User profile: Notasnaive

This is a free country. Voters voted for their choices of candidates. All the endorsements and spinners won't do much good if they don't reflect the voices of the people. American people did not lose just because more Nevadan voters preferred Clinton to Obama. If people don't like Clinton, they can always vote for a Republican in November if Clinton turns out to be the nominee. The reality is that unless the economy can recover quickly, the Republican nominee will lose in a general election.

Nationally 65% of the Hispanic electorate favors Clinton as compared to 15% for Obama. Because they did not consult their membership, the Culinary Union leaders could not deliver the votes to Obama. His candidacy is doomed because Obama’s strength is regional, and not national. He could win in neighboring Iowa, and in certain Southern primaries where African-American voters are in the majority, but he will lose in Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania etc., all the big states.

Nationally 65% of the Hispanic electorate favors Clinton as compared to 15% for Obama. Because they did not consult their membership, the Culinary Union leaders could not deliver the votes to Obama. His candidacy is doomed because Obama’s strength is regional, and not national. He could win in neighboring Iowa, and in certain Southern primaries where African-American voters are in the majority, but he will lose in Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania etc., all the big states.

Whoever is the Democratic nominee in November will be subject to intense barrage of attacks from the Republicans. The following excerpt provided a brief outline of such an attack, which will focus on Obama’s life story. The goal is to twist that saga, to unearth facts or factoids that raise concerns about his background, and to make his upbringing appear alien and even sinister — and of course, to play the race card against him, either subtly or blatantly. These themes will begin to appear in the right-wing press, which is where the original Swift Boat smears first showed up four years ago. That process has begun, and is accelerating along with Obama's drive toward the nomination. Conservatives will briefly applaud him for defeating Hillary Clinton, the immediate object of their hatred, and then turn on him as the next target. Denigrating material about the front-runner will be ready for deployment very shortly, but will not be aired until his nomination is a certainty. Meanwhile, certain themes are being tested on the websites of the extreme right. The basic concept is to suggest that Obama is somehow less wholesome than he appears to be, and to provoke bigoted responses. On these sites and in e-mail barrages, he is being portrayed as the son and stepson of Muslims from Africa and Asia, who worshipped in mosques and madrasas as a young boy. Next will come questions about the Chicago church he attends, whose eccentric pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a close friend and spiritual adviser to the Obama family. In a very recent article published on the Newsmax website, Wright is depicted as a raving black nationalist and a proud associate of Louis Farrakhan. He is prone to polarizing remarks about a wide range of topics, from Jews and Israel to Natalee Holloway. The Newsmax article on the relationship between Obama and Wright displays at least one aspect of the campaign under construction on the right. More powerful forces are clearly indicating their interest in these same lines of attack. Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide who now runs Freedom's Watch, told Newsmax he was aware of the Wright connection. "If your spiritual adviser makes outrageous statements, it's incumbent on you as a leader to denounce those statements," he said. "Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual adviser pronounces." Newsmax concluded that "if Obama is his party's nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton's furlough to help Bush win the presidency." In other words, be prepared for the attack ads to be aired by Freedom's Watch and other shadowy, well-funded organizations, just like the Horton ads put up by an earlier "independent committee" in 1988. The unscrupulous right wing will do exactly the same thing to Hillary Clinton if she wins the nomination — except that those smears will have to be reruns.

It's going to be the economy and not the war that will be the main concern of the voters come November. That and health care will be the major issues. Who cares about the war when practically there is no difference among Obama, Clinton and Edwards about what to do with Iraq next? Who cares about who voted for what, that's all in the past. We have to look forward. When it comes to health care coverage, Clinton's and Edwards' plans are most comprehensive. When it comes to econonomic plans, both Clinton and Edwards have truly detailed plans to help the economy. Where is Obama's plan?