Democrats Would Have Been Smart To Skip Convention

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by: Stringer

By Matt Towery – August 28, 2008

Democrats were scratching their heads and trying to figure how it was that Republican presidential nominee John McCain had inched further up in the polls during this, of all things, the week of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. But the only real mystery is why they were so mystified.

The Democrats’ first misstep came on the first night of the proceedings, when they staged a disjointed and misguided salute to the party’s most liberal wing.

It’s always heartbreaking to see anybody suffering from cancer; in this case, Democratic icon U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who spoke to an adoring convention crowd. And yet it’s Kennedy who typifies to many swing voters the very “limousine liberal” wing of the party that has for so long repelled voters from throwing in with the Dems…

…The fact is that the Democrats on Monday night didn’t offer to America a coherent message that was palatable and digestible. Nor did they on Tuesday, which only left the country wondering: Why did Obama pick another northeastern liberal male as his running mate when he could have chosen Hillary Clinton? She absolutely blew the convention hall away with a speech that had power and — surprise! — a discussion of meaty issues.

Now Obama has “a third running mate,” whether he wants her or not. Sen. Clinton has more charisma and substance in her little finger than Biden has in his entire body.

Now we know why the Obama team decided to move their candidate’s nomination acceptance speech to a giant stadium filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans. Having to follow Hillary and Bill Clinton in the same venue in which they appeared might lead to apple-to-apple comparisons that could leave Obama’s fruit looking bruised.

Instead of all this, the Democrats should have been reassuring moderate voters that they will be safe this November if they abandon their recent past habit of voting for the Republican nominees for president because the Democrats’ pie-in-the-sky solutions are too flighty and unrealistic.

Instead, one has the strange feeling that today’s Democratic Party is looping back to the loopy days of, say, 1972 and George McGovern, rather than to the days of moderates Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992…

…It’s going to take a miracle of some kind if Obama is going to be able to transform the early events of the 2008 Democratic convention into anything more than another reason to stop holding these things altogether. Especially if they boost the opposition party in the polls. …

15 thoughts on “Democrats Would Have Been Smart To Skip Convention”

Stringer says:

August 28, 2008 at 5:50 pm

People remember all the times that McCain stuck his thumb in the Republican leaderships eye, and voted and ran against W.

McCain = Bush, like OBAMA equals Bill Clinton. As in NOT.

Clinton ran as a new Democrat, some say as a conservative Democrat. That and Ross Perot is how he beat Bush 41. Clinton never got 50% of the vote.

Barry is no Bill Clinton.

Barry is a Socialist Chicago activist.

You will be wishing for a second run by McGovern before this is over.

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1. Another skeptic says:
  
  August 28, 2008 at 7:38 pm
  
  A lot of people have been wondering why Obama let the Clintons roll him, but I’m coming to the conclusion that Obama used them as a cover for his radical and racist past.
  
  He doesn’t want people to know his past as the son of an atheist and a muslim, a student enrolled in Indonesian schools as a muslim, his racist views as a young American adult, his upbringing in socialist Hawaii by a mother and grandparents who sympathized with Communists, his Ivy League education, his association with the radical ACORN and his marriage to a woman bitter about race relations in America.
  
  And he didn’t want the convention or media to focus on his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Wright, his political mentor, Bill Ayers or his source of political inspiration, Saul Alinksy.
  
  In today’s WSJ, Juan Williams, says in “Obama needs to take a stand on race and other issues” that “The senator has been too evasive for us to judge the content of his character.”
  
  Thus, Obama has been using the Kennedys and Clintons to entertain the troops while he hides.
  
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  1. Another skeptic says:
    
    August 28, 2008 at 8:03 pm
    
    Obama is showing his fascist tendencies, using his mob and lawyers to try to silence critics and reporters who are exposing his associations with the unrepentant terrorists, Bill Ayers.
    
    Link to Chicago Trib story is here:
    
    http://www.swamppolitics.com/n…
    
    This is on Drudgereport.com, so you may want to read the story and the comments that follow.
    
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    1. Another skeptic says:
      
      August 28, 2008 at 9:32 pm
      
      The AIP spokesman says Obama’s using ‘Stalinistic’ strategies to shut down AIP’s ad, but the correct term is ‘fascist.”
      
      Link is here:
      
      http://adspotlight.nationaljou…
      
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      1. Phoenix Rising says:
        
        August 29, 2008 at 5:23 pm
        
        The AIP has pretty much admitted that they’ll (eventually) make enough non-campaign expenditures to appear legit, but that their main purpose is running these ads without any caps or limits.
        
        The word “Stalinist” from such an organization means nothing.
        
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  2. Another skeptic says:
    
    August 28, 2008 at 8:09 pm
    
    I haven’t heard Rush for weeks, but he is talking about Obama Fascism today:
    
    http://corner.nationalreview.c…
    
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    1. Another skeptic says:
      
      August 28, 2008 at 9:33 pm
      
      He says Obama would shut down talk radio. And probably political blogs.
      
      Cites Saul Alinksy as Obama’s mentor.
      
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  3. Another skeptic says:
    
    August 28, 2008 at 8:13 pm
    
    I listen to CNBC, not the radio. But it might be time to tune into Mike.
    
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    1. Another skeptic says:
      
      August 28, 2008 at 9:34 pm
      
      I caught tail end of the show. Glad I didn’t waste my time on it.
      
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      1. Fidel's dirt nap says:
        
        August 28, 2008 at 11:16 pm
        
        Have you talked to skeptic lately ? How’s he doing ?
        
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        DavidThi808 says:
        
        August 29, 2008 at 7:31 am
        
        …arguing loudly with themselves. I think Obama’s great week has pushed him around the bend.
        
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Go Blue says:

August 28, 2008 at 6:58 pm

well, they can’t even give tickets away to his events!

While McCain is having a hard time filling a venue the size of a high school gym, Obama and the Democrats rocked the house. From Michelle, to Biden, the Democrats showed why we’re going to win in November. We’re on the right side of the issues while John McCain and the Republicans are wrong.

While Bob Schaffer and 8 other Senate Republicans candidates run away from Bush… I mean McCain… (actually both since they’re the same!), the Democrats are united.

And don’t take offense if I scoff at this concern diary you shill.

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ohwilleke says:

August 28, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Quote and comment has its place. Save extended quotes from press releases for the traditional media.

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DavidThi808 says:

August 28, 2008 at 7:48 pm

You Repubs would have been celebrating instead of making these lame concern trolls.

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Phoenix Rising says:

August 28, 2008 at 8:16 pm

… if the first paragraph of the article wasn’t betrayed by the facts.

Gallup’s 3-day tracking poll average went up 3 points on Tuesday after Michelle Obama’s speech. It went up another 5 points this morning following Hillary Clinton’s speech. The Sunday poll results which put McCain ahead in the poll for the first time in a long time are still in the 3-day average for today’s poll numbers, so tomorrow’s numbers should be significantly better even than that.

Oh – and before you revert to the GOP pre-defined expectation of a 15-point poll bounce and then scoff when the Convention doesn’t produce those results, that’s a ridiculous number IMHO. The average convention bounce is 6 points. We’re already at that level, and anything more is gravy.

BTW, great statistical analysis over at 538 on convention bounces.

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