Point Of The Day: Jim Cooper Explains Why Fiscal Conservatives Should Support Obama

By Kleinheider Posted on July 18, 2008 at 9:29 am

Rep. Jim Cooper explains how his differences with Barack Obama factored into making a powerful argument for supporting him:

“Opposites attract in politics, like only Nixon could go to China,” Cooper said this week, recalling the strident anti-communist president’s trip to China. “Well probably only a liberal and an African-American could reform runaway entitlement program spending. Now there’s no guarantee of that, but I don’t see a Republican doing it.”

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Tags: Barack Obama, China, Clinton, Government expansion under Bush, Jim Cooper, Richard Nixon, The Era Of Big Government, Welfare Reform  

Class The Problem With Obama, Not Race?

By Kleinheider Posted on May 9, 2008 at 7:15 am

GoldnI points to the Economist:

Mr Obama’s main problem with white voters may have more to do with class than race. To the white working man and woman, he has been seen too often as an aloof elitist, who can’t drink whisky, displays a suspicious familiarity with the price of an arugula salad and memorably bowled a deplorable 37 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Toffishness doomed John Kerry; but with Mr Obama, a child of a single mother who sometimes used food stamps, that picture is surely reversible.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama attracts other voters in a way Mrs Clinton never has. For every white bigot who switches sides because of Mr Obama’s skin colour, there is likely to be a white independent—especially a young one—running to support him. The data show that young people, both black and white, prefer Mr Obama. Against Mrs Clinton, Mr McCain might have swept up all the independents; with Mr Obama he will have to split them.

Is the Economist correct that it is class, not race that alienates white working men and women from Obama or is it a more sinister combination of both?

Is it that, on some subconscious level, the white working class don’t appreciate someone of Obama’s race being someone of Obama’s class?

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Tags: Clinton, Obama, race, white working class  

Nipping The Dream Ticket In The Bud

By Kleinheider Posted on May 8, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Brendan Loy suggests that Barack Obama announce his runningmate sooner rather than later to cut down on all the “dream ticket” talk:

I actually think Obama would be well served to announce his running mate earlier than usual, just to prevent the inevitable Clinton-for-veep speculation from consuming the entire summer, and from further dividing the party when he finally gets around to rejecting what many pundits (and Hillary supporters) will myopically see as the “obvious” choice.

Before the “healing” can truly begin, the last shot must be fired, and that shot will be Obama’s choice of a vice presidential running mate who isn’t named Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Problem with this, of course, is that while it is virtually mathematically impossible for Hillary to win the nomination, it is still possible. Until Obama has mathematically clinched the nomination or Clinton concedes the race, he cannot pick a runningmate. Neither of these things are likely to happen.

Unless the superdelegates come out en mass forcing Clinton’s hand she has no incentive to drop out and until they do Obama cannot be so bold as to announce a runningmate (or likely runningmate) without risking the alienation of some of those superdelegates.

To cut off the speculation, Obama should announce a runningmate the minute after closure is achieved in the primary. Problem is, it is becoming more and more likely that that closure will not happen.

Furthermore, if Clinton actually wants the Vice-Presidency, it is in her interest not to concede until the convention where dealmaking atmosphere and the pressure on Obama to pick her will be at its height.

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Tags: Clinton, convention, dream ticket, Obama  

Explaining The Papist Vote

By Kleinheider Posted on April 18, 2008 at 1:11 pm

David Oatney gives us the benefit of his expertise on the Catholic vote in America:

Allow me to educate those of you who are regular readers but who are not Catholic about the nature of the Catholic vote in 2008. The national media tends to speak of the “Catholic vote” as though that is a singular thing and Catholics are a monolith. Catholics are not only an extremely diverse group of people, but there is a vast difference in the voting patterns of “Catholics” who identify themselves as such but don’t regularly attend Mass or make frequent use of the sacraments, and those who are weekly (or greater) Mass-attendants, receive the Eucharist, go to Confession, and observe to the best of their ability the precepts of the Church. Among the latter group, there has been an extremely sharp right turn in the last 30 years. While the Church in the U.S. isn’t big on getting involved in national elections, observant Catholics were sent an indirect but clear signal in 2000 that Al Gore was not acceptable. There was never any love lost between the Vatican and the Clintons, and it was presumed that Gore was more of the same.

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Tags: Catholics, Clinton, Gore, Holy See, The Vatican