posted by Justin Oldham]

I'm glad to see the "new guy" making such a splash . I only wish the Republicans had a new guy to make a similar wave in the conservative pool. I know. Romney. Trouble is, Mitt isn't really in Presidential mode. He's got the bucks, but he's not playing to win. He's in this for the fun.

Having said that, we should be glad that somebody is challenging Hillary. I'm grateful that she's being challenged by a relative newcomer. I may not agree with his politics, but I do know that we need new blood and new ideas. Republicans at this time won't find new words and new ideas unless they are pushed. [Edited by Don W]

Every issue in America either begins with race or ends with it. First, it is precisely because of Obama’s race that he is getting the play in the media. Obama’s too new in the Senate to have a record, he is not considered a heavyweight in grand strategy and he is not associated with people who are. He’s strictly a smart enough black guy who knows how to play that to his advantage in an ashamed white America. I don’t know if the nomination can be won in the primaries or not. I hear that we’ll know the winner after the Feb. 5 series. The Dems have one chance to regain the presidency, 2008, and I cannot see the old-timers squandering it on a handsome young man who does not speak black street talk. I’m sorry, but I cannot see Obama as the nominee.

[edit on 4/4/2007 by donwhite]

Obama is a smart enough black guy who know that he is palatable (sp) by white america. I mean when al sharpton and others ran white america didnt give them a second look. But obama is easy to soak in for them b/c he doesnt play on white america's shame and all that.

As a caucasian, I admit that I can't relate to Obama's critics when they say he isn't black enough. Having said that, what I see of the man so far is all sizzle and no steak. In as much as he is and shall be a strong contender for his party's nomination, I'd don't see him actually winning the Presidence in 2008.

I do think he could be Hillary's Vice Presidential running mate. I know that Don disagrees with that, but I'm willing to give the average voter what you might call the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, I'd like to think we're advanced enough to consider voting for a woman and a black man on the same ticket. I may not agree with their politics, but I won't hold their race and gender against them.

Obama is being called the new Bobby Kennedy. that might be a nice label to have, but let's remember one thing. EVeryone who is serious about this race knows that they are in it for the long haul. This is the longest Presidential running period in U.S. history. For all intents and purposes, theyse folks are campaigning for nearly two years. Anything can happen between now and November of 2008.

These are rich and famous people. They are tempted by things that you and I can't relate to. Behind the scenes, they're trying very hard to mess with each other. If Hillary is having a bad day when she shows up for her first televised debate...it could be all over. If Obama were to be seen in the wrong place doing the wrong thing, he too could be finished. The same holds true for any of the Republican contenders.

If Hillary wanted to stick it to Obama, for whatever reason, she could with some effort 'make' a VP running mate. For example, if she were to work with Richardson quietly and behind the scenes, the two of them could move him in to position in sich a way as to pick off Obama.

We've got three more fund raising cycles to go for this year, and it really is possible that funding can dry up for anyone.

posted by ImpliedChaos

Obama is a smart enough black guy who knows he is palatable to white America. When Al Sharpton and others [Jesse Jackson] ran white America didn’t give them a second look. But Obama is easy to soak in for them because he doesn’t play on white America's shame and all that. [Edited by Don W]

I cannot dispute anything you say here, Ms I/C. Lucky so far, Obama has managed to avoid the more complex issues facing the nation such as health care, huge budget deficits and immigration. Not to mention global warming and a coordinated American response to globalization. And on the assumption the black voters prove to be crucial in Florida and Ohio, what is he going to do for African-Americans the next 4 (8) years?

Obama is today’s hero for his stand on the Iraq Civil War. You know how much I dislike B43, but he and Clinton both believe, as I also believe, that if the US vacates Baghdad as we vacated Saigon, that Iran will be the default hegemon in the Middle East. I part company with B43 and Clinton because I do not see that as necessarily bad for the Middle East, the world or the US. It is a geographic fact of life that Iran is there. We are not. Compare Iraq with South Korea to get a look-see into the future if we decide to continue competing with a local power. And us being the worst possible outsiders.

Our experiment in global empire - since the fall of the USSR - 1989-1991 - has not turned out well for us taxpaying citizens. We’ve shot or pee’d away a half trillion dollars that could have been well used here at home, and what do we have to show for it? Afghan falling back into Taliban hands, Pakistan on the verge of falling under Islamic extremists along with its 50 atom bombs, and a quagmire in Iraq we argue endlessly over what to do. Heck, I thought B43 was America’s Commander-in-Chief For Life, and he said it himself, He is the Decider! Now, he don’t know what to decide? Hmm.

Obama? Keep in mind a president has 3,000 appointments to make in order to “form” his government. I wonder who, where and why are Obama’s choices? Wining is fine, but what do you do next?

[edit on 4/5/2007 by donwhite]

Actually its MS. Implied Chaos Anyway i understand what you are saying. IMO he is the best choice for me. I'm going to vote democratic and i used to love hilary but....she has changed her views on some things. And i feel that Obama is our best hope. I will try to find more info about what he plans on doing with regards to the points that you mentioned. Also i dont know exactly what he plans on doing for the black community but it will be more than what bush has done. (Obama could be our 2nd black pres behind bill clinton of course)

For now, Obama has a real good song and dance going on. With one hundred thousand donors, you know that he got most of his money from small contributors. this is good on one level, bad on another. Let me explain.

Every modern politicians watns to tap in tothe average person's anxiety, and their wallets. Obama has clearly done both. Trouble is, small donors usuaully give once. "I gave my ten dollars, I've done my part." In truth, most ofthe small donors who do give really can't afford to part with the moeny. their "sacrifice" is, in their minds, a one-time thing because they hope that others will take up where they left off.

The fifty thousand donors who passed the hat for Hillary are a different group. they have more disposable income. They WILL be asked again for their financial support. All of us who read and participate in this thread are cynical when ti comes to money. Even so, we need to remember that this is the longest Presidential campaign in U.S. history. It's like a long distance foot race.

Those of you who can remember Howard Dean's success with the internet fund raising in 2003 will recall that he too had a lot of small donors who never ponied up again. His money surge didn't last long enough to do him any good, even before the infamous scream that was heard 'round the world.

Based on what I see, I do believethat Hilary's fundraisers are aiming for a model that looks something like this. Two hundred thousand people to give a total of one hundred million dollars by the end of 2007. Sounds hard? Not really. If 2300 people each gave $2300, you'd get $529,000 or something close to it. Her average donation amount, assuming fifty thousand donors, was roughly $520 or so.

The average amount given by Obama's one hundred thousand donors was $250. the "demographics" that I'm talking about here will be studied closely by everyone, to include the Reoublicans.I'm glad to see that Barack raised that kind of money, but I doubt his ability to keep the dough coming in.

posted by Justin Oldham

Obama. With 100,000 donors, he got most of his money from small contributors. Every modern politician wants to tap in to the average persons wallet. Trouble is, small donors usually give once. "I gave my ten dollars, I've done my part." In truth, most of the small donors who give really can't afford to. Their "sacrifice" is a one-time thing because they hope others will take up where they left off.

Clinton. Fifty thousand donors. They have more disposable income. They WILL be asked again for financial support. We need to remember this is the longest Presidential campaign in US history.

Reflect. Howard Dean had great success with the internet fund raising in 2003. He had a lot of small donors who never ponied up again. His money surge didn't last, even before the famous scream that was heard
“‘round the world.”

I believe Hilary's fund-raisers are aiming for a model that looks like this. 200,000 people to give a total of $100 million dollars by the end of 2007. Sounds hard? Not really. Her average donation amount was $520.

Obama's 100,000 donors average gift was $250. The "demographics" I'm talking about will be studied closely by everyone including the Republicans. I’m glad to see that Barack raised that kind of money, but I doubt his ability to keep the dough coming in. [Edited by Don W]

Without specifics from each campaign, it is hard to estimate reliably the actual number of small - say $50 or less - donors to any campaign. I use the 80/20 and half/half formula. In Hillary’s case that works out to 40,000 donors giving $13 million, or $325 average for small donors.

In Obama’s case the same formula produces $150 each. Less than half the dollar amount Clinton’s small donors coughed up. The difficulty of collecting money is directly proportional to the number of donors, and inversely proportional to the size of the donation. Many is harder, fewer is easier. Bigger is easier, smaller is harder.

Conspiracy Theory
Suppose Karl Rove called all his old (no-bid contractor) buddies who “owed” him. A chain letter by telephone. Rove said to each one he called, "i want you to call 10 'reliable' friends." He told them to say, “I want you to make a small one-time donation to Barack Obama. This will go far to shoot Hillary in the foot and generally muck up the Dems campaign plans.” And I suppose he’d close the calls, a la Red Skeleton, “Thank you and God Bless.“

[edit on 4/5/2007 by donwhite]

I admit that what you suggest is just the sort of dark-hearted thing any Karl Roe would think of, and I myself wouldn't rule it out if my client really really wanted to win. Having said that, I don't think that such a conspiracy exists. Doesn't mean it can't happened. I wll make note of this idea for future use in one of my books.

posted by Justin Oldham

posted by Don W
Conspiracy Theory Karl Rove said, "I want you to call 10 friends." Say, “I want you to make a small one-time donation to Barack Obama. This will go far to shoot Hillary in the foot.” I suppose he’d close a la Red Skeleton, “Thank you and God Bless.“

I admit what you suggest is the sort of dark-hearted thing any Karl Roe would think of and I myself wouldn't rule it out if my client really wanted to win. Having said that, I don't think that such a conspiracy exists. Doesn't mean it can't happened. I will make note of this idea for future use in one of my books. [Edited by Don W]

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

OK, roll this over. What if Obama’s numbers had been higher than Hillary’s? Suppose he came in claiming $28 m? As it is, his number is less than a 4% variance. 1/26th. Within the range of error as the pollsters disclaim. Supercilious Remark: That may be accurate enough for government work?

Seriously, that would have the talking heads blathering this Sunday! I’m reminded of radio commentator H V Kaltenborn as imitated by HST in the 1948 election. Hopefully you will have seen it on an old tv show. It was to Truman what the welfare Cadillac was to Reagan.

I watched Obama on the tube last night, on CNN, they had something about him. He looks too young. He must be too inexperienced although you can argue he’s better prepared than being a governor of say, Texas, for example.

I can guess that Bill and Hillary were surprised. Assuming also, as I do, that there are back-room discussions every day with Charley Rangel and other top Dem pols, with Bill, what could they be thinking about now? This puts the 2nd quarter fund raising report due to go public on July 15 as critical to Hillary. She MUST be top dog! To stay viable all the way through.

She has weathered well the ‘Iraq War Vote Apology’ semi-crisis of a month ago with no apparent harm done by her refusal. I suspect she (and Bill) decided the sources of that demand were taking a cheap shot and private polling showed most Dem voters cared not a whit over that vote, which by the bye, did not look to be a mistake when it was cast. It was B43's exceedingly poor conduct of the war that made it so. Lackadaisical, you might say. So what’s your take, Mr J/O?

[edit on 4/6/2007 by donwhite]

Well, being the dark master of politics that I am, I'd like to take a moment to look at something that will make my point regarding Hillary.

Obama and Romeny. Both have surprised a lot of people with their fund rasings success. Conventional wisdom says that money equals viability. That piece of old school caticism is no longer true. Why? Because the candidate of 2008 has greater access to the voter than anyone has ever had previously.

On my desk, I have a regular land line, an a cell phone. I have t.v. and radio less than three feet away. I'm typing away on a PC that has e-mail and IM capability. The postman brings my snail mail right to my front door. I can be reached through any of these methods by any politician who is willing to spend the money to do so.

When he ran for office in 1989, Bush41's handler's didn't consider tapping in to cell phones, but they did use snail mail and t.v. ads to good effect. Bill Clinton was the first Presidential contender to have a real need to exploit ever ysingle form of communication his people could find and use.In today's world, political viability isn't measured in dollars alone. If that were true, Mitt Romeny the billionare would write one large check and report for work in late January of 2009.

I was recently asked by a confab of local political thinkers what that really means. The simple tactical truth is that money determines the scope and scale of communications. This requires the transmission of multiple messages to as many different constitutencies as possible. You can't influence people if you can't reach them. It's not enough to reach them, you've got to "respond." Yeah, sure. There's favor trading that still goes on at the higher levels, but where you and I are concerned...it's all about message and response.

People who pay for access get the priveledge trading favors. It's no economically pheasible to buy the rest of us, but...we can be co-opted by being made to feel like we're part of the process. How do they do that? they present us with the illusion that they're talking directly to us. They do this by reaching us by as many different forms of communication as possible.

Look at your spam and junk mail. What do you see? Obama and Romeny have each made a blig splash, but neither has the kind of network that I have referred to so many times in the past. The simple truth is that its too late for them to build that network, or buy it. That's why niether one will be the winners of their party's nominations. These two candidates have other working similarities, and I encourage you to look for them.

Senator Diane Feinstein, (D) CA

She resigned quietly from the Military Construction Appropriations SUB-committee after questions were raised as long ago as 2005. She was under fire because her husband, Richard Blum, is a shareholder in 2 companies, URS and Perini, both of which have been awarded large contracts to reconstruct Iraq and Afghan between 2003 to 2006. The Blum Capital Consortium controls 23.7% of UrS. By way of interest, the Carlyle Group, a Neo Con entity, holds 21.7% of the URS equity. Surely the one would “watch” the other?

The 527 type allegations - innuendo and fabrication - assert that Mr. Blum made $2 million and the remaining partners in Blum Capital made $100 million. Ipso Facto, he must be doing wrong and by necessary implication, Sen. Feinstein must be doing wrong. Yup, 527 here. Hey, they are Democrats, aren’t they?

No allegations of dishonesty, no illegalities, and nothing at all except she has resigned and her husband is a businessman. Hmm? Is this a skunk works project?

[edit on 4/7/2007 by donwhite]

It's altogether possible that Mr. Edwards will get away with his own bit of sleeze. Even so, I've had some interesting replies to my blog. Seems the cancer community isn't willing to let him slide. We have sun, so I am going outside to play. C u later.

This my take on the popularity of Obama, he appeals to the people of his own race that is why his donations comes in small bashes not like the ones Hilary is getting from big corporate and wealthy America.

Obama actually has more followers than Hilary . . . but will this be enough to take Hillary?

No really, lets talk about the middle class class well to do Americans they are mostly conservative and more often than not religious followers, their choices are within the republican party but so far McCain and Gulliani has not gotten enough money to even compare to Obama and Hillary.

But hey conservatives that still want to exercises their right to vote will vote, and the majority of fundamentalist Christians will vote, and will give their back to a moderate like Gullliani to rather deal with another type of war mentality candidate like Bush, and that rather have no real issue on abortion, even if the views of this candidate is as death as the dinosaurs. . .McCain. . .

When it comes to the final results we may find that McCain will win over Gulliani at the last moment in the minds and harts of conservative and Christian fundamentalist.

But when it comes to Obama and Hillary we may find that our nation is still very much alive with racism and gender preferences and the conservative Americans will once again dominate the voting polls.

We may have McCain as the new president.

But we still have plenty of time to see what happen.

[edit on 9-4-2007 by marg6043]

Because the conservative base is so fractured, it will be hard for Hillary Clinton to actually lose to a Republican of any stripe. Whoever gets the GOP nod at this point will do so by accident or default.

I've been reading up on where everybody gets their donation money, and I've come to one new conclusion. There's more money to be had than there ever has been. As a society, we are just that wealthy. I'm not sure anyone can make a proper guess as to just how "deep" the political contribution well really is.

The simle fact of the matter is that now, more than ever, voters have many different ways to give varying sums of money to the candidates of their choice. Contemporary politicians are starting to understand that just as no donation is too big, no donation is too small. By taking the time to collect the smaller doantions, they actually do get mo' money.

There is also one more factor in play. When I go out in public to speak as "the famous author," I often talk about the many options people have to express themselves politically. I carry a single dollar bill with me as a visual aid when I make these presentations. Voters are learning how to flex their own monetary muscles. If a million people each gave you a dollar, you'd still have a million dollars when all the counting was done.

A majority of the people who give in small amounts don't want to buy access. They just want "their guy" to win. It makes them feel like they've participated, which hey have. When people understand that they have the power to play spoiler with their pocket change, they feel better about themselves and their future.

posted by marg6043

This my take on the popularity of Obama . . he appeals to the people of his own race . . his donations comes in small amounts . . Hilary is getting her larger donations from big corporate and wealthy Americas . . so far McCain and Giuliani has not raised enough money to even compare to Obama and Hillary.

But conservatives will vote and fundamentalist Christians will vote, and will give their backing to a moderate like Giuliani to rather than deal with another war mentality type candidate who acts like Bush . . . . McCain

When it comes to the final results we may find McCain wins over Giuliani at the last moment in the minds and hearts of conservative and Christian fundamentalist. But when it comes to Obama and Hillary we may find that our nation is still very much alive with racism and gender preferences and the conservative Americans will once again dominate the voting polls. We may have McCain as the new president. But we still have plenty of time to see what happen. [Edited by Don W]

Excellent analysis, Marg. Abortion and prayer in school seems to have lost its edge with many voters. I believe as you do that the Iraq War is uppermost I their minds. The issue then is how much can Bush43 accomplish between now and November 4, 2008? Can he turn it around? If he does, then the GOP candidate will have a big boost. Look, I’m a Dem but I know the Dems will do about 30% of what I’d like to see done, but the GOP would do only about 1%. So why would I want to vote GOP?

[edit on 4/9/2007 by donwhite]

Lost Sailor
Juston
Thanks to both of you for posting your latest information and your thoughts.
As the election year proceeds I hope all the happenings can be discussed here.

They both conducted this debate at the highest level of gentlemenliness. Hmm? Is that a word? Loaded with facts, pertinent references and back-up statistics, it was a marvel of preparation and presentation. We are unlikely to soon see another debate equal to this and as well conducted. Bravo!

Congrats to you both, in equal amounts.

[edit on 4/20/2007 by donwhite]