Sneak Peek of This Fall's Election?

"And I suspect presented with month after month of McCain pounding Obama as out of his depth on life-or-death issues, suburban moms and swing voters may not be as forgiving of Obama's various misstatements and missteps as Madison liberals and, well, some in the media."

I suspect not, actually. All those folks are opposed to the war. When Obama fdights back and defends his position, rather tah retreat on it to McCain -- and stands up to McCain -- he looks strong and confidant.

The reason national security works as an issue for Re[ublicans is because Democrats always back down and confirm the GOP rhetoric. If a Democrat won'yt evens tand up for himself against his GOP opponent, how can I trust him to stand up for me against our enemies?

but, if you fight back and don't give an inch, you neutralize that. I think the press coprs better start scrutinizing McCain's flip flopping and lying more than they are. And, if this country's in a recession, McCain's pledge t spend hundreds of billins of dollars in Iraq, ratrher than helping our economy at home, is going to destroy his candidacy. The Democrats and Obama are already setting that one up. They are going to turn his "strength" into his biggest weakness - al la Karl Rove.

Obama in a landslide.

It shows that Obama is pretty much toast already. Obama came out looking fairly stupid on the exchange, and the Republicans are rolling on the floor laughing at the Democrats.

Well McCain won that round, see little news for you all, its logical and factual, before the Continuation of the War on terror by going into Iraq Al Qeada was there, lets look at the facts, reports of Al Qeada stated they are in every Country.
What you libs and Blame America First crowd think that Al Qeada was everywhere else but Iraq, how dumb can you be.

Fact one of Al Qeada top men who lost a leg (or arm I forget) was giving sanctuary by Hussein (That is Iraq's President Hussein, not ours running for President).

Fact Under Carter a Democrat and also an anti-semite (I know that both are the same) Iran was taken over by whats there now!

under Pres Bill Clinton a DEMOCRAT the terrorists grew in strength and attacked us multiple times, blowing up the Trade center in 93. and we did nothing!

Under Bill 800,000 Somalis were slaughtered with no response, even when the Canadian General in charge of the UN forces there asked us and the UN for Air support, Bill convinced the UN to say no.

For the future under President Hussein (this one is ours if he God forbid gets elected) The US military will be dissolved, we will be under Sharia law and beheading will be a daily happening!

Look at this tidbit, how come the Liberal Marxist ACLU attacks anything Christian or Jewish, but defend anything Islamis!

Hey Rezko have you muslim friend buy me a house too like Obama's.

By the way did Obama feel guilty living in a mansion while he helped out a Slum lord??

Dresden, you wrote: "...much like Obama did in the debate Tuesday against Hillary he turned around and somehow made McCain look like he was the one confused. Pretty impressive on Obama's part."

Actually it is Sen. Obama who is confused. While I have already pointed out that al Qaeda was in Iraq before the invasion, that is immaterial at this point. The answer that Sen. Obama gave in the debate was: "And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act..."

Al Qaeda ALREADY DID form a base in Iraq. In fact, they declared Iraq as there central battlefield in their jihad against the United States and Western Civilization. They are STILL IN Iraq. But now we have them on the run. Yes it is certainly due to the help of the Sunnis. But that is the whole point. The current exit strategy is to keep our troops in Iraq until Iraq is able to sustain, govern and defend itself. Clearly we have not reached that point yet. But great progress has been made. And the simple truth of the matter is, if we precipitously pull out our troops while al Qaeda is still a fighting force in Iraq, al Qaeda will be able to spin it into claiming a military victory.

You can deny the fact that we are fighting for the survival of Western Civilization. But your denial won't stop al Qaeda from waging their jihad. Sen. McCain is correct! We must defeat these terrorists wherever they are, and yes even if it takes 100 years to do so.

It's the economy, stupid.

Also, that Madison liberals line is definitely tired at this point... I know Obama doesn't give access to the press like McCain does on his "straight talk" express but he is hooking into something with real people of all stripes who are sick and tired of partisan politics, clearly not just Madison liberals. McCain trying to score cheap points by telling Obama that Al-Qaeda is in Iraq when he clearly knows it may play well with you. But out here, it seems like simple opportunism. You guys can keep on underestimating BO. He'll keep on engaging the voters and he won't be a doormat for the Republican attack machine.

Tough moment for McCain he thought he could create an opening to score some points but much like Obama did in the debate Tuesday against Hillary he turned around and somehow made McCain look like he was the one confused.
Pretty impressive on Obama's part.

Unlike John Kerry, for example, Obama seems very adept at having debates on his terms instead of his opponents' terms.

Jake, Not sure about your take on this. Al Qaeda in Iraq taking the country if we leave? Joe Klein over at Swampland explains the fallacy of that idea. Of course we want to keep hitting Al Qaeda in Iraq but the reason we've had success there is because the Sunnis themselves in Iraq have turned against them. It is not as simplistic as McCain is setting it out to be. I wonder if you are so wowed by McCain's resume that you're taking what he says at face value rather than doing your own research?

Sorry, I misspelled Lou Dobbs in my previous post (Feb 28, 2008 12:22:33 AM)

Jake, thanks for the "sneak peek." I agree that McCain will try to frame the debate to highlight national security issues and foreign affairs. As you said some people, including some in the media, "may not be as forgiving of Obama's various misstatements and missteps." Well tonight on CNN Lou Dodbes had picked up on Sen. Obama's admission on his missing-in-action-as-the-chair-of-the Afghanistan-committee-because-I-have-been -busy campaigning statement and ran with it.

Another interesting gap was mentioned in a Jan '08 Washington Monthly article: "especially surprising is that Obama is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe. Not only has the Senator not visited the region his committee oversees, but as Steve Clemons of the Washington Note has observed, Obama’s committee has not held a single policy-oriented hearing since he’s been chairman."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801w.widmer.html

It is going to be interesting to see how Sen. Obama can convince voters how his childhood experience of living in Indonesia made him knowledgeable in foreign affairs.

obama has benefited greatly from the hillary haters. if, as unfortunately seems likely, he gets hillary out of the way, people are going to actually start looking at him rather than comparing him to her through the hillary hating lens. that's not good for his prospects. and this issue demonstrates his way of handling a lot of issues - rather than have a valid approach to resolving a problem, just point backwards and blame the other guy for the problem. ok, obama, we get it - hillary voted for the war, mccain voted for the war, you didn't - not because you didn't, but because you weren't even there! but that was years ago. (and you've admitted you don't know how you would have voted if you had been there). the issue now is how we handle the situation going forward. and every time your weak, waffling, b.s. lines get challenged, you just go back to blaming the other guy for some past tense action. mccain calls you on your nonsense, blame him for the war, etc. btw, i'm a texan who's already early voted for hillary. like many lifelong dems, i'll be voting mccain in the fall unless the dems somehow come to their senses and nominate hillary. and i fully expect millions of other dems to do the same. how do we spell mcgovern, who won only one state? o b a m a.

I don't care who's right or who's wrong. The question is, how long would our troops remain in Iraq? It's morally wrong to use our troops to score points. I hope that the friendly countries which share the same border with Iraq would form an alliance to improve the security in Iraq before most of our troops come home. Please note that America supplies Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan with military hardware. If these countries know that unstable Iraq would have an adverse effect on them, they'll be forced to protect their interest by sorting out the mess too. These countries helped in staging this war in terms of intelligence and logistics. Please find a way to bring our troops. home.

Jake, No question that both Hillary and Obama handled the al Queda question badly as debaters. And no question that it was a cheap shot on your part to use that as an opportunity to imply that Obama supporters are "Madison liberals." Every exit poll, every campaign poll, every national media poll disputes that. It's also a cheap shot to throw in more of your whining about the media. There is a cult-like following in the media (maybe not helter-skelter) - but it's your lock-step coverage of Clinton cmapaign. Now, when do we get to see those Clinton tax records? And what is Hillary doing with a chief advisor whose firm prepped Blackwater for congressional hearings?

McCain was right to criticize. Obama was not presidential because he did say if they came back....McCain was right, they have not left. We know when they came in (when George started the war, "mission accomplished", then "bring em on"). Obama is not ready.

I can't wait until MaCain exposes the real Obama, a puppet.

"I don't doubt that Obama knew that Al Qaeda in Iraq exists, but I also think it's clear he doesn't think of the group as a threat to stability in the region as much as McCain does"

Do you know what "Al Qaeda in Iraq exists" means? The root of Talibanization in Iraq are planted. The "Al Qaeda" may not be an immediate threat but it will be in the long run. "Al Qaeda" have grass root level movement that starts in Masjid and is not politically visible.

This proves that Obama's is out of touch with reality in the foreign land which he claimed he is very strong.

I don't agree with you on this issue. You can criticize someone without appearing to offend that individual. This is called constructive criticism. The Presidential election is very important, because it concerns the life of every American. Let's use a simple, but important part of our lives to draw a distinction. Let us assume a patient wants to undergo a life saving surgery. Now, this patient is given a choice of two surgeons to perform this operation. One is a "rookie" and one is "well known". Initially everyone goes to the "well known" surgeon, but as time goes by, the "well known" surgeon makes mistakes and the staff and patients leave for various reasons. As these patients and staff leave they try the "rookie" and guess what? He's a lot better than the "well known" doctor and everyone is impressed.
Well this is the story of Obama and Clinton. Obama never had an easy ride because from day one, the odds where stacked against him and he beat the odds. If race was a factor that favors people, why didn't Bill Richardson win states with a lot of Hispanic people? Why didn't John Edwards get a free ride based on his race? Also if race was a factor in this race then Obama's 11-0 straight wins wouldn't have materialized.

Why are you all pretending Iraq has no military and police of its own? Are you saying they're totally incapable of protecting their own country? Totally incompetent? What?

The British have pulled out of some areas, and the Iraqis are doing okay. The Iraqisy have to take over sooner or later.(Surely you see that? I mean it's their country, not ours, right?) We've been in there training them for years now, so I don't see why you have so little faith in them.

As Obama says, we'll have some forces to protect our embassy, and maybe some advisors.

We really can't keep playing this game of we're indispensable and the whole world just HAS to fall apart if we're not there doing ALL the work because absolutely NOBODY is anywhere CLOSE to being as brave/smart/educated/well-trained/loyal/honest/courageous/whatever as we are.

That's called 'hubris'. That's also called 'what always gets us into these debacles'. Can we please learn from history? Just once? For a change?

What suburban moms, Jake?

According to the ANES, Bush's share of mothers in 2004 was virtually identical to that in 2000. (See: "The Gender Gap" by the American Political Science Association)

Among married women with kids the Democratic share of the 2-party vote dropped 4 points, among married women without children, the Democratic share of the 2-party vote dropped EIGHT points (Exit polls, as described in "The Politics of Polarization"). Furthermore,
there are more married women without kids than with kids. It wasn't the moms, it was the WIVES who moved heavily towards Bush.

This movement has been going for some time. Here is the congressional vote among married women since 1990 (I should note Democrats won them every congressional cycle in the 1980s):
'90 51 D, 49 R
'92 51 D, 49 R
'94 53 R, 47 R
'96 51 R, 49 D
'98 54 R, 46 D
2000 and 2002 not listed
'04 54 R, 45 D
'06 50 R, 49 D
(see the American Enterprise Institute compilation of house exit polls)

The movement of married women did not begin in the wake of 9/11. It started in the mid-1990s, when international affairs were on the back burner.

Now, was it security that pushed them between 2000 and 2004?
According to a survey by women's voices women's vote, married women's #1 issue was moral values. A Table in Anna Greenberg's piece "Moving Beyond the Gender Gap" shows that married white women who voted for Bush or considered voting for Bush were as likely as other Bush voters to mention security. However, they were more likely than other Bush voters to mention personal qualities and values. Additionally, Pew Research's post-election analysis in 1994 found that white women who voted for Republican candidates for House emphasized values on a level that other voting groups did not.

In comparing the 1996 and 1998 midterm elections, married women shifted pro-GOP. But married men's and singles' votes stayed essentially constant.

All of this collectively paints an important picture: married women are uniquely concerned about values.

We talk about values, but what exactly do they mean? Galston and Kamarck pointed out in their paper, "The Politics of Polarization," the values concerns manifest themselves in concerns about the personal qualities of the candidates.

Character and leadership were a huge part of their defection to the Republicans.

The lesson of that, though, is it wasn't just fear of terrorists that moved women. So, encyclopedic know-how about foreign policy may not have the effect you think it will. Bush did not wow these voters with expertise, rather determination and resolve. Thus, McCain's strengths of experience and knowledge may not rouse the same emotions. Moreover, the palpable sense of fear that existed in the past has dissipated somewhat and been supplanted with anxiety about the economy and the war in Iraq. 4% of Americans listed terrorism as the most important issue facing the country in a recent Gallup poll, compared to 19% in the 2004 exit poll.

Lastly, in terms of Madison liberals being the ones who forgive "misspeaking", do the office park dads in Northern Virginia, the St. Louis suburbs, and Denver suburbs not count?

So if Obama knows al queada is in Iraq then he is in favor of sending troops there. He said that last night right?