who were discussed as if they were the moral equivalent of Al Qaida.
But carrying on about immigration was not enough to save Giuliani’s candidacy. Nor did it do much for Fred Thompson, who also figured to benefit from McCain’s collapse.
McCain eventually acknowledged that Congress and the people had rejected his reform bill, and there seemed no point in beating a dead horse. He embraced a stance of more border security, which had always been part of his scheme. But there was no doubt that the charge of “amnesty†hung over him.
And yet here we are in February with McCain the all-but-crowned king of the Republican Party.
What happened?
First, although the anti-immigrant backlash had strength, it was never as big as its promulgators pretended it was, even among voters in Republican primaries.
Hispanic voters — not all of whom are Democrats, and many of whom share the Republican frame of reference about national security and social values — also realized that the anti-alien stance was a thinly disguised attempt to intimidate Latinos. In a state such as Florida, where Cuban Americans helped supply the margin that made McCain a winner, that factor was devastating for Romney.
More to the point, no matter how popular it might have become, immigration bashing could never compete with other more traditional issues. For some on the Right, Mike Huckabee’s stance as the “Christian candidate†on abortion trumped Romney’s anti-amnesty rants. Indeed, even after national conservative talk show hosts spent a week pumping up Romney, Huckabee and McCain split the southern states with Romney coming up last virtually everywhere in Dixie.
As for making illegals a national security issue, common sense won out. Running as the man who championed the troop surge in Iraq when most Republicans were running for cover, McCain was able to explain why the fight with Islamism is the No. 1 issue facing the nation — and not Central Americans who want to fill low-income jobs in this country.
Like any successful candidate, McCain had his share of luck. Most of it centered on the tactical mistakes made by his opponents. One also cannot underestimate the justified reluctance of all his rivals but Romney to personally take on a man who spent five-plus years in the Hanoi Hilton.
Yet if revulsion against illegal immigration was as widespread as some believe, McCain’s impressive wins would have been impossible.
The debate is far from over. Know-nothingism will, no doubt, be back with a vengeance next January, when a new Congress will try again on the issue.
But immigration won’t dictate the outcome of the 2008 general election. There will be more than enough real foreign, security, and economic issues to debate without a drumbeat of manufactured hysteria about immigrants in low-paying jobs that most Americans wouldn’t do under any circumstances.
For Dobbs, this means democracy is failing. For the majority of Americans, descendants of immigrants every one, it sounds like, at least on this point, sanity will prevail for awhile.
Posted Feb 15th 2008 1:52PM by Cenk Uygur Filed under: Young Turks, John McCain, Video, Torture
John McCain has sold the last piece of his soul to the right-wing extremists in this country. He just voted to allow waterboarding by the CIA, acting against everything he has ever said or backed in his life up until now. This is not the man I voted for in 2000. This is a sad, sad remnant of that man.
Here's the details of McCain's vote for torture (and find out where Obama and Clinton came out on it, you might be surprised):
At least, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and the rest of the people who voted for torture lost this one (which is shocking, given the consistent failure of the Democratic Congress to stand up to Bush; but you have to give them credit on this one).
Final note to John McCain: You already won the lunatic primary, you're supposed to be running to the center now. The conventional wisdom that you're supposed to be placating your insatiable conservative base is dead wrong and will kill your chances in the general election.
Remember when this guy vehemently said no to torture and no to waterboarding
The votes came in 51 to 45 that usa should not torture. This is very close number
Hillary and Obama did not vote on this controversial matter and both cited being too busy on campaign trail.
Posted Feb 15th 2008 1:52PM by Cenk Uygur Filed under: Young Turks, John McCain, Video, Torture
John McCain has sold the last piece of his soul to the right-wing extremists in this country. He just voted to allow waterboarding by the CIA, acting against everything he has ever said or backed in his life up until now. This is not the man I voted for in 2000. This is a sad, sad remnant of that man.
Here's the details of McCain's vote for torture (and find out where Obama and Clinton came out on it, you might be surprised):
At least, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and the rest of the people who voted for torture lost this one (which is shocking, given the consistent failure of the Democratic Congress to stand up to Bush; but you have to give them credit on this one).
Final note to John McCain: You already won the lunatic primary, you're supposed to be running to the center now. The conventional wisdom that you're supposed to be placating your insatiable conservative base is dead wrong and will kill your chances in the general election.
Remember when this guy vehemently said no to torture and no to waterboarding
The votes came in 51 to 45 that usa should not torture. This is very close number
Hillary and Obama did not vote on this controversial matter and both cited being too busy on campaign trail.
He's so desperate to become POTUS he will agree to anything that he thinks Republicans want him to say/do. There is so much back room wheeling and dealing going on during this campaign season, I have not doubt no matter who wins, satan will reveal him or herself as soon as the oath of office has been taken.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Beverly,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God Bless America - God Bless Immigrants - God Bless Poor Misguided Souls Too Mr S.U.
SprintG, this is funny! Does 4Now know that he's running for President now!
THINK PINK!
More questions friends:
1. In my first home country, the officials are elected by the people, directly. Here, from what I understand, it's the delegates who finally decide the vote. In the case of Clinton and Obama who seem to be equal (based on polls in the Yahoo news), the superdelegates may be called in to break any tie that may ensue. Is this not a violation of the will of the people? Where did the idea of superdelegates come from?
2. In McCain's case, since he has a greater percentage of lead over Huckabee, will there be no need for the unpledged delegates (I'm not sure if I remember it right, the equivalent of the superdelegates from the Dems)?
Thanks and keep your cool guys!
Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can.
Originally posted by Mrs. B.: SprintG, this is funny! Does 4Now know that he's running for President now!
THINK PINK!
More questions friends:
1. In my first home country, the officials are elected by the people, directly. Here, from what I understand, it's the delegates who finally decide the vote. In the case of Clinton and Obama who seem to be equal (based on polls in the Yahoo news), the superdelegates may be called in to break any tie that may ensue. Is this not a violation of the will of the people? Where did the idea of superdelegates come from?
2. In McCain's case, since he has a greater percentage of lead over Huckabee, will there be no need for the unpledged delegates (I'm not sure if I remember it right, the equivalent of the superdelegates from the Dems)?
Thanks and keep your cool guys!
Mrs. B, 1. Yes and no. Right now, we are in the primary season where the two major parties go through an election process to select the candidate who would run for President. We have a federal systme of government, not a parliamentary onee. Once nominated, the general election will take palce where each vote will count once. However, the President is not elected solely by the popular vote, but by the electoral college. If the President wins a majority of the electoral college, the that person will win the Presidency. This happened with President Bill Clinton and with President Bush. It is also part of the checks and balance system that our forefathers wanted to have in case of a "mob rule" mentality, which we now have with the immigration debate.
2. Huckabee is staying in there for two reasons. First, to align himself as the VP candidate. And second, to make sure the party platform has some "conservative" ideals. This is an important distinction in our political system and others around the world.
As you surmised, the Republican party has no super delegates. In the Democratic Party, super delegates were installed as part of the proceess in 1972, I do believe, to help the ordinary delegates to not make the same mistake twice.
Hope this helps.
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams on Defense of the boston Massacre
Originally posted by Sprint_girl07: Proud..Texas is definitely a Redneck State, isn't it Davdah? LOL
Just kidding
Yes it is. Having squirrel tonight (lol)
Please tell me you didn't make your wife eat squirrel on Valentine's Day - lol!!!!!!!!!
No, that wouldn't have gone over to well I think. So, where do we stand? Looks like Hillary is losing ground quickly. Would have been nice to make the Rep win easier but Obama won't be that difficult either.
Does anyone know why the Dems have super delegates? Here is a clue. They don't trust the people to elect their own contender.
You voted democrat. This country is not worth sneaking into any more.
Posts: 5791 | Location: San Antonio TX | Registered: 06-08-2007
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