The new Primary Thread

[Impaler[WrG]]

GePap: agreed Obama doesn't ramble out laundry lists of wonkish policy like Hillary dose but if you do some research for yourself its all their on his websites. Frankly the media which SHOULD ferret out and explain those differences has basically said "All the Democrats have exactly the same policy stances, this election is all about personality!!!111"

Or watch the darn debate, it was the first real attempt by the moderators to ferret out and display differences ware they existed.

And now all the Dems are hoping for the ultimate Clintobama "Planeteer" ticket to vanquish the McCain together.

Cant resist...

Hillary with the power of Health Care
Richardson with the power of Foreign Policy
Edwards with the power of Class warfare
Kucinich with the power of Isolationism
and Obama with the power of Charisma

By your powers combined....

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why should a vigorous campaign perhaps even a negative one automatically leave a candidate crippled in the general election rather than making the candidate stronger and providing the public with more information about him?

Because what's provided is rarely, by any stretch of the imagination, "information." It runs instead to innuendo, mischaracterization, and outrageous assertion, until eventually you end up with the campaign turning on statements like "Candidate A is Satan." Then, when Candidate A finally wins, he faces the task of convincing a number of his own party members that he is not, in fact, Satan. Meanwhile, the opposition party has benefitted from months of free negative campaigning from Candidate A's primary opponent, and now get's to enter the general election saying "Candidate A's own colleagues think he's Satan -- and they would know!" Candidate A ends up playing defense for the whole game, which is no way to win.

This is why Ronald Reagan used to say that the 11th Commandment was, "thou shalt speak no ill of a fellow Republican." If you want to win in US electoral politics, party comes first.

[DinoDoc]

Something you may find interesting Rufus: http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~scottd/negative.pdf

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

and Obama with the power of Charisma

By your powers combined....

I swear, Heart was the dumbest power ever...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Something you may find interesting Rufus: http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~scottd/negative.pdf

That was interesting, though it seems to me his argument is not about campaigning but about academic studies of campaigning, which fail to distinguish between truthful/productive negative campaigning and untruthful/destructive negative campaigning. That's precisely the distiction I'm making; I think Obama and Clinton are making truthful statements about each other's records, which is fine, but seem to be headed into Super Tuesday unwilling to do "anything it takes" to win -- which is also fine.

In the end, per the article, the useful function of negative campaigning is that it allows a candidate to make the argument, "it is vitally important to choose me and not the other guy, and here's why." The problem is, almost no Dems believe it is vitally important to choose Clinton over Obama, or vice versa (in part, this is because they're so ideologically similar; if, the Dems were headed into Super Tuesday with Evan Bayh and Russ Feingold as their potential nominees, you'd see a very different race). What most Dems do seem to belive is that it is vitally important to have a united, energized Democratic party behind their candidate, whomever that may be. So, in the end, somewhat ironically, civility between Obama and Clinton does exactly what politicians always do -- it tells the voters what they want to hear.

[OzzyKP]

For me at least there is an extremely important policy distinction between Obama and Clinton. Clinton's health care plan will force all people to get health insurance. For someone like me who is quite healthy and quite poor I've made a rational decision not to get health insurance. Eating is more important.

So if Clinton's plan goes through I'm gonna be screwed. I'll either have my budget and life seriously messed up, or I'm gonna be forced into taking some government handout that I really object to. Romney would do the same thing.

Obama wouldn't force people into anything. Just provide services for those who want it. I think if we are gonna do universal health care at all (which I think is a bad idea) at the very least don't force people into it.

So yea, I'm very much opposed to Clinton and Romney for that.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
I think if we are gonna do universal health care at all (which I think is a bad idea) at the very least don't force people into it.

You advocate non-universal universal health care?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Having universal health care that doesn't force some people into it, turns out to be an oxymoron .

I think the issue is that those people who don't have health insurance have to have emergency care paid for in full... which does increase costs. If they are covered by some health insurance, there is a list price that it negotiated for somewhat (for some things). So that's nice (unless you want to strike that requirement that emergency rooms treat everyone ). Also, I think Clinton's and Romney's plans allow for some very low cost insurance plans.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
But if polls are to be believed, there are apparently also Dems -- mostly in the "Reagan Democrats" demographic -- who would vote Hillary but not Obama. I think we have to assume they cancel each other out.

Well, maybe its not so clearcut, but if Obama wins, I'll be looking at McCain more strongly for November than if Clinton wins.

[Dinner]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/03/MNF7UR6FE.DTL&tsp=1

There have been some massive changes to the polling data due to Edwards dropping out of the race and a big ad push by Obama. Hillary used to have a 25 point lead in California and now she is just 2 points ahead of Obama. This is also confirmed by the latest Rasmussen poll. It looks like Obama might actually have a chance to beat Hillary after all.

[Dinner]

Of course there are lots of absentee ballots cast weeks ago before the Obama surge and I suspect Hillary will get most of those. That means Obama really has to make up more like 5 points instead of two points.

[Admiral]

Well, it may just be possible for that to happen. Hopefully, Maria Shriver's surprise endorsement this morning will help give Obama a final push into Super Tuesday. This should be front page news on most of the California newspapers.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Oerdin

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/03/MNF7UR6FE.DTL&tsp=1

There have been some massive changes to the polling data due to Edwards dropping out of the race and a big ad push by Obama. Hillary used to have a 25 point lead in California and now she is just 2 points ahead of Obama. This is also confirmed by the latest Rasmussen poll. It looks like Obama might actually have a chance to beat Hillary after all.

A Reuters/CSPAN poll conducted late last week using a sample population 20% larger than the Rasmussen actually his Obama ahead of Clinton, 45-41 -- albeit with a much larger group of undecideds in the mix.

The data from pollster.com: http://www.pollster.com/08-CA-Dem-Pres-Primary.php

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by MarkG
arent 500-1000 people to small a sample for such a large population?

we have that kind of samples in greece with 10 mil people...

Once you hit a certain sample size the impact of total population size on uncertainty is very small. So a sample of 1000 people is pretty much just as good out of a population of 300 million as 10 million.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Well, maybe its not so clearcut, but if Obama wins, I'll be looking at McCain more strongly for November than if Clinton wins.

Ditto.