Comments for drink me

Comment on cartography by Robert

Robert — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:24:14 +0000

Sorry we havn’t seen you for a while. I used to enjoy your blog very much, but you must be busy with academia.

Comment on The undecided voter by rushmc

rushmc — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:50:08 +0000

>>Yet the press still respected and adored him.

Those who didn’t figure him out after his little dog-and-pony show at the UN probably never will.

Comment on what you never know by rushmc

rushmc — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:52:49 +0000

Oh, my bad. I thought you meant ACTUAL downsides, not just things which might keep ignorant people from voting for him.

And I would submit that the “savior” mantle laid on Obama is not his doing or his choice, but is the result of a) media coverage choices and b) the great relief of much of the voting population for a sane, reasonable, somewhat progressive candidate after such a long drought. Kind of churlish to blame him for it.

Comment on what you never know by drinkme

drinkme — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:52:23 +0000

As a standard candidate trying to beat a strong republican candidate? That he’s black, has a weird name, has associations with terrorists, that there are pictures of him not crossing his heart by a flag, that he has no military experience, that he comes out of dirty chicago, that he’s a professor, his father was muslim, his mother was atheist, he seems half hearted in his christianity, his pastor hates america, there’s video of him laughing during bible study…

These things have been brought up but not very effectively, or just haven’t been very effective. I think part of that is that McCain just doesn’t have the money, part of it is obama is good at deflecting, and part of it is the situation this year is too serious to get caught on such things. I think in other years, those things would have been huge, the way swift boat and riding in a tank and whatever other nonsense became big. I like Obama, but this is a weird race, kind of right place, right time… and even so, it isn’t universal – that’s why Palin has become a symbol for some other people (since McCain is not a symbol for anyone…)

And then there are people like me, not looking for symbols, a little mystified by the whole thing. I just want someone who will be a decent president, no religious crowds, please. I’ll vote Obama, even don’t mind if he wants to be transformational, but I’m not counting on it or anything. Just some common sense.

Peacay, I think anyone who’d read the longer form journalists already felt that way about muslims – sort of preaching to converted.

Comment on what you never know by rushmc

rushmc — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:12:25 +0000

http://crooksandliars.com/cernig/assault-democracy

What are his “plenty of down sides”?

Comment on what you never know by peacay

peacay — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:20:27 +0000

I hope one of the longer form journalists decides to elaborate on Powell’s nugget regarding Muslims. It was an important message on inclusiveness that deserves to be highlighted and discussed, but is obviously far overshadowed by his announcement of support for BO. It must have been some awful life for a lot of non-traditional named peoples these last 7 or so years I’d be thinking.

Comment on what you never know by drinkme

drinkme — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 04:07:25 +0000

I think I read too much stuff online and not enough in real-world news, as I keep seeing much bigger spreads than that. All the blogs seem to have the Obama ahead by at least 7 or 8 points, though they will often mention how the “mainstream media” is acting like it’s a close race. I was going to do a post about that, actually…

I don’t know if Obama is the best candidate of my lifetime; in a lot of ways he’s a pretty unlikely candidate and it’s luck that he could run at such a bad time so he has such a good chance. That americans are going to vote for a black guy with the middle name Hussein who is kind of academic/ boring when it comes to debates / talk shows / impressions, is sort of fantastic already… he was excellent at running the primary, and is a great orator, but he has plenty of down sides, and if the Repubs had a stronger candidate or it weren’t such a bad year, they’d be able to squash him. If it were just 00 or 04, they’d have squashed him.

I am somewhat worried about racism and I don’t know about vote theft stuff…

Comment on what you never know by rushmc

rushmc — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:02:18 +0000

Three things trouble me still at this point:

1) The fact that despite having the best candidate in my lifetime vs. a terrible candidate of the same party (and policies, for the most part) as the incumbent–the worst president in history–the polls still hover around 50/50;
2) “Hidden” racism that may show up in the privacy of the voting booth;
3) Dirty tricks and vote theft, which have clearly contributed to the Republican “wins” in the past two elections.

No euphoria over “won” debates or ephemeral poll numbers can erase these fears.

Comment on MccAin’t Happening by drinkme

drinkme — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:09:03 +0000

yeah, I know. I try to maintain a balanced outlook, but McCain not only seems unfocused and unable to lead to me, but even his own party is not excited about him. They have a weird fascination/excitement about his running mate, it’s true, and that is worrying, but it’s a fairly small percentage overall (a “base” not a majority). So the larger percentage of people who are voting for McCain are voting -against- Obama, and the more who get to know him, the more they see that, hmm, he’s not so bad.

I know, polls can be misleading, new events or ads or speeches could change things, but overall the money and the energy is heading toward obama…

But still, thanks for the sobering note about the 2000 & 1980 elections.

Comment on MccAin’t Happening by rushmc

rushmc — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:40:00 +0000

On the other hand, there are data floating around this week showing that Gore in 2000 and Carter in 1980 (among others) had larger leads at this stage than Obama appears to have now. I hardly think it’s over, “October Surprise” notwithstanding.