Ok, media going too far. While as an Obama fan I hope to see him remembered FDR style when he leaves the presidency, how about we let him get sworn in first? Furthermore, I hate the rhetorical question of whether he will be the next JFK, FDR, Carter, Reagan, etc.
He’s going to be, for better or worse, the next Barack Obama. These analogies almost always fall apart. All indications are that President Bush sees himself as a misunderstood visionary like President Truman, while the perception of him is far closer to the failed presidency of Richard Nixon. But you know which president Bush is most like?
George W. Bush.
How Obama Got Elected
High-fives to liberal bloggers everywhere; To Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, CNN, MSNBC, NY TimesWaPoLATimes, et al., and especially Tina Fey. Job well done.
Now it’s on to Camelot the Myth, Part II.
So how did Bush get re-elected in 2004?
Hold on to your cherished sense of victimhood, Dennis. After all, it’s just not possible that the guy who ran a better campaign was elected, right? It’s just not possible that voters wanted to change the disastrous direction we were headed, right? It was all due to the “liberal media”, right?
Oh, wait, I thought it was because all black people were voting in a bloc. No, no, it was because of Acorn’s “voter fraud.” Or something. Just not possible that McCain LOST, fair and square.
Hasn’t anyone ever told you Bruce that black people never win fair and square?
My bad.
So…the makers of this film said that they looked for twelve of the most informed Obama voters they could find and then showed us how uninformed they were.
How did they go about finding “informed” voters in the first place if they didn’t ask the same questions that these voters are answering incorrectly on film? And if they answered them incorrectly during this first interview, what makes them think that these voters were “informed”?
As for the President-Elect, I have no idea what past president he will most remind us of in twenty years. I know that the historical figure he most reminds me of right now is Jackie Robinson, if you’ll excuse the hackneyed “baseball=America” analogy. So you watch: even if he plays well, even if he’s gracious and tolerant in the face of ugliness, there will still be people who hate him forever for what he’s done to the “traditions” of the game.
But baseball today is a diverse and wonderful sport where you can see Carlos Zambrano pitch a ball to Jimmy Rollins, have that ball sail over the head of Mark DeRosa and then land in the glove of Kosuke Fukudome on a single play in a single game.
The people who hated Jackie Robinson died or learned to suck it up and baseball is better for it today. The same thing will happen to the people who hate Obama and the same thing will happen to America.
“I know that the historical figure he most reminds me of right now is Jackie Robinson…”
Many peeps have made the comparison, Spider. Obama and Robinson both had to act like saints to endure the bigots and tame the xenophobes, too–-they have that in common. And both were equally good at their games.
The TIME cover is silly but makes the point, not that Obama is the next FDR necessarily but that he’ll inherit an FDR-like depression when he takes office, and his first 100 days may have to be as dramatic. I notice it’s something for the talking heads and bloggers to do with their recently expanded audiences to discuss aimilarities between Obama’s likely administrative style and Lincoln’s, FDR’s, JFK’s, etc. There are sillier games than this speculation, I guess.
Something to do while we watch Bush sip $500 wine.
Nixon? You’re being kind.
More like Hoover. Everything old is new again.
Oh, and what Spider said.
Nero? Louis the XVI?
Bruce is right in this respect: Obama did run a masterful general campaign. Of course, he did it by making traditionally conservative arguments:
* “I’m gonna cut your taxes!”
* “I’m gonna think about drilling for more oil!”
* “I’m gonna kill some terrorists that may or may not be in Pakistan!”
Yes, Farris. Obama won the Presidency by running as Republican-lite.
Also, I hear that Bat-boy is carrying Angelina Jolie’s seventeenth adoptive child.
You can’t make this stuff up, people!!!
Dennis, Farris, you guys are fucking pathetic.
Not as pathetic as apparently the vast majority of Obama voters, Mambo Chicken, according to that Zogby poll.
Pathetic indeed.
Look at the post you linked to. “Could not correctly answer that Obama began his career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.” “Could not correctly answer that he won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot.”
That is hardly “correct”, Dennis, as you well know.
I talked to many many McCain voters during the campaign who “correctly” thought Obama was a Muslim, “correctly” thought he was not a citizen, “correctly” thought he was a baby-killer, “correctly” thought he refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Betcha I could make a mirror-image of this video of people who voted GOP. But I won’t, because why bother? WE WON, Dennis. Now go back to your mom’s basement and cry.
Bwaha! Thanks for the morning laff, Dennis! That Zogby poll is a riot.
Mind if I unpack just a bit? Thanks.
The headline of this section says these are the results of 12 questions, but I see only five items. What happened to the other questions? OK, three more are discussed below–that still leaves a third of the 12 questions missing. Didn’t the results fit the premise?
Four of these questions provide shocking outcomes–respondents did worse than if they had simply guessed! Why do you suppose that is, Dennis? I’m sure the preferred story is: “The liberal media lied!” Yet if that’s what happened, how come the authors of this little web site don’t offer up a long list of shocking examples? Or a handful?
Or even one?
Here’s my guess as to why the results consistently defy the laws of probability: the survey questions led respondents to give the answers the polling organization wanted to get! Of course, I’m not offering any examples either because the wording of the questions isn’t provided.
Now there’s one item that puzzles me:
If people just guessed, 25 percent would identify Mr. Obama as the candidate who has been the victim of this pernicious right-wing smear. However, 44 percent were able to do so! Unlike the preceding items on the list, this one yielded a better-than-random-chance result. So why is this item included with the others?
Here’s a thought: it offers the author of the web site a chance to repeat–yet again–a cherished gem of right-wing agitprop. Ms. Palin repeated this nonsense for weeks, and every time she did, her positive ratings slipped another few points.
Face up to it, Dennis. This poll is about Republican smears that just didn’t work because voters were smart enough concern themselves with things that matter.
Quaker-
Here’s the Zogby poll results and commentary, along with a statement by Zogby, who stands by the validity of the polling methods used. At the bottom is a pdf. file that lists the questions and the results in detail.
The fact that close to 60% of Obama voters did not know who currently controlled both Houses of Congress is alarming, and is not a smear against anyone. It’s also alarming to see where the people in that video, most of whom did not even know who William Ayers was, got their political information. Even if you thought it was only a smear to bring up Ayers and Dorhn and Obama’s relationsip to them, you’d have to wonder why Obama and his campaign staff offered up several different explanations of just how deep that relationship was. He was more, much more, than just a guy who lived in his neighborhood. Why didn’t he tell us more than that from the very beginning? I doubt seriously if that would’ve damaged him one bit, judging by these poll results. The average person on the street wouldn’t have even bothered to take the time to learn about Ayers and the Weather Underground. Some of my best liberal friends, politically astute at that, didn’t know much more than that Ayers was in a group that set off bombs back in the 60’s. And if Obama was best friends with the guy and his wife it wouldn’t have mattered one bit to them, no matter how close they were. I sincerely doubt if it would’ve mattered to many here, either.
The fact that close to 60% of Obama voters did not know who currently controlled both Houses of Congress is alarming,
Why is that alarming to you, Dennis? How big a percentage of GOP voters know the answer? My guess would be less than 40%.
you’d have to wonder why Obama and his campaign staff offered up several different explanations of just how deep that relationship was. He was more, much more, than just a guy who lived in his neighborhood. Why didn’t he tell us more than that from the very beginning?
All of the explanations Obama gave were accurate. Why didn’t he tell us more? Because it was – and still is – irrelevant to Obama as a whole.
John McCain was friends with Augusto Pinochet, too.
The Clinton 90’s were boom times for me – job security and career advancement, home and stock prices mushrooming, everybody in my extended family was moving on up. National governance was adequate – I never worried about it. I never had to deal with divisive political commentary at work, with friends and family.
The Bush 00’s have been a disaster for me – with job outsourcing my career growth sucks, my investments are way down, I worry about rampant illegals, terrorism, the federal budget fiasco, an outrageously expensive war that had been sold as paying for itself. I’m uncomfortable traveling overseas as foreigners tell me what assholes my government are. I cannot explain my point of view (regardless of how tactful I am) to hard core “conservatives” I must deal with without getting a bunch of idiotic emotional tribalistic crap in return.
Me and you both, brother.
Here’s what I see–an entire conservative movement stuck in the Bargaining phase of grief, desperately clawing for any reason other than their own ideological failures to explain how they got so soundly beaten by this man they swore they could take apart.
It’s because Bush wasn’t really a Republican. Neither was McCain. It’s because Palin was a bad pick, it’s because Palin was too good a pick. It’s because the media didn’t do enough to take down Obama, it’s because the people who voted Obama have been brainwashed, because the people who voted Obama are stupid. It’s because of the economy that Democrats created. It’s because of the war that we would have won by now if only Democrats hadn’t made it so hard. It’s because Obama is the anti-Christ and his powers are devious and terrible. It’s because Obama ran as a conservative. It’s because of black people. It’s because white people feel white guilt but at least that’s over now. It’s because of ACORN. It’s because of every possible reason except that maybe the Republican Party fucked up this round.
Having watched Reid and Pelosi pussyfoot around for two years, I’d be hesitant to declare that the Democrats “control” Congress, even if the numbers are technically there.
Republicans complaining that Obama supporters are ignorant, misinformed idiots is hilarious to me. Why, oh why, do Dems consistenly gain the strong majority of the most educated vote? Hmm…
http://www.halfsigma.com/2008/11/the-power-of-the-most-educated-voters.html
Obama crushed McCain in the educated vote. You guys lost, and the best and brightest people of the nation do not support your party. Deal with it.
Actually, I imagine that the next conservative message will be that liberals aren’t educated enough to be conservatives.
You ever try to explain to a devout religious person why exactly it is you don’t follow their religion? A lot of them will shut themselves off to you with the dismissal that you simply haven’t read enough of the holy book or attended enough parochial school. It doesn’t matter how much of it you may in fact have done, it clearly isn’t enough. Because if you’d really done enough, you would be as devout as they are.
So Obama voters simply didn’t know any better. If they knew better, they’d have voted for McCain.
And they aren’t allowed to know any better because they go to colleges. If they stopped going to college, those liberal zombie factories, they’d have voted for McCain.
Remember, it’s not how much education you have, it’s how much of that education we want you to have.
Here’s the Zogby poll results and commentary, along with a statement by Zogby, who stands by the validity of the polling methods used.
Does Mr. Zogby also stand behind Mr. Ziegler’s analysis?
Didn’t think so.
I have less quarrel with Zogby’s results than I do with Ziegler’s presentation of them. Duros raises the key question: why is there no presentation of similar questions posed to McCain voters?
Also, when you go to the details, you find Ziegler is being stunningly dishonest in his presentation. When he says things like this:
he’s implying that there were exactly four choices. But respondents weren’t limited to just four choices. When you look at the results, you see that Biden was correctly identified by a plurality of respondents who named a candidate, but that number was exceed by respondents who didn’t answer at all!
If Mr. Zogby’s exercise helps you believe that all the smart, rational, ethical conservatives lost out on the votes of stupid, emotional liberals, knock yourself out.
Just don’t try to kid us that it’s actually true.
Well, given that the previous Barack Obama ascended to a post as the top economist in the Kenyan government, that’s not so bad.
I mean, I guess this Barack has already exceeded the previous one’s accomplishments, but Senior was still no loser.