And the comments here are a ton more uninformed opinions. More than anyone could ever want: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi....html#comments

Dang. Edwards was still my choice out of those still left. I knew he didn't have chance, but still disappointing.

I also agree with bsak. I think most "VOTERS" not people since alot of people don't vote or aren't Dems, consider Obama-Edwards to be the the anti-Hillary choice. I think the states of IOWA,NH,SC,is an accurate gauge of the average american voter. I belive even without an endorsement for Obama by Edwards which is very llikely by Super Tuesday this is good for 5-7 points for Obama. Considering a few of the states are pretty tight this is big. Also, I think Barack has done a decent job of expressing his desire to reach out to the Repubs enough to snag alot of the independents and even some mod Repubs.

But haven't exit polls showed the Edwards voters were generally split in their support for Clinton and Obama if Edwards wasn't there?

How so?

In pretty much every speech, he mentions Republicans and "breaking down the divisions" of Washington.

He's painting his as a coalition of those disaffected with "politics as usual" and that theirs is a group that transcends race, gender and politics.

From Joe Klein from this story on CNN.com today:

I am more than willing to be corrected on this, if that is the case. From what I have understood, it was under Clinton that dual tech transfers (both civilian and military use) was moved from Dept. of Defense to under the Treasury's jurisdiction.

As someone that feels NAFTA is actually SHAFTA, and that Fair Trade is good for American workers while Free Trade is what the country-club shafters have given us, I have long ago cut ties with Mr. W.

At this point in the campaign, I think most of the Edwards voters had been whittled down to those who were voting for him, not against someone else. The anti-Hillary crowd had mostly gravitated to Obama already.

As to how those folks may break, Edwards' fire on the stump appealed to the angry part of the Democratic party -- namely my father and my wife. My dad doesn't think Hillary can win, so I expect he will support Obama in the CA primary. When VA votes, I think my wife will go for Hillary. I think the greater split will also be fairly even, with a slight edge to Hillary. From what I've seen of the demographics of Edwards voters, they have skewed more towards her than Obama.

As a voter that is a moderate Republican who 'swings both ways', all of the talk you just mentioned tells me he's really good at being a politician and tells me nothing about whether he'll be a good president. I'm sure that he'll lay out a few more details if/when he secures the nomination and maybe I'll know a bit more about him then. Right now, I don't know anything about him outside of his messages about cats and dogs living in harmony. I'm here to tell him he's living a pipe dream if he thinks that will occur if he becomes president.

Your earlier statement claimed that Clinton sold gyroscope technology to China. There is not even a tiny factual basis for that statement. I refer you to the (unbelievably named) Cox-Dicks report if you want hard details on what happened. You probably can still find it on the internet somewhere.

In a nutshell, in 1996 Loral Space and Commications and Hughes Electronics were using a Chinese rocket to launch their satellite. The rocket went boom. Loral and Huges determined what they believed to be the cause and improperly shared their findings to their Chinese launch partners, which likely enabled the Chinese to make a better rocket.

The NYT picked up on the story in 1998. GOP blowhards at the time, wanting to bash the President, blamed it on the decision of the Clinton Administration to move licensing authority for satellite launches from the Department of State to Commerce (DoD was never in the picture). The decision to move the authority, however, happened later in 1996 -- after the launch accident and tech transfer took place. State had licensed that launch, not Commerce.

I hope this helps.

That is a lot of the reservations I've heard about him from Republicans. They don't know anything about his policies. All they know is "unity", but what exactly does that mean? One thing is for sure, if he tries to push for "lefty" programs, he isn't going to find a lot of unity from the right.

I'm not sure that the Kennedies fawning all over him helped in Republican estimations as well. They usually don't particularly like JFK.

Obama has come out as a social liberal, in favor of raising taxes on "the rich" (ie, anyone making over 75K) and universal health. Hardly a platform that will attract many conservatives. once the debates start between party candidates and all the platitudes go away, I doubt Obama gets much republican support. Still, I think he wins over McCain as republicans may not even show up. And no vote from a republican is as good as a vote for Obama.

Story

Republicans not like JFK? Good grief! If a democrat ran on JFK's platform a good number of Republicans would get on board with him.

Yeah, this one had me puzzled too.. Perhaps its because I grew up in the south where Democrats were often on the conservative side.

Never fear. Jimmy Carter is getting involved. He's "titillated"...............

You mean like increasing the minimum wage and massive increases in federal spending on housing, unemployment, education, and medical care? ;)

Haha...first Ted Kennedy and now this. With friends like these.....

Good stuff, thanks for the correction. Always willing to look at facts. Guess with all the Britney/Paris/Lindsey news to put out by the stalwart media a little thing like the Chinese suddenly being able to nuke us (for reasons different than I first thought) gets some short shrift.

I mean, with all the problems Michigan is having in particular, local Fox News channel 2 Detroit anchor thought we should know that Justin Timberlake was seen kissing someone other than his steady girlfriend in NYC recently. And, I know it was Fox, but I channel surf. Its all like that.

And what is wrong with spending money in those areas? Not enough bombs in our arsenal for ya?

Have you not met any Republicans?

That may be the most awesome sentence ever.

lol:)

Color me skeptical after you shrug off the Bush Dubai Ports thing which totally Pwned you. care to make commentary on that? Perhaps you posted something in the thread way back when it occurred to show your consistency?

The latest poll has Obama within the margin of error in California.

Excuse me? About the only theme I have ever posted on Bush is in regards to him running as a Reagan Conservative and turning out to be a Corporate "Country Clubber." Given the expectations, perhaps the most dissappointing President in my lifetime, but still lightyears better than Billary looming on the horizon.

In fairness to our Republican friends, the port thing was (and is) a massive red herring.

In our country, most ports are public entities, run either by elected commissioners or appointed by elected officials. The ports at which Dubai Ports World (DPW) was seeking to operate terminals were all public facilities.

At the risk of overexplaining this, ports are made up of many terminals, most of which are leased and operated by private entities. Most of these private entities are headquartered overseas -- EU, South Korea, Japan, China, although some are US. This is international trade we are talking about. Foreign countries and companies do need to be involved. DPW is one of these companies and, by and large, a widely respected terminal operator.

At no point in time was there ever a proposal on the table for DPW to operate a US port. Just terminals. The security risks were blown way out of proportion; although terminal operators bear some responsibility for security within the terminals they operate, port authorites, US Customs and Border Protection and the US Coast Guard are responsible for security at US ports and do a pretty good job.

...you can win the Democratic nomination. You can down-play these guys once you achieve the nom, but they will definitely help you with getting to the nom. It is a sign that the democratic political machine is pulling away from Clinton, and that is very good for Obama.

To be fair though, it isn't like Ted Kennedy hasn't been a part of the Democratic political machine (at least in the national party) any time lately. He likes to march to his own beat. The DNC brings him out for conventions, but usually doesn't consult him that much.

That's totally inaccurate. I know for a fact that he is asked to hand select the booze for each of the Democratic fundraisers.

In the next episode of "Bonnie and Clyde vs. the County Sheriff," Bonnie and the Sheriff plan a shootout tonight while Clyde does some 'global gold-digging' of his own! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us...gewanted=print

Stay tuned!

It begins. Looking at our poll results FOFC called it way before the media. Obama should get the majority of the Edwards crowd, people are either for Clinton or find her to be detestable. Can't wait to see his inauguration.

:)

You do realize that if it ends up being Romney v. Hillary, you will get this smile quoted back to you. In Mockery.

Oh, definitely. I don't think I was being especially wise, either. As I said it was more wishful thinking than anything else.

I wouldn't go that far because 2 days ago Hillary was ahead by a vote. I really do hope Obama pulls it off just because it would be something different. Obama and McCain would be perfect because then I would actually have 2 candidates that I would be willing to vote for rather than having to vote against someone.

Is there any chance that Hilary/Obama selects the other as their running mate? What about Edwards running for VP again? I don't have any real insight except that I would think Hilary would never want to play second fiddle while Obama might. But I thought you guys may actually have some insight or ideas on who might run with either of the canidates.

Hillary/Obama won't happen. Too much personality and well, it's just a bad idea. Edwards has an outside shot, but I seriously doubt he wants to go through the 2nd fiddle thing again and he can't deliver the South making him a really bad choice. Edwards is likely going to be someone's Attorney General of the Dems win.

If you go back a page, you'll see a list of random ideas for VPs we discussed. A few interesting ideas were thrown out there.

Hillary/Obama is possible. Obama/Hillary is not.

I think the most likely running mates are Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, Evan Bayh, and Jim Webb.

Is there any word on whether or not Mark Warner is going to run for the VA senate spot that John Warner is retiring from?

He could be an interesting VP choice and could certainly put Virginia into play as a swing state.

I'm pretty sure he is running for the Senate.

Oh absolutely. I mean, I was happy to see it get blown out of proportion in the media to discomfort the Administration, but yeah, it was completely a non-issue.


Wow. Unless I'm seriously mistaken, last I heard he was behind by a good margin.


He announced two weeks after John Warner announced he wasn't running for re-election. I think Mark Warner decided not to run for Pres because he didn't want to turn his family upside-down. Being a senator from Virginia (next to D.C.) is perfect for him, so I'd be surprised if he wanted to be Veep (Veep's typically do a lot of travel, never mind campaigning).

Latest Rasmussen poll had Hillary leading Obama by 3 points prior to Edwards dropping out. Right now, it is a big outlier, but it is the most recent poll.

during our dinner table conversation tonight I sorta started to talk myself into voting for hillary. idk

I'm hoping the Warner sister Dot will decide to run instead ;)

Dude I almost spit out my drink laughing at that. Good show Good show

not the case as applied to the context in which the idea of foreign involvement/investment/donations as a negative, BW brought it up in this thread.