US-Election 2008

02-27-2008, 12:37 AM

They don't need any surprise, Democrats are delivering them now.
Ticket to Obama will deliver them. He is over hyped already and reached his plateau too soon.

Yesterday someone reminded me of 1964 election, Barry Goldwater was attracting big crowd, much bigger then Osama, but Goldwater lost by one single ad. That was countdown number with mushroom cloud. He lost election even after his charisma, celestial light and speeches better then any leader before and after him.

So, crowd puller comes down very fast. One ad can do the magic, Rep can do it.
Again if you see, Barry lost TN, OK, AR. He lost by one of the largest margins in the history of U.S. Presidential elections.

What a coincidence? Obama and Goldwater both have Barry as name.
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**acharya** · 02-27-2008, 06:49 AM

Obama and Iraq
Gwynne Dyer
I knew the US presidential race was over last week when my son preemptively announced that he had lost his bet with me: Hillary Clinton was not going to be the Democratic candidate.

The question of whether Barack Obama can beat John McCain is still open, according to the opinion polls, but it probably wonât stay open long once the two men go head to head. McCain has many attractive qualities, but he is 71 and Obama is 46.

McCain is also a Republican in a year when the US is heading into a recession after eight years of a Republican administration. Even more importantly, he is committed to continuing a war in Iraq that most Americans just want to leave behind. Curiously, this means that the two men with the greatest potential influence on McCainâs political future are Osama Ben Laden and Moqtada Sadr.

The one thing that could swing the 2008 election in favour of the Republicans is another large-scale terrorist attack on the United States. If Al Qaeda has any ability to provide that attack, it will certainly do so, for Ben Laden is well aware that his greatest recruiting tool in the Arab world is the American military presence in Iraq. But it is unlikely that Al Qaeda has any significant presence within the United States.

Sadr is a more interesting case. He is the leader of the Mehdi army, the biggest Shiite militia in Iraq, and he has just extended his unilateral ceasefire against American troops and rival militias for another six months. His two main objectives in life are to evict the US from Iraq and to gain control of the Iraqi government, and the first is a necessary preliminary to the second.

As long as the US presidential election promises to result in an administration pledged to withdraw from Iraq, he doesnât have to lift a finger. But if by August it looks like McCain has a chance of winning, then Sadr has every incentive to end his ceasefire and launch a mini-Tet offensive against US troops. The point would not be to win. It would be to remind American voters that Iraq is a quagmire that they should leave really soon.

So one way or another, Obama is almost certain to be the president of the United States by January of next year. He has hedged his commitment to withdraw American troops from Iraq in various ways from time to time, but there is little doubt in most peopleâs minds that he really intends to do it.

What will the Middle East look like after the Americans are gone? Not just gone from Iraq, either.

There are currently US military bases of one sort or another in almost every country along the southwestern (Arab) side of the Gulf, but with Iran emerging as the new great power of the region, many of the host countries will soon be asking the Americans to leave. They donât fear invasion by Iran; they fear internal destabilisation if Iran incites their own Shiite minorities against them. So keep Tehran happy by sending the Americans home.

Iraq, contrary to all the predictions of disaster, will probably be all right after the withdrawal of US troops. It will never again be the secular, female-friendly society of the past, and it will take at least a decade to recover from the economic devastation of the embargo, the invasion and the occupation, but it wonât break up.

Most of the smaller ethnic and religious minorities have fled from Iraq or been killed, and the larger groups - Sunni and Shiite Arabs, and Kurds - have mostly retreated into homogeneous districts and neighbourhoods, so thereâs not much left to fight about except along the boundary between Arab Iraq and Kurdistan. Itâs even possible that the more or less democratic system imposed by the US occupation will survive the departure of the Americans.

Iran will indeed emerge as the new paramount power of the Gulf, but its actual influence even over predominantly Shiite Iraq will be quite limited. Farther afield, the notion of dangerously radical Shiites running through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon is sheer nonsense: Shiites are a minority in Lebanon, and a very small minority in Syria. It is mainly the US State Department that promotes this fantasy, with the aim of scaring Sunni Arab states into a new, US-dominated alliance against Iran.

The real fall-out from the US invasion of Iraq is the greatly heightened prestige of Islamist revolutionaries throughout the Arab world. Whether this will ever result in a successful Islamist revolution in a major Arab country remains to be seen - they have been trying and failing for 30 years now - but the odds have probably shifted somewhat in that direction.

And the big loser of this decadeâs events is Israel, which must now deal with a strengthened Iran, a Gaza Strip under Islamist control, and a United States in retreat from the Middle East. It still faces no serious military threat from its neighbours, but its political options are significantly narrower than they were.

Itâs not much of a headline: âSmall, nasty war in Iraq Ends; Middle East largely unaffected.â But then, history often works like that. The equivalent headline in 1975 would have read: âUS defeated in Vietnam; no wider consequences.â

The writerâs new book, âAfter Iraqâ, has just been published in London by Yale University Press.

02-27-2008, 07:30 AM

QUOTEWe have faith in Hillary! I actually voted for Obama in the Alabama primary, but have since regreted that decision. I continue to contribute to Hillary's campaign b/c the Obama campaign had alot of advertisements on the t.v and radio when Alabama was at play. Hillary needs the money to compete. Donate! Donate! Donate! I know she's a fighter and we have all seen that in the past couple days! I have also made some phone calls. (I can't belive how involved i've gotten with all this campaign stuff). Hillary needs us!!!Â Yes We Can Yall!!!
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dhu · (This post was last modified: 02-27-2008, 12:29 PM by dhu.)

We need a similar analysis from the viewpoint of a functional heathen culture. If the anthropologists Rushdie and Caldwell are any indication, Obama will come down on the side against the threatening heathens.

These individuals desire to be morose about the loss rather than taking the effort to explicate the nuances of a culture which can mount a wrenching challenge to the dominant paradigms. In the British Cantonments, there was always a barely tolerated jester who could wax philosophical at times and present the vanquished viewpoint, an Oscar Wilde of sorts.

Rushdie is probably the closest fit to Obama; they are intelligent enough to understand the issues but they have had just enough exposure to the other world to realize that their power to condemn the heathen can recover for them a sense of agency, as well as a role in the dominant paradigm. Thus they repeatedly recourse to the leverage of their one and only skill: the equal equal tactic. Rather than disparaging their own ambiguously (subaltern) oppressive Somali or Muslim antecedents, the heathen will be harmlessly substituted.

Obama as a product of the Anthropology movement:

QUOTEObama's women reveal his secret
By Spengler

"Cherchez la femme," advised Alexander Dumas in: "When you want to uncover an unspecified secret, look for the woman." In the case of Barack Obama, we have two: his late mother, the went-native anthropologist Ann Dunham, and his rancorous wife Michelle. Obama's women reveal his secret: he hates America.

We know less about Senator Obama than about any prospective president in American history. His uplifting rhetoric is empty, as Hillary Clinton helplessly protests. His career bears no trace of his own character, not an article for the Harvard Law Review he edited, or a single piece of legislation. He appears to be an empty vessel filled with the wishful thinking of those around him. But there is a real Barack Obama. No man - least of all one abandoned in infancy by his father - can conceal the imprint of an impassioned mother, or the influence of a brilliant wife.

America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world's 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama's mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.

Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother's revenge against the America she despised.

Ann Dunham died in 1995, and her character emerges piecemeal from the historical record, to which I will return below. But Michelle Obama is a living witness. Her February 18 comment that she felt proud of her country for the first time caused a minor scandal, and was hastily qualified. But she meant it, and more. The video footage of her remarks shows eyes hooded with rageÂ as she declares:

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.

The desperation, frustration and disappointment visible on Michelle Obama's face are not new to the candidate's wife; as Steve Sailer, Rod Dreher and other commentators have noted, they were the theme of her undergraduate thesis, on the subject of "blackness" at Princeton University. No matter what the good intentions of Princeton, which founded her fortunes as a well-paid corporate lawyer, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong."

Never underestimate the influence of a wife who bitch-slaps her husband in public. Early in Obama's campaign, Michelle Obama could not restrain herself from belittling the senator. "I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There's Barack Obama the phenomenon. He's an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right? And then there's the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy's a little less impressive," she told a fundraiser in February 2007.

"For some reason this guy still can't manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn't get stale, and his five-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reported at the time, "She added that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she'd like to meet him sometime." Her handlers have convinced her to be more tactful since then.

"Frustration" and "disappointment" have dogged Michelle Obama these past 20 years, despite her US$300,000 a year salary and corporate board memberships. It is hard for the descendants of slaves not to resent America. They were not voluntary immigrants but kidnap victims, subjected to a century of second-class citizenship even after the Civil War ended slavery. Blackness is not the issue; General Colin Powell, whose parents chose to immigrate to America from the West Indies, saw America just as other immigrants do, as a land of opportunity. Obama's choice of wife is a failsafe indicator of his own sentiments. Spouses do not necessarily share their likes, but they must have their hatreds in common. Obama imbibed this hatred with his mother's milk.

Michelle Obama speaks with greater warmth of her mother-in-law than of her husband. "She was kind of a dreamer, his mother," Michelle Obama was quoted in the January 25 Boston Globe. "She wanted the world to be open to her and her children. And as a result of her naivete, sometimes they lived on food stamps, because sometimes dreams don't pay the rent. But as a result of her naivete, Barack got to see the world like most of us don't in this country." How strong the ideological motivation must be of a mother to raise her children on the thin fair in pursuit of a political agenda.

"Naivete" is a euphemism for Ann Dunham's motivation. Friends describe her as a "fellow traveler", that is, a communist sympathizer, from her youth, according to a March 27, 2007, Chicago Tribune report. Many Americans harbor leftist views, but not many marry into them, twice. Ann Dunham met and married the Kenyan economics student Barack Obama, Sr, at the University of Hawaii in 1960, and in 1967 married the Indonesian student Lolo Soetero. It is unclear why Soetero's student visa was revoked in 1967 - the fact but not the cause are noted in press accounts. But it is probable that the change in government in Indonesia in 1967, in which the leftist leader Sukarno was deposed, was the motivation.

Soetero had been sponsored as a graduate student by one of the most radical of all Third World governments. Sukarno had founded the so-called Non-Aligned Movement as an anti-colonialist turn at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Before deposing him in 1967, Indonesia's military slaughtered 500,000 communists (or unfortunates who were mistaken for communists). When Ann Dunham chose to follow Lolo Soetero to Indonesia in 1967, she brought the six-year-old Barack into the kitchen of anti-colonialist outrage, immediate following one of the worst episodes of civil violence in post-war history.

Dunham's experience in Indonesia provided the material for a doctoral dissertation celebrating the hardiness of local cultures against the encroaching metropolis. It was entitled, "Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds". In this respect Dunham remained within the mainstream of her discipline. Anthropology broke into popular awareness with Margaret Mead's long-discredited Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which offered a falsified ideal of sexual liberation in the South Pacific as an alternative to the supposedly repressive West. Mead's work was one of the founding documents of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and anthropology faculties stood at the left-wing fringe of American universities.

In the Global South, anthropologists went into the field and took matters a step further. Peru's brutal Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerilla movement was the brainchild of the anthropologistÂ Efrain Morote Best, who headed the University of San Cristobal of Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru, between 1962 and 1968. Dunham's radicalism was more vicarious; she ended her career as an employee of international organizations.

Barack Obama received at least some instruction in the Islamic faith of his father and went with him to the mosque, but the importance of this experience is vastly overstated by conservative commentators who seek to portray Obama as a Muslim of sorts. Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Gamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.

Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother's milk, but worked his way up the elite ladder of education and career. He shares the resentment of Muslims against the encroachment of American culture, although not their religion. He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.

There is nothing mysterious about Obama's methods. "A demagogue tries to sound as stupid as his audience so that they will think they are as clever as he is," wrote Karl Krauss. Americans are the world's biggest suckers, and laugh at this weakness in their popular culture. Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis' cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power's portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire Nightmare Alley. The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.

America has the great misfortune to have encountered Obama at the peak of his powers at its worst moment of vulnerability in a generation. With malice aforethought, he has sought out their sore point.

Since the Ronald Reagan boom began in 1984, the year the American stock market doubled, Americans have enjoyed a quarter-century of rising wealth. Even the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 did not interrupt the upward trajectory of household assets, as the housing price boom eclipsed the effect of equity market weakness. America's success made it a magnet for the world's savings, and Americans came to believe that they were riding a boom that would last forever, as I wrote recently [1].

Americans regard upward mobility as a God-given right. America had a double founding, as David Hackett Fischer showed in his 1989 study, Albion's Seed . Two kinds of immigrants founded America: religious dissidents seeking a new Promised Land, and economic opportunists looking to get rich quick. Both elements still are present, but the course of the past quarter-century has made wealth-creation the sine qua non of American life. Now for the first time in a generation Americans have become poorer, and many of them have become much poorer due to the collapse of home prices. Unlike the Reagan years, when cutting the top tax rate from a punitive 70% to a more tolerable 40% was sufficient to start an economic boom, no lever of economic policy is available to fix the problem. Americans have no choice but to work harder, retire later, save more and retrench.

This reversal has provoked a national mood of existential crisis. In Europe, economic downturns do not inspire this kind of soul-searching, for richer are poorer, remain what they always have been. But Americans are what they make of themselves, and the slim makings of 2008 shake their sense of identity. Americans have no institutionalized culture to fall back on. Their national religion has consisted of waves of enthusiasm - "Great Awakenings" Ã¢â¬â every second generation or so, followed by an interim of apathy. In times of stress they have a baleful susceptibility to hucksters and conmen.

Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.

The George W Bush administration has squandered a great strategic advantage in a sorry lampoon of nation-building in the Muslim world, and has made enemies out of countries that might have been friendly rivals, notably Russia. Americans question the premise of America's standing as a global superpower, and of the promise of upward mobility and wealth-creation. If elected, Barack Obama will do his utmost to destroy the dual premises of America's standing. It might take the country another generation to recover.

"Evil will oft evil mars", J R R Tolkien wrote. It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama. As he recalled in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama idealized the Kenyan economist who had married and dumped his mother, and was saddened to learn that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, was a sullen, drunken polygamist. The elder Obama became a senior official of the government of Kenya after earning a PhD at Harvard. He was an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career.

The senior Obama died in a 1982 car crash. Kenyan government officials in those days normally spent their nights drinking themselves stupid at the Pan-Afrique Hotel. Two or three of them would be found with their Mercedes wrapped around a palm tree every morning. During the 1970s I came to know a number of them, mostly British-educated hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.

Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals - and nothing can be more terrible for the system. Even those who despise America for its blunders of the past few years should ask themselves whether the world will be a safer place if America retreats into a self-pitying shell.

Note
1. Obama bin lottery Asia Times Online, January 29, 2008.

02-27-2008, 09:08 PM

During yesterday debate, reference to Farrakhan itself make people to change mind. Hillary forced him to reject. It will not go well with people in 30s+. I was checking some who are Republican or democrats who don't mind voting for Obama, now they will vote against him.

dhu,
His rallies are very creepy, he knows how to play with minds and it all comes from Anthropology/Commie movement. This FOSA/FOIL etc anti-India crowd is a Anthropology movement against India.

02-27-2008, 09:44 PM

Mudy thanks for the link. I saw the blogger who talks about Oprah etc - is the the one you were referring to ?

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Ramana, more then studying the candidates and strategic impact on India its absolutely essential to demystify other societies. US is the sone-ki-chidiya right now and India has to build a mental image of the US just like a mental image of India was built back then.

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Anyways an interesting take.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=...7293d6a0&k=9716

Post-racial
by Michael Crowley
Even white supremacists don't hate Obama.
Post Date Wednesday, March 12, 2008

QUOTEYet it also reflects the fact that, unlike Jesse Jackson, Obama simply lacks certain cultural signifiers--not to mention an urban-centric policy agenda--that would viscerally threaten racist whites obsessed with maintaining "white rights," ending affirmative action, and cutting off nearly all non-European immigration.

02-27-2008, 10:37 PM

QUOTEMudy thanks for the link. I saw the blogger who talks about Oprah etc - is the the one you were referring to ?
Yes, but they change everyday.

02-28-2008, 01:52 AM

Here comes second republication stroke
IRS Probes Obama's Church Over SpeechQUOTENEW YORK (Feb. 27) - The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a speech Sen. Barack Obama gave at its national meeting last year after he became a candidate for president, the denomination said Tuesday.
....

In a letter the denomination received Monday, the IRS said "reasonable belief exists" that the circumstances surrounding the speech violated restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt organizations. The denomination has denied any wrongdoing.

Obama, a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, spoke about faith and public life at the denomination's June 2007 General Synod in Hartford, Conn.

**acharya** · (This post was last modified: 02-28-2008, 03:50 AM by acharya.)

www.partypolitics.com

The United States presidential election of 2008 will be held on 4 November 2008.

The election will determine electors for the United States Electoral College, and whichever presidential candidate receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College (at least 270) will be the 44th President of the United States, whichever vice presidential candidate receives a majority of votes will be the 47th Vice President of the United States.

If no presidential candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College then the president-elect is selected by a vote of the House of Representatives and if no vice presidential candidate receives a majority then the vice president-elect is selected by a vote of the Senate.

As in the 2004 presidential election, the allocation of electoral votes to each state will be partially based on the 2000 Census. The president-elect and vice president-elect will be inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

For the first time since 1928, both major parties will have open contests for the Presidential nomination without a sitting President or Vice President in the running.

COSTLIEST ELECTION

The reported cost of campaigning for President has risen significantly in recent years. One source reported that if the costs for both Democrats and Republicans campaigns are added together (for the Presidential primary election, general election, and the political conventions) the costs have more than doubled in only eight years ($448.9 million in 1996, $649.5 million in 2000, and $1,016.5 million in 2004).

2008 U.S. presidential race will be "the most expensive election in American history." The 2008 race will be a "$1 billion election," and that to be "taken seriously," a candidate will need to raise at least $100 million by the end of 2007.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
List of Anounced Candidates. Other possible candidates in Italics.

REPUBLICAN PARTY:
US Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas)
Former Governor Jim Gilmore (R-Virginia)
Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia)
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R-New York)
US Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska)
Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-Arkansas)
Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-California)
US Senator John McCain (R-Arizona)
Former Governor George Pataki (R-New York)
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas)
Former Governor Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts)
Radio Talk Show Host Michael Savage (R-California)
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado)
Former Governor Tommy Thompson (R-Wisconsin)

DEMOCRATIC PARTY:
US Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware)
Former Army General Wes Clark (D-Arkansas)
US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York)
US Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecitcut)
Former US Senator John Edwards (D-North Carolina)
Former Alaska US Senator Mike Gravel (D-Virginia)
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
US Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois)
Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico)
Rev. Al Sharpton (D-New York)
Governor Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa)
THE TWO PARTY US of A

DEMOCRATIC PARTY (DNC)

After the 2006 elections, Democrats control several key governorships (including PA, NY, MI, IL, VA, OH, NJ, NC, CO, VA and WA) and many state legislatures. The Democrats also recaptured congressional majority status inside the Beltway for the first time since 1994.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean tried a new "50-states strategy" approach to rebuilding the party since becoming DNC Chair in 2005, abandoning the old "targeted states" approach in favor of building a 50-state party organization. Dean's fundraising has also been solid as chair, and he has made a real effort to drop the angry demeanor he exhibited during his '04 White House run. DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and DSCC Chair Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were the other two key architects, along with Dean, with the successful 2006 strategy -- even if the two insiders were frequently at odds with Dean over tactics and spending until late in the cycle.

While prominent Democrats run the wide gamut from the near Euro-style democratic-socialist left (Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich and the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and traditional liberals (Russ Feingold, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin and John Kerry) to the Dem center-right (Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Harry Reid and the New Democrat Network) to the GOP-style conservative right (Ben Nelson, Gene Taylor, and Allen Boyd) ... most fall somewhere into or near the pragmatic Democratic Leadership Council's "centrist" moderate-to-liberal style (Howard Dean, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, The Third Way).

The Democrats swept into office in '06 include a combination of some vocal progressive "Deaniacs," some centrists, and some very conservative ex-Republicans.

REPUBLICAN PARTY (RNC)

Republicans hold the big job in Washington DC: the Presidency. President George W. Bush -- regardless of which party holds control on Capitol Hill -- has the ability to largely keep Congress in check with his veto power.

The GOP also held control of the US House from the Gingrich/Contract with America/anti-Clinton election sweep of 1994 until they were dumped from power in 2006 in a backlash to the Iraq War, the anti-Bush vote and concerns about insider corruption problems. The GOP also hold several key Governorships (including TX, CA, GA, MN and FL), and narrowly held majority status in the US Senate in 1995-2001 and 2003-07.

In the aftermath of the 2006 races, watch for the normal finger-pointing and reorganizing between different ideological camps within the party as they gear up for the 2008 White House race.

Leading Republicans fall into several different ideological factions: traditional conservatives (President George W. Bush, Denny Hastert, Bill Frist, Rick Santorum and the Club for Growth), the Religious Right (Sam Brownback, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies and the Christian Coalition), the rapidly dwindling old Nixon/Rockefeller "centrist" or "moderate" wing (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rob Simmons, Christie Whitman and the Republican Main Street Partnership), libertarians (Ron Paul and the Republican Liberty Caucus), and a "paleo-conservative" wing that backs strict anti-immigration controls (Tom Tancredo and Pat Buchanan).

US ELECTIONS CALENDER

Early stages
In 2007, because of the long lead time for fundraising and because Federal election laws require the reporting of funds raised for the primary elections, fundraising began in earnest.

As pre-primary season unfolds, media will likely anoint front-runners on the basis of reported fund-raising totals. For example, the media treated Howard Dean as the front-runner going into the 2004 cycle, although he was initially considered by some to be a long shot. (Dean was in fact defeated for the Democratic nomination, withdrawing prior to Super Tuesday.)

There will be series of events sponsored by the different parties during 2007, including debates, straw polls, and other events designed to give voters a chance to get to know the candidates.

The Democrats, for example, are hosting a series of candidate forums and debates in Nevada, beginning with a forum on February 21, as well as hosting a debate in New Hampshire on April 5 and one in South Carolina on April 26.

The Republican Party is also planning events for the candidates, such as televised debates in New Hampshire on April 4 and one in South Carolina on May 15, as well as the traditional Ames Straw Poll in Iowa on August 11. In 1999, two of the nine candidates that participated in the straw poll dropped out of the race for the 2000 nomination after faring poorly there.

Official primary/caucus dates
Delegates to national party conventions are selected through direct primary elections, state caucuses, and state conventions. The process continues through June, but in previous cycles, including 2004, the
Democratic and Republican candidates were effectively chosen by the March primaries, because the leading candidates had collected enough committed delegates to win in the national convention. Most third parties select delegates to their national conventions through state conventions.

Democratic primaries and caucuses
January 14, 2008 - Iowa
January 19, 2008 - Nevada
January 22, 2008 - New Hampshire
January 29, 2008 - South Carolina
February 5, 2008 - Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah
February 10, 2008 - Maine
February 12, 2008 - District of Columbia, Tennessee, Virginia
February 19, 2008 - Wisconsin
February 26, 2008 - Hawaii, Idaho
March 2008 (date to be determined) - American Samoa, Democrats Abroad, Guam, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Virgin Islands, Wyoming
March 4, 2008 - Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
March 7, 2008 - Colorado
March 8, 2008 - Kansas
March 11, 2008 - Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi
March 18, 2008 - Illinois, Oregon
April 2008 (date to be determined) - Alaska
April 1, 2008 - Pennsylvania
May 6, 2008 - Indiana
May 13, 2008 - Nebraska, West Virginia
May 20, 2008 - Kentucky
May 27, 2008 - Washington
June 3, 2008 - Montana, South Dakota, California

Note: New Hampshire officials have stated that by state law, theirs must be the first primary in the nation and must precede any similar contest by at least seven days, and thus, the state may not abide by DNC approved dates. The DNC has threatened to withhold NH delegates if the state moves the primary earlier than the 22nd.

Republican primaries and caucuses
January 21, 2008 - Iowa
January 28, 2008 - New Hampshire
February 2, 2008 - South Carolina
February 5, 2008 - Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia (which will nominate a candidate at a state nominating convention)
February 5, 2008 (unofficial date) - Florida, Michigan
February 12, 2008 - Tennessee
February 9 or February 16, 2008 (date to be determined) - Louisiana
February 19, 2008 - Minnesota, Wisconsin
February 26, 2008 (unofficial date) - Virginia
March 4, 2008 - Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
March 4, 2008 (unofficial date) - Pennsylvania
March 11, 2008 - Mississippi, Washington
March 18, 2008 - Illinois
April 15, 2008 - Colorado
April 26, 2008 - Kansas, Nevada
May 2008 (date to be determined) - Alaska
May 6, 2008 - Indiana
May 10, 2008 - Wyoming
May 13, 2008 - Nebraska
May 20, 2008 - Kentucky, Oregon
May 27, 2008 - Idaho
June 3, 2008 - California, South Dakota
June 6, 2008 - Hawaii
June 9, 2008 - Montana
[edit] Later events
May 23-26, 2008 - 2008 Libertarian National Convention, to be held in Denver, Colorado
July 12-15, 2008 - 2008 Green National Convention, to be held in Reading, Pennsylvania
August 25-28, 2008 - 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be held in Denver, Colorado
September 1-4, 2008 - 2008 Republican National Convention, to be held in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
November 4, 2008 - All 50 states and the District of Columbia will hold elections to select members of the Electoral College.
December 15, 2008 - Members of the U.S. Electoral College meet in each state to cast their votes for President and Vice President.
January 6, 2009 - Electoral votes officially tallied before both Houses of Congress.
January 20, 2009 - Inauguration Day.

02-28-2008, 04:05 AM

Barack's links to Communism and FarrakhanQUOTEIn some very shattering news tonight Cliff Kincaid reported that Obama's childhood mentor "Frank" is none other than Frank Marshall Davis.This Newsvine reporter writes that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was an identified communist. Obama frequently referred to "Frank" in his book Alan Keyes, Obama's republican opponent for the Senate in 2004 also charged him with being a "hard-core academic Marxist." Other commentators like the National Review mention that "for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics." Another shocking revelation that is just coming to light is that Dr.Rev Jeremiah Wright Jr, Obama's pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has ties to Minister Louis Farrakhan, in fact Farrakhan "received the "Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright,Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer" Award at the 2007 Trumpet Gala at the the United Church of Christ, according to Power and control blog. Rev. Wright is reported to be quite anti-semitic. In fact, Rev Wight traveled with Farrakhan to meet Khadafy in 1984. Obama was bapized in that church when he was 26.Obama's advisors have tried to distance him from Wright.

check video
Obama's Houston Office with Cuban flag and picture of Che Guevara

Here are all dots of anthropolgy, communism, FOSA, FOIL, COngress, Marx, Mao .....

dhu · (This post was last modified: 02-28-2008, 06:16 AM by dhu.)

Energized Mexican and Black populations may send massa into tailspin - so I see only advantages in this per se. The problem is that these elements have an ignorant, jaundiced, and manipulated view towards India. They have been so brutalized after centuries of psychological manipulation that they harbor many unhealthy tendencies against their objects of affection (which is reflected in their seduction by Communism etc). They also harbor many of massa's prejudices in disguise and can't evaluate situations in proper perspective (eg rants against India).

Capt M Kumar · (This post was last modified: 02-28-2008, 07:15 AM by Capt M Kumar.)

USINPAC Information Alert

http://www.safo2008.com/Media/India_Abroad...Feb_29_2008.pdf
Feb-27-2008

I wanted to call your attention to this op-ed by Presidential candidate Barack Obama published in the February 29th issue of India Abroad (http://www.safo2008.com/Media/India_Abro...9_2008.pdf). I hope you will not only take the time to read this piece, but pass it on to others as well. This piece is important for a number of reasons, but I want to focus on just two in particular. First, to have a serious candidate for the presidency, who is the front-runner for his partyâs nomination, take the time at this moment in the campaign to reach out to the Indian-American community in such a fashion is truly emblematic of how far we have come as a relevant voice in American politics. Second, he both comments upon the vital issues of the day for our community and is an articulate proponent of the positions we as a community espouse.

If, in fact, Senator Obama wins the nomination of his party and becomes President of the United States, it will be critical for Indian-Americans like yourself to hold him accountable to his proposed agenda and maintain a firm grasp of his outstretched hand throughout his time in office.

With warm regards,

Sanjay Puri

Chairman of USINPAC

**acharya** · 02-28-2008, 11:52 AM

Tribune : The U.S.
Primaries and the
Illusion of Democracy
By Philippe MarliÃ¨re
The Drawing of Lots Would Be Less Costly
Translated By Rami Assadi
February 19, 2008
France - Rue 89 - Original Article (French)

Never before have the American primaries stirred up such a strong and sustained interest throughout the rest of the world. The media coverage that stood by for the very first vote cast in Iowa pulled the trigger on a frenzy that does not give [appropriate] measure to the importance of the event. The candidates themselves [their personal attributes] do not explain why there is such infatuation with the process. [One has] two heterodox candidates on the democratic side in Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama, as well as John McCain representing the republicans.

Public Fatigue

Would the American primaries be as âaddictiveâ as the Super Bowl or the World Cup? Nothing is certain here. The BBC website recently took and onslaught from members complaining of âprimary fatigue.â Exasperated, they asked why the BBC felt it had to bring such wasteful attention to all the [state primaries and caucuses] more than 10 months before the actual presidential vote.

One could respond that itâs all about a fundamental part of the most important election that exists in the world today. This would justify such a deployment of the [European] media who leave [and therefore] neglect to report national or European news [translatorâs note-this national/European news he considers just as pressing to the interests of Europeans]. After all, do we not share a share, indirectly, a destiny with that of the most influential democracy of the âfree world?â [translatorâs note-again he means to say that since he sees an inherent connection between Europe and the United States, are not the political, etc. happenings of Europe just as important, and therefore warrant just as much attention from the media.]

Supporters of the primaries estimate that these elections show that which is best about American democracy. However, records indicate mediocre participation in the primaries thus far. Do the primaries not constitute an essential vector for the politicized citizen? Do they not permit the organization of debates that inform the public of the intentions of the different contestants?

Primed for the Centrist Consensus

In reality, up until now, the primaries have not fulfilled their intended functions. The break-through of evangelist Michael Huckabee has caused John McCain to reposition himself over his moral views [amid criticism coming from] the rich republican right. The differences between Obama and Clinton are brought out over questions of international importance (Mrs. Clinton, former supporter of the armyâs various interventions, vaguely promised to bring home the troops from Iraq while Mr. Obama did not clearly distinguish this from bi-partisan consensus over the âwar on terrorismâ) and national importance (i.e. health insurance). [Thus far] the media has given preference to those who hold to centrist tenants and has neglected the other, atypical candidates (examples being Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich).
The candidates compete then very carefully, engaging each other in a very hazy and confusing manner, while adopting few to no identical positions. Like it or not, the candidates have become the stars of a soap opera.

Primed for ClichÃ©s

More than a month after the start of this political media distraction, what has one learned from the primaries? There is Hillaryâs crying in New Hampshire, the clumsy aggressiveness of Bill, and the elegance of Barak. The debate has risen out of moments when commentators discuss either the candidatesâ sex or skin color. This analysisâ paroxysm goes to those who put forth several generalizations to âvote Blackâ or âLatino.â With few exceptions, the primaries are a democratic parody that reinforces several clichÃ©s and socio-political prejudices.

Primed for âopinion trendsettersâ

The primaries give a sizable influence to âopinion trendsetters,â [the exit polls] that sound the results before the results state by state (such as the âhuge victoryâ of Obama in New Hampshire that ended up being won by Clinton) as well as all the commentators that announce sensationally all the âdecisive momentsâ (the momentum) that a campaign has to maintain (attested to by often contradictory polls collected by each candidate, by the speeches made for self-promotion coming from the candidates spin-doctors, eaten up complacently by the media, etc.).

The Drawing of Lots Would Be Less Costly

On can see [in the American primaries] a gangrenous system from the power of [all the] money [that when spent produces images, commercials, etc] that cannot treat the candidates in any fair or equal way [in effect, it is] style of substance. The voting public has now brought about a break between Clinton and Obama, two candidates who are both capable and determined, two competitors that are not separated by any fundamental politics. The voters must choose between two personalities that are âsoldâ by their speeches. Rather than proceed with such costly primaries (in both time and money) Noam Chomsky suggested investing in a candidate by a simple draw [of sticks, cards, etc].

This fast and thrifty system would be less unpredictable than the repetitive voting currently forced upon Americans as well as the rest of the world. One could smile at such practices if it were not for the fact that they starting to make appearances in Europe. A system of primaries has already been adopted by the Democratic Party in Italy (a regrouping of the post-social democrats and post-democratic Christians). SÃ©golÃ¨ne Royal and the rest of the socialist party would like to introduce this selection system by the next presidential election. If this measure is taken by the Socialist Party, that would then sanction the death of the Epinay party as a place of serious debates, both contradictory and pluralistic.

**acharya** · 02-28-2008, 11:55 AM

The Return of Ideals
By JosÃ© Luis MÃnguez Goyanes, Director of Archives for the University of A CoruÃ±a, Spain
Translated By Beatrice Butler
February 21, 2008
In the U.S.A.âs election pre campaign all of the candidates are making a call towards change and to the return of hope. The word âchangeâ is a talisman. A new approach to politics is needed and it appeals to a common undertaking of the nations to seek out the best in themselves.

Spain - El Diario Exterior - Original Article (Spanish)

In the U.S.A.âs election pre campaign all of the candidates are making a call towards change and to the return of hope. The word âchangeâ is a talisman. A new approach to politics is needed and it appeals to a common undertaking of the nations to seek out the best in themselves.

The American candidates are making calls for the ability to generate hope. Just as in the early sixties, the era of J.F. Kennedy. This how it is being referred to in the democratic camp. And this marks the tendency toward what will surely be American politics in the post Bush era, in the Democratic as well as in the Republican camp. It is that call to the new generations to be inspired by the âAmerican Dreamâ.

While politics in Spain are entangled in endless arguments, many times looking backward and not exactly to bring out the best in ourselves, but rather the worst. In the electoral campaign --well it has been some time since weâve had a campaign-- there is a zealous urge to seek out again the least exportable from our recent history. In Spain a gloomy way to be political predominates, with ultra Spanish conservative tragic airs.

A short while ago the only surviving child of President J.F. Kennedy published a letter in The New York Times in which she appeals for change and endorsed the candidacy of B. Obama. The author puts out a call for hope in an era ------the Kennedy presidency--- which is remembered with nostalgia and which has left a footprint in [several] generations of Americans, including the ones who were born much later after the death of the president. Itâs another way to be political.

Such a call in current Spain would be unthinkable. What is the difference? Here we also have a recent referent and it is the transition, an era in which Spain can truly feel proud of itself. The transition remains like a reference in the collective subconscious. Nevertheless some political leaders keep persisting in bringing out the worst in ourselves. One of them will surely return to the ghost of the civil war, and if not, to those times [themselves]. Sometimes it seems that the candidates in Spain have lost hope and are entangled in interminable arguments over neighborhood courtyards: definitely rancid politics, very far from what will be the tendency in the more civilized countries around us.

**acharya** · 02-28-2008, 01:01 PM

What Is the Chance that
Obama Is Assassinated?
By Rik Kuethe
Charismatic politicians in America always summon great opposition. So much that malignant forces consider it a solemn duty to extinguish âthe ignited lightâ, if necessary by murder. It is a diabolical dialectic.

February 26, 2008
The Netherlands - Elsevier - Original Article (Dutch)

Every Dutch person who was born before 1950 still remembers what he was doing and where he was when he heard of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Except for the North-Koreans and for the single drunk Bushman, this is indeed true for every citizen of the world who was 13 years of age or older at the time.
As for me, on that November day in 1963 as I was leaving the movie theater âLidoâ in Leiden--where with my friend Alexander Heldring I had watched a French movie with Sylvie Vartan-- a young person screamed:

âKennedy is dead!â

âWhat a bad joke,â I thought.

Protected

Five years later, the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy followed, a few months apart from each other. The latter occurred on the day that the brother of the president had won the Democratic primary in California.

No wonder that in the circles around Barack Obama, but also among the journalists, the thought regularly comes up: is the Illinois senator adequately protected or are there deficiencies in his security? It is a thought that one does not readily expresses and even less readily writes about. This reservation stems from some kind of superstitious fear that it may invite such a misfortune for Obama.

This means that everyone, the candidate foremost, has to âact like the weather is niceâ while at the same time everyone is well aware of the chances for a thunderstorm.

Praying

The New York Times reported that two sisters in Colorado pray every day for the safety of Obama. In New Mexico, a daughter convinced her mother to still vote for Obama in spite of her fear that winning could be extremely dangerous for him.

Obama has enjoyed Secret Service protection since 2007. This service, which must primarily guard the president, has given Obama the name âRenegade.â As more people attend his gatherings, the number of agents who guard him grows. Now and then, it seems as if he is being better protected than President George W. Bush.

Diabolical dialectic

Charismatic politicians in America always summon great opposition. So much that malignant forces consider it a solemn duty to extinguish âthe ignited lightâ, if necessary by murder. It is a diabolical dialectic.
Kennedy, after all, was not as great a president as many think. But he certainly was charismatic.
A century earlier, Abraham Lincoln without a doubt spoke to the imagination. He is regarded by most scholars as the greatest president ever.

While Washington was awash with the sounds of revelry because of the Civil War victory, Lincoln was shot to death on April 11, 1862, by a well-known actor who could not accept the victory by those from the North.

Disappointed job seekers

Of the four presidents who died at the hands of assassins, two were not charismatic at all. James Garfield was, after a presidency of only a few months, shot by a disappointed job seeker on July 2, 1881. On September 6, 1901, William McKinley met the same fate in Buffalo.

Last week Barack Obama, campaigning in Texas, drove in his motorcade in Dallas by the spot where Lee Harvey Oswald 45 years ago (Obama was then one year old) had fired the fatal shot.

The senator had briefly looked upward toward the Texas Book Depository. Every member of his entourage, and for sure Obama, was aware of the significance of the moment. But no one said a word.

dhu · 02-29-2008, 09:28 AM

feeble connection between mccain and evangelists.

QUOTE"With hundreds of air charter companies and airliners to choose from, the Saudis chose a company that owns âWorship Ministriesâ and Christian Network, Inc."
by Daniel HopsickerÂ

The lavishly-furnished custom Boeing 727 airliner (727PX) which ferried Senator John McCain on four occasions during his Presidential run in 2000 also flew Saudi Royals out of the U.S. right after 9/11, carrying an entourage of Saudi Royals from Las Vegas to London six days after the 9/11 attack in a controversial operation later scrutinized by the 9/11 Commission.

The 727 figures in the current tempest over his relationship with female lobbyist Vicki Iseman, who provided and flew with McCain on the plane.Â

With hundreds of air charter companies and airliners to choose from, the Saudis chose a company that owns âWorship Ministriesâ and Christian Network, Inc., turning to Paxson Communications, a âChristian broadcasterâ which owned the plane, to make its corporate jet available to spirit the Saudi princes and their entourage out of the U.S. six days after 9/11.

The Saudi Royal party made good their escape from Las Vegas on an airliner sporting a Christian symbol of peace, a dove, on itâs tail, an intriguing detail and compelling human interest storyâMuslims flying Air Jesusâthat has to date been reported nowhere but in the MadCowMorningNews.

02-29-2008, 11:21 AM

Another trend, Obama is losing energy

http://www.alexa.com/
compare Hillaryclinton.com and BarackObama.com

dhu · (This post was last modified: 02-29-2008, 01:52 PM by dhu.)

Soros is behind Open Society institute which is part of NED. They were behind the regime change facade in Myanmar as well as sabotaging Thailand's economy.

QUOTEHillary Rodham Clinton: Champion of Fascism in the name of Socialism with enforced vaccinations, health care based on Government approved standards that do not recognize natural and alternative health care, mandatory health insurance similar to the auto insurance industry mandates. Dedicated to the so-called drug war against the people and continued subsidization of the prison industrial complex. At best she will give America another dose of Clintonian governance.

Barack Hussein Obama: An unknown whose rise to political power was built upon the scandals of his political rivals. Both his Democratic and GOP rivals for the US Senate were taken out by well timed exposes involving abuse and sex scandals. Mysteriously, legally sealed divorce records were opened against the wishes of the clients that were than used to torpedo Obama's rival. Obama will at best give us a Euro-America and most likely turn America into an EU surrogate. The very same media that gives us ceaseless drivel of irrelevancy and daily doses of trauma, murders, rapes and perversion has given us Obama. No surprise really once we learn that George Soros is a major player behind the Obama ascendancy.Â Despite his alleged liberality, in part based on his extreme and impassioned defense of partial birth abortion, Obama is dedicated to the so-called drug war against the people and continued subsidization of the prison industrial complex.

John Sydney McCain: A 5+yr Prisoner of War. Potential Manchurian Candidate, torture victim with his finger on the nuclear button. Scary thought. Ever ready to continue draining America's resources in foreign wars and misadventures lasting up to one hundred years if necessary.Â Like Hillary and Obama, McCain is dedicated to the so-called drug war against the people and continued subsidization of the prison industrial complex.

Michael Dale Huckabee:Â Christian idealist that is allegedly for freedom yet supports the continued drain on our resources for foreign wars and international entanglements.Â Dedicated to the so-called drug war against the people and continued subsidization of the prison industrial complex.

Alan L. Keyes:Â Articulate and intelligent but his disastrous Senate campaign against Obama says it all. Dedicated to the so-called drug war against the people and continued subsidization of the prison industrial complex.Â

Ralph Nader: A passionate consumer advocate. However he has no track record of governance and is more suitable in a role of an advocate. He could make an excellent congressional representative.Â Nader's presidential campaigns have no doubt raised many legitimate issues. Refreshingly Nader is dedicated to ending the drug war and freeing America from the corporate stranglehold.Â Admittedly positive goals yet Nader appears to represent special interests of another sort rather than the Nation as a whole. He would, of course, be a good addition to any administration.

02-29-2008, 09:19 PM

QUOTESoros is behind Open Society institute 
Team behind Obama is scary. Whole team is fanatics. Even his fan club.
Not good for world at this stage. I will like to see Clinton and McCain on ticket.

I am watching all three candidatesâ blog and internet discussion. After Farrakhan and Hussein are out in open, people are having big buyer remorse. People who had voted for Obama are now driving to Texas to support Hillary, they are saying they were "duped" by Obama team in caucus, and we know how to handle caucus and they are volunteering for Prescient Caption in Texas. Students are taking off. They are doing on their own; lot of people had open house for volunteers. This is a big difference now and 5Feb. Now race is changing into Black and white pride. Hillary site had started contribution and call meter on people request, people ask them to start meter and set target for collection. And people are beating target amount and time. Yesterday within 24 hours they had collected 2 million from online contributor. Early this week they collected 3.5 million within 48 hours. They asked people to make million calls and people met target within 24 hour. I think they will start call meter again for million calls again.QUOTE$35 Million: In February, the campaign recorded its best fundraising month ever â by more than double. Hillary raised approximately $35 million from roughly 300,000 donors. More than 200,000 new donors contributed to the campaign.

I've Switched to Hillary: In Texas, El Paso County Commissioner and former Sen. Obama supporter Veronica Escobar switched her support to Hillary.


Obama mistake, he started forcing black delegates to switch to Obama so soon.
Now he canât win NOV. I am very much sure he will lose Texas, RI, Ohio. Texas caucus I am not sure yet.

**acharya** · 02-29-2008, 09:55 PM

Why Is Obama's Middle Name Taboo?

By NATHAN THORNBURGH 38 minutes ago

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.: that is the full name of the junior Senator from Illinois - neither a contrivance nor, at face value, a slur. But John McCain couldn't apologize quickly enough after Bill Cunningham, a conservative talk radio host, warmed up a Cincinnati rally with a few loaded references to "Barack Hussein Obama." Asked afterwards if it was appropriate to use the Senator's middle name, McCain said, "No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate."

The pundits were quick to applaud McCain's fatwa against the use of Hussein, and broadcasters began trying to report on the controversy without actually saying the name too much, dancing around the offending word as if they were doing a segment on The Vagina Monologues. In both cases, the word comes off as not quite illicit, but certainly a little taboo.

So who gets to say Hussein? At the Oscars, host Jon Stewart took innuendo about as far as it can go, saying that Barack Hussein Obama running today is like a 1940's candidate named Gaydolph Titler. But that reference, served up to a crowd that presumably swoons for Obama, got laughs. So maybe the H-word is more like the N-word: you can say it, but only if you are an initiate. Blacks can use the N-word; Obama supporters can use the H-word.

Obama's campaign thanked McCain's for his apology, claiming a victory for the high road. Fine. But McCain might also know that if middle names become fair game, John Sidney McCain III has his own liabilities. Recently, it has been the unmanly middle names that have caused their owners the most political trouble. In 2006, Jim Henry Webb hammered home the fact that his Virginia Senate opponent was actually George Felix Allen - a middle name that conjured up images of Felix Unger, or perhaps the real life Prince Felix of Luxemburg, either one a far cry from the tobacco-chewing good ole boy Allen styled himself as. In the last presidential election, both Bush and Kerry had middle names inherited from elite East Coast families. But Bush's middle name had much more swagger; you'll never see a TV show called Forbes, Texas Ranger.

Online, the onomastics are already in high gear. Lefty bloggers, in full Obama rapture, point out that Hussein means "beautiful". One conservative observer insinuated that Obama, as a Christian with a Muslim name, might be marked for death by even our allies in the Islamic world, if they think he converted from Islam (for the record, he was never Muslim). By that ornately twisted logic, though, one might add that it was the martyrdom of Hussein in the year 680, beheaded at Karbala in a clash with the caliphate, that gave rise to 1400 years or so of Sunni/Shi'a violence. So how on earth could Obama be a fair broker in Iraq?

The real problem is that if the right wants to start a whispering campaign about the name Hussein, Obama is only helping them. By cutting short the discussion, Obama is banishing his name to the voters' subconscious, where the dark opposites of hope - bigotry and fear - can turn the word over and over again in their minds until November.

The same day that Cunningham was dropping H-bombs on Cincinnati, Obama was at the Democratic debate in Cleveland, hastily accepting Hillary Clinton's assertion that she didn't order the leak of a picture of Obama wearing a turban in Kenya. "I think that's something we can set aside," he said.

It was a missed opportunity. He could have explained that he has nothing to hide. Explained why there's nothing wrong with him dressing in ceremonial clothes on official visits - like batik Bill in Indonesia in 1994 or headscarf Hillary in Eritrea in 1997. Maybe even explained why his middle name is Hussein - what his heritage means, and what it doesn't mean. In short, to reintroduce himself to those general election voters who are just starting to pay closer attention.

No matter what his advisers say, Obama wins nothing by shying away from his differences. After all, Obama is the candidate of change. He should take a cue from McCain's courage on Iraq. Say what you will about McCain, but he knows he's the war candidate. And though may have regretted saying it out loud, McCain clearly accepts that if voters don't buy his vision for the war, he'll lose. It's not too much risk for Obama to stake his campaign on voters' ability to rationally understand the difference between a Hawaii-born Christian and Saddam Hussein, the butcher of Baghdad. View this article on Time.com

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