Aug 19 2008
The Coming VP Blunder For Obama
This is the week Obama comes crashing back to earth again. Every time he is forced to walk the path of the politician and make political decisions he loses more of his aura. This week – maybe as early as tomorrow – Obama announce his pick for VP, and I am predicting it just might be a Dan Quayle moment to many on the left and across this nation:
Senator Barack Obama has all but settled on his choice for a running mate and set an elaborate rollout plan for his decision, beginning with an early morning alert to supporters, perhaps as soon as Wednesday morning, aides said.
Obama’s deliberations remain remarkably closely held. Aides said perhaps a half-dozen advisers were involved in the final discussions in an effort to enforce a command that Obama issued to staff members: that his decision not leak out until supporters are notified.
Obama had not notified his choice — or any of those not selected — of his decision as of late Monday, advisers said. Going into the final days, Obama was said to be focused mainly on three candidates: Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Joseph Biden Jr. of Delaware.
Some Democrats said they still hoped that he would choose Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, or Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, who has been under steady consideration by Obama’s campaign.
Of course it may be someone else, but Joe Biden is the fun pick. If ever there was a Dan Quayle pick out there. Joe Biden had to end a campaign for President when it was learned he padded college performance and had possible used pieces of other peoples’ speeches. But all that aside, Biden is a lose cannon who says bizarre things and hails from the state of Delaware – hardly a pivotal state.
Obama’s real problem is the women in this country. If does not pick a woman I think he is toast. He has a knack for knocking off successful democrat woman to steel there jobs. He did so in his run to win his illinois State Senate seat:
The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
…
A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
…
It was in this part of the city that an eager reform Democrat by the name of Abner Mikva first entered elected office in the 1950s. And here a young, brash minister named Jesse Jackson ran Operation Breadbasket, leading marchers who sought to pressure grocery chains to hire minorities.
Palmer served the district in the Illinois Senate for much of the 1990s. Decades earlier, she was working as a community organizer in the area when Obama was growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia. She risked her safe seat to run for Congress and touted Obama as a suitable successor, according to news accounts and interviews.
But when Palmer got clobbered in that November 1995 special congressional race, her supporters asked Obama to fold his campaign so she could easily retain her state Senate seat.
Obama not only refused to step aside, he filed challenges that nullified Palmer’s hastily gathered nominating petitions, forcing her to withdraw.
Much more on Alice Palmer can be found here.  Obama took out Alice Palmer in an ugly way – he removed the chance for the voters to make a choice.  He gave them just one choice – himself.  This hit job on a fellow liberal of standing shows Obama’s unfettered ambition for power.  And that ambition carried him the the US Senate, again by removing challengers instead of allowing voters a choice:
Had Palmer survived the petition challenge, Obama would have faced the daunting task of taking on an incumbent senator. Palmer’s elimination marked the first of several fortuitous political moments in Obama’s electoral success: He won the 2004 primary and general elections for U.S. Senate after tough challengers imploded when their messy divorce files were unsealed.
Liberal judges unsealed those divorce files, files that had been closed for years and were begged to be kept closed by both parties in the divorce. It was the wife of one of those candidates, Jeri Ryan, who fought for the divorce papers to remain private to protect her children. Obama did not care, his greed for power is all consuming.
If a woman is not chosen, then Obama will run afoul of one of the largest voting blocks in the democrat base. I think he has just done too much damage to their cause to sneak past selecting a woman VP. But I also think he will disappoint many others who see him as their gift from God. When he makes his VP choice it will be imperfect and worrisome, and the hands will start wringing across the left and liberal media.
Bottom line: I don’t think he can please his rabid liberal base and keep the rest of America behind him. He has been in a no-win position the entire cycle. If he goes with some one who appeals to broad America he loses his base. If he tries to appease his base he loses middle America.
I could easily be wrong. The Messiah may come through and wow us all. But all spring and summer Obama has been acting like a politician (flip-flopping) and if he plays it safe – as many predict he will to protect his dwindling lead – it will finally become clear that he doesn’t have the will or desire to change a damn thing in DC. To take on DC you have to be bold, not cautious. To take on the entrenched interest groupsl the bureaucracy on media establishment requires bold steps. I just don’t think the Junior Senator from Illinois has what it takes. But we shall soon see.
I have never understood why the Dem’s think Joe Biden can sell himself on the national stage. He himself thinks he should’ve been the nominee; but why did he get dumped so quickly even in the dem primarys? Because even in the Dem party, he is the picture of everything wrong with Congress.
to both McCain & Obama – nominate a Governor! Both of you are congresscritters, nobody wants to see more of that crap!!!
But Sibelius – the same problem for Obama as Palin would be for McCain – a minor player who no one knows outside their home state. (btw, I know some people like Palin but she’s got an ethics challenge going in Alaska; even though she should be cleared it makes her untouchable as a veep nominee.)
Joe Biden did not just have a plagiarism problem with the Kinnock speech – he has plagiarized other people’s work throughout his life.
http://www.famousplagiarists.com/politics.htm
“Joe Biden’s history of plagiarism and “stressless scholarship†gave plenty of ammo to his enemies, one of them choosing to circulate a so-called “attack video†to demonstrate Biden’s outright plagiarism of a British politician’s speech. But this appropriation from Neal Kinnock was not the first occurrence of unacknowledged lifting by the senator from Delaware.
In 1965 Biden plagiarized while writing a paper as a student at the Syracuse University Law School in a legal methods course which he failed because of that copied paper. Such “stressless scholarship†as it is euphemistically called has become all too common in the modern Internet era with countless cheatsites and “research services†offering to sell students papers on topics from A to Z.
In an article entitled “Biden’s Belly Flopâ€, Newsweek printed Joe Biden’s yearbook picture from his college days and a copy of his law school transcripts with the big “F†in his transcripts circled. Biden was given a chance to repeat his legal methods course, and above the “F†his retake grade of 80% was eventually penciled in. Being a repeat offender when it came to plagiarism made things much, much worse for Biden than they might have been otherwise in his failed bid for the Democratic presidential ticket in 1987. “
I think Obama has to choose Hillary if the Dems want to win, and the party wants to win.
Kathy, do you really think even Obama is so naive as to put Hillary one heartbeat away from the Presidency?
WWS, the Dems are about winning, putting Hill on the ticket is the way to do it. Do I think it’s a good idea? No I hate the idea, I think it would to impossible for Obama to govern with Hill and Bill. But I think he must be thinking about it with the poll numbers as they are.
I’ve seen no hint of courage or tactical genius from Obama. With his disaster at Saddleback, and the Russian move into Georgia, I’m betting he picks Biden or Kerry, thinking they’ll give him the gravitas to counter McCain. (Biden sure ran off to Georgia post haste to wave his flag in Obama’s face.)
He’s just naive enough to fall for Kerry, especially if his people convince him Kerry actually won in Ohio and so should have been president. On the other hand, Bayh certainly won’t challenge Obama’s need to be at the center of the spotlight, so perhaps the Change-meister goes with the dullard Bayh.
Dear AJ,
Obama has never been in involved in a competitive election. It is beginning to become apparent that his campaign organization is a remake of the “Keystone Kops”.
Regards,
Roy
“Obama has never been in involved in a competitive election.”
LOL – wow, that was awesome. Because you’re right, the Democratic primary was pretty much Reagan-Mondale II.
“Joe Biden did not just have a plagiarism problem with the Kinnock speech – he has plagiarized other people’s work throughout his life.”
So, the 21 year old plagiarism accusations are still fodder for attacking Biden? That’s wonderful news.
I look forward to the Obama campaign’s slew of upcoming TV commercials about the Keating Five.
They are not “accusations”, the law school plagiarism is a well documented fact. It was covered in Newsweek. And Biden was forced to sit out of his law school for a semester because of it, but family influence got him reinstated. For any ordinary student, a plagiarism bust like that would have meant that they were bounced out of the profession, but Biden had the kind of family pull to get away with it after some time off.
This is a persistant character flaw of Biden’s, repeated over and over throughout his life. He is a perennial liar and cheat.
And I can’t wait for Obama to try and make this a slimefest against McCain! If there’s a guaranteed way to destroy once and for all his claims that he’s some “new” politician who’s above all this stuff, that’s it. His entire campaign theme about “Hope” and “change” goes up in smoke the instant he does that. And what’s left? Just a bitter, america hating leftist.
Oh, even better – plagairism problems from over forty years ago, when Biden was in his 20’s, are relevant. Well, that now brings in stories of McCain’s adultery, and how he abandoned his wife and three kids, for a rich young beer heiress.
“And I can’t wait for Obama to try and make this a slimefest against McCain!”
*sigh* Right over your head. Ain’t gonna happen. I’m not actually rooting for these slimy tactics – I’m pointing out that your huge revelants are completely irrelevant as to whether or not the current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is qualified to be VP. (Oh, and that fact that it’s only McCain that feels comfortable with the slime attacks. Proud of that, eh?)
Honestly, despite the fact that I now live in his state, I’m not crazy about the Biden pick (if it turns out to be true). But it’s certainly not due to irrelevant accusations from 20 or 40 years ago.
Note how you can’t respond without starting the slime yourself? You can’t defend Biden, the man with the lifetime history of lying. You don’t even try. He’s the perfect poster child for the Dem congress with 11% support, how much I hope Obama picks him!
He’s also the perfect poster child for the cover-up of the Annenburg project files that the Obama campaign is engaging in. What is in those files that is so damaging that Obama’s handlers have felt the need to engage in a Nixonian level of pre-emptive cover-up? What is Obama so scared of us finding out???
As this post points out, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up!
http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/08/annenberg-gate-its-not-crime-its-cover.html
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