Just a Little Reminder: Obama Has Never Faced a Republican Opponent

[tritsofme]

Sorry.

Alan Keyes doesn't count.

The Clintons, as they are so affectionately called around here, have been battling the GOP smear machine for the past twenty years.

And just to clarify the OP a bit, on the South Side of Chicago where Obama represented in the State Senate, there is no such thing as the Republican Party.

That's just the facts Jack.

[jgraz]

1. You mean, besides Hillary?

:hide:

[lligrd]

22. You Beat Me To It nt

[DaLittle Kitty]

87. Ha... Agreed Alan Keyse Was Part of The "Set-Up" For Obama's Ascendency!

He is about as unseasoned a campaigner/politician/leader sic that you could find... If you drew him up on paper beforehand you could not do any better... This is going to be a rough General for US.. Corporate America will declare victory preemptively very shortly... Actually Corporate America did it's version of the end zone dance the day Edwards "suspended" his campaign... :rofl:

[krkaufman]

88. Who's Jack Ryan? n/t

[Lost-in-FL]

32. ...

:spank:

[KhaOZ]

39. LOL, SO TRUE!

[thesubstanceofdreams]

2. Hillary never faced serious repug opposition either

Bill did. Hillary is not Bill.
This primary is the first contested election for Hillary ever. She was the frontrunner and inevitable winner and she collapsed.
Thanks for sharing.

[tekisui]

6. How very true. HIllary is not Bill.

[tritsofme]

7. I forget that Hillary is only wedded to Bill on issues that do not work in her favor.

nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Ric Lazio Was A Much More Formidable Challenger Than Alan Keyes

He was the epitome of a novelty candidate...

[Renew Deal]

15. In NY, Lazio never had a chance.

Hillary moved to NY because she knew she would win. It's no coincidence that she didn't move to Virginia or South Carolina or even Arkansas.

[Nedsdag]

26. Barely!

You make it sound like Obama will curl into a corner and cry at the first swiftboating.

He's used to it.

[jgraz]

27. Heh. That's like saying John Boehner is much smarter than George Bush.

[Hippo_Tron]

65. So Hillary has faced a second tier opponent and Obama has only faced a third tier opponent...

That's not really a convincing argument as to why she's prepared to take on a GOP.

[Stephanie]

72. Good lord NO

He was a nobody who blew the whole thing in the first debate. Notice you haven't heard of him since then?

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

82. Holy shit, Rick Lazio

Read "The Girls In The Van"(it's even a relentlessly positive portrayal of Hillary, to boot!)

He wasn't a credible competitor.

[Mooney]

92. No, he wasn't

Rick Lazio was a politically tone-deaf moron who was shoehorned into the senatorial race at the last minute, when Rudy Giuliani dropped out. He never had a chance.

If Hillary Clinton had beaten Rudy Giuliani, then one could make the argument that she had faced a more formidable challenger than Alan Keyes. She didn't, so it's not possible to make that argument.

[ArfDogMNO]

80. bingo

"This primary is the first contested election for Hillary ever. She was the frontrunner and inevitable winner and she collapsed."

She had been almost completely sheltered, never had to take direct questions/confrontation.etc and now that she has had a taste of it, she has come across as unlikable and extremely intolerant of dissent/disagreement.

[Big Blue Marble]

3. What about his Republican opponents in his Illinois races?

Do they count?

And Hillary's senate opponents in New York, not really biggies.:rofl:

[tritsofme]

5. On the South Side of Chicago, the Republican Party is extinct.

And that is no exaggeration.

I doubt they even bothered to put up a token challenge in most of his races.

Whoever wins the Dem primary wins the GE in races such as that.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. You are right. They really do fire up that Republican base into a swirl of hatred.

I'd rather take my chances with a cool, presidental approach to attacks than what we say today.

[angie_love]

9. Neither has Hillary and I know this b/c I grew up in NYC

[peoli]

10. Thanks for the latest update on "Why Barack Obama Cant Win" reason #297

[rocktivity]

11. And running against Rudy Guliani DOES count?

Especially after his presidential performance? And let's not forget Jeanine Pirro!

:rofl:
rocknation

[NoBushSpokenHere]

12. Did you forget she was a Republican before she was a Democrat? nt

[Renew Deal]

13. Obama has run for office 5-6 times.

He had an opponent in those races.

[tritsofme]

17. When you are a Democrat running in the South Side of Chicago, you don't have real

opponents once the primary is over.

[Renew Deal]

19. And when you're a Democrat running in NY

The same thing holds here.

[MadBadger]

23. Well, thats not really entirely true...Pataki, Ghouliani, Bloomberg.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. D'Amato

~

[tritsofme]

25. Not analogous at all.

Hillary's reelection and Obama's election to the Senate may be analogous, but the Republican Party just simply does not exist in the South Side of Chicago.

[Orangepeel]

94. but the primary is damn tough.

maybe that's one of the reasons he's done so well in this one.

Whoever wins the primary ran the best campaign and is therefore the best person to take on McCain. If Clinton manages to pull it out, I'll say the same about her.

[woolldog]

14. Fear

That's all the Hillary camp seems to have. Not "my candidate is good" but "you're candidate might not be." Fear of the unknown. It's sad really...

[Guava Jelly]

16. He is putting up a pretty good fight against the professionals

I'm just sayen..

[gmudem]

18. And Hillary has ran against Rick Lazio and John Spencer.

I can't believe she managed to beat those 2 guys! In a blue state no less!

/sarcasm off

Obama has won more elections than Clinton has and he didn't have the benefit of being married to a former president when he did it.

[thevoiceofreason]

20. And they are permanently damaged as a result

hey think the strategy of 1992 will continue to work. A football coach who tries to use a 16 year-old playbook won't win many games, either.

[Nitrogenica]

21. Hillary, god bless her, played the game. I think the assertion that politics

is a game is absurd and destructive.

[TAWS]

24. Obama was beating Jack Ryan before those allegations came out

He would have beat him even without the scandal.

[krkaufman]

91. O was 20 pts ahead in the polls, when the Ryan scandal broke...

... and Illinois' Rethug Party couldn't find anyone in the state to take-on Obama.

I'll take the candidate that the Rethugs are afraid of, thank you very much.

[Forkboy]

28. And yet her 20 years of fighting them isn't helping her any, is it?

That's just the facts, Jack.

[The Backlash Cometh]

29. Not entirely true. I'm sure he's faced many a racist. Isn't that the same thing?

[tritsofme]

36. They turned a war hero in John Kerry into a coward

and made draft dodger out to be the second coming of Rambo.

I have no idea what their preferred smear will be against Obama, but it will be ugly and he will be untested.

[karynnj]

40. No one turned John Kerry into a coward - he has never been one

and is highly unlikely to ever be one. He has shown more courage in his life than the Clintons ever did.

The fact of the matter is that Bill Clinton beat a President with a 33% approval rating. But as to defeating the smear machine - on many charges - they are still out there. In Kerry's case, swiftboating has come to mean despicable political lying. The vast majority of people in this country - even if they dislike Kerry for his policies or speaking out in 1971, concede he was a war hero. They are seen as smearers.

The Clintons had the WH from which to clear their names and did so with less success than Kerry - even though he never had that platform or as favorable a mainstream media.

[gravity]

59. Kerry let the republicans walk all over him

he left the attacks answered for too long, and was on the defensive the whole time.

If Kerry actually called the republicans out for insulting the military, the election would have been much different.

[The Backlash Cometh]

73. In this regard I feel for Hillary.

Here we are criticizing Gore and Kerry for not responding quickly to criticism, and what are we doing to Hillary when she does make an effort to come out of her corner swinging?

I think we need to make an effort to remain consistent because confusing our candidates, isn't helping our cause, in the long run.

[ArfDogMNO]

81. for kerry, it is difficult

to show a picture of yourself with other officers, and then have the majority of those still alive come out and flat-out say you are lying.

First-hand witnesses disagreeing with him en masse makes a much different impact on the public than, say, me or you debating on what he might or might not have done. Essentially it means to disregard the swiftboat views means that you believe the bulk of officers who served with him and were in many cases witnesses to events he describes or was awarded for in 'nam are not only dishonest but openly lying. At the human level, when you see most of someone's co-workers from 30 years ago all saying the same thing, you tend to take it fairly seriously, rather than if it was just one or two bad apples calling him a liar.

Of course, kerry could have just released his military records in complete form and put a lot of this to rest, one way or the other.

[catgirl]

30. Your point is?

If he can withstand Hillary and her Rovian attack machine, I think he can handle
John McCain just fine.

[Jane Austin]

31. Um, Rick Lazio?

And whoever her last oponent was?

Not exactly Republican power houses.

[NC_Nurse]

33. Facing the Clinton Smear Machine has been pretty similar.

I didn't expect the kind of attacks from the Clinton camp that we've seen. He seems to be surviving.
She's the one who's looking spent. I don't think she expected any real competition. She's been thrown
for a loop and I haven't seen much negativity from him. Just because she's faced the GOP before doesn't
mean she couldn't get chewed up and spit out by them.

[karynnj]

44. Yep

It reminds me of the silly childhood rhyme - that I haven't said for 50 years:
"I'm rubber, your glue
everything you say bounces off of me
and sticks to you"

The more she throws at Obama, the more that bounces back.

[Johnny__Motown]

35. The Fear Card? Really? How Rovian of you. (if she can say it then so can I)

[tritsofme]

37. Fear? lol

I didn't realize pointing out facts about a candidate is the "fear card"

[Johnny__Motown]

77. Well, I was exaggerating for effect. But most of us are "afraid" of another repug Pres.

and the things it will bring.



Playing the "vote for this candidate or the bad people win" card is clearly Rovian.

[Ian David]

38. Damn you, you selfish hedonist!

:P

[Occam Bandage]

41. Jack Ryan. He was leading him by 20 points when his sex scandal broke, forcing him out.

Hillary, OTOH, was trailing Giuliani when Rudy's scandals broke.

[tritsofme]

43. We have no idea what would have happened in that race.

But if the GOP was successful in forcing Jim Edgar into the race, I would have given a slight advantage toward Edgar.

[Occam Bandage]

74. Um, yeah, we do. Obama had an enormous lead in Chicago, and was doing well downstate. He never

once trailed to any opponent in a head-to-head poll. The reason Crazy Alan Keyes ran against Obama was that the IL GOP couldn't find anyone else willing to be Obama's punching bag.

[tritsofme]

78. Edgar wouldn't have underperformed Bush in the state.

As far as Obama v Ryan, it would have been a real race, not the joke that was Obama v Keyes. Obama still would have won comfortably.

My personal opinion is that the "moderate" ILGOP leadership put Keyes in the race to prove a point to the fundies that type of shit doesn't work in IL.

[Generic Brad]

85. Whereas Obama is leading McCain when his sex scandal broke

McCain is not a formidable opponent. Even the Republicans hate him. They are not going to bust their butts for someone they despise.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

42. Alan Keyes doesn't count?

The Illinois Republican Party doesn't count?

I love how you ignore -- or don't count -- any facts that disprove your thesis.

Move along...

[tritsofme]

46. If you're in Milwaukee you know just as well as I

That the Republican Party is extinct in all of Chicago, in the South Side where Obama was based out of it just isn't a real entity.

Alan Keyes? He was a vanity candidate, a joke, there was nothing serious about that campaign.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

54. If you grew up in Illinois, you know...

that the South Side of Chicago is not all of Illinois. And that Illinois is a state that is very purple. Keyes was a last-minute candidate, but the doesn't mean the Obama didn't have to make his case to the whole state.

And South Side politics doesn't need a Republican Party to be brutal.

[tritsofme]

58. We have cleansed ourselves of Republicans in this state.

They no longer hold even a single state-wide office, we haven't been a purple state in close to a decade.

Now this may not be completely positive as many of our Democrats have something of a penchant for corruption as well.

Obama could have went home and not campaigned a single day after they gave the nod to that crazy coot Keyes and won by just as impressive of a margin.

I really wish he did face a Jack Ryan type, it would have prepared him very well for the challenges that he will likely face in the GE.

And South Side politics are brutal, if you want to succeed you probably have to make friends with someone like Tony Rezko.

[davsand]

70. Come on downstate if you want to see the IL GOP up close and personal!

Hon, we got lots of them down here--more than we really WANT! :)

You are correct about the statewide offices being in Dem control right now, and you are correct that the Dems dominate in Springfield right now (not that you can really TELL with some of the crap going on...) Blag is in his second term as Gov right now, and up to the time he won we had been one long run of GOP Governors since Walker in 72-76.

I do, however, want to point out that Obama lost most of the State in his Senate primary. He carried Cook and the collar counties very strongly, and he carried Champaign County (TYVM!) but Dan Hynes actually carried more counties than Obama did in that Senate Primary. Hynes just didn't have the numbers he needed when everything was counted.

While I understand that some folks are worried that Obama has not faced any real opposition, I have got to point out that not only did he survive in Cook County politics he also survived when faced with downstate opposition. He also survived a fairly ugly Primary against a pretty well funded opponent (Hull) who actually had the opposition followed and taped whenever they spoke. It got ugly.

I maintain that if you can survive in Illinois Politics you can survive damn near anywhere in the US. We eat our young and this is a blood sport for us.

Regards!



Laura

[tritsofme]

99. Chicago politics is definitely ugly.

But its also a different animal than running against a national Republican organization.

The key to getting ahead in Chicago is working within the machine, you need friends like Tony Rezko.

Things that are acceptable to jaded Illinoisans may be less so to a national audience. We will see I suppose.

[snappyturtle]

45. I think Sen. Clinton's campaign has been

very incompetent. I also think former President Clinton's campaign techniques are rusty. On top of that Andrea Mitchell reported on big Democratic doners at the Austin debate who were not happy with the way Sen. Clinton's campaign money has been spent. Incompetence, rusty techniques and no money cannot be good in a fight against the GOP.

[madrchsod]

51. how can any hillary supporter not notice

the amount of waste in her campaign. the amount spent and the results...dumping millions in iowa and placing behind obama in a state that before the caucus she was 10pts. ahead?

[snappyturtle]

97. I think it's called denial. imho n/t

[madrchsod]

47. JACK ryan and obama would have been a good race...

JACK was a moderate republican who was not well liked by the conservative minority in the state. the sex scandal killed off his chance.yet, he would have done better than keyes did even with the sex scandal hanging over his head..
illinois republicans!

[Hippo_Tron]

62. He still would've been squashed

Maybe not 70/30 like Keyes was but 45% is probably about the most Ryan could've gotten.

[SoonerPride]

48. John McCain won't put up much of a fight.

He is old and frail.

[still_one]

49. Sorry, but both Hillary and Barrack have faced each other, and that has been quite formidable

for each one

and you know something, it won't matter WHO ARE NOMINEE IS, not only will they face mccain, they will win by a huge margin

The days of the thugs that took over the republican party is coming to and end

[Thrill]

50. Who cares? Leave it to Democrats to be scared shitless of

Repukes. Thats why they won the last two presidential elections. Scared ass Democrats

[tritsofme]

52. Being scared and being realistic are two very different things.

I'm not scared of the Republicans, I am scared however that Obama has never proven he can beat one.

[Thrill]

53. What difference does it make?

You're running against a person with different views. You just need to win the argument. Whether he has beaten one before is irrelevant

[tritsofme]

55. We're talking about running for President of the United States here.

Not dog catcher.

I don't think we can afford the type of on the job training an Obama candidacy may require.

[Thrill]

57. Nonsense

Whoever the President is, they are only going to be as good as the people they put around them.

I don't think we can afford Hillary's judgment in the WH. And her management skills don't appear to be any good either

[blm]

56. Actually they HAVEN'T. They refused to have that battle with RW from 2001-2007.

And Poppy Bush NEEDED to lose in 92 as he expected to be impeached after the release of the BCCI report, so he ran the worst GE campaign ever. No worry for him, because Jackson Stephens had Bill bankrolled and ready to provide cover for Poppy throughout the 90s.



http://consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

[Raine]

60. and yet Obama is still beating her

even with all her experience in battling others.

[Hippo_Tron]

61. Rick Lazio doesn't count either

[tritsofme]

75. Its disingenuous to put Alan Keyes and Rick Lazio

in the same sentence.

[Hippo_Tron]

96. Alan Keyes was a third tier opponent, Rick Lazio was a second tier opponent

If we're basing qualifications to stand up to the GOP smear machine on previous elections that our candidates have run in then both of them are extremely under qualified.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

63. Yeah well that kid from A Bronx Tale wasn't much of an opponent either. Or

how about that lady that couldn't even find her speech?

[yourguide]

64. Oh and you think todays HRC outburst

on national news of essentially "Mommy mommy, Barack is picking on me" after she has sent out countless negative mailers against him is going to work against McCain?

Obama handled it like a champ, he can handle the rethugs.

[gravity]

66. I am confident that Obama will do just fine against the republicans

Obama didn't become the front runner by accident.

He is one smart politician and knows how to handle political attacks better than anyone in recent history.

[AtomicKitten]

67. If Hillary can't beat Barack, then your point is moot.

[DUyellow]

76. Doesn't count...

[Lochloosa]

68. And I have never faced off with a toy poodle.

But I'm pretty sure I could take him.

[bunnies]

69. !!!

:spray: good one!

[Debi]

71. And Hillary Clinton faced????? n/t

[ArfDogMNO]

79. Betcha Hillary might quietly support McCain or try to hinder Obama if

he wins the nomination, the idea being that McCain may not even run for a 2nd term due to health/age issues and she can run again in 2012 for the DNC nomination, rather than face an incumbent Obama.

It really is the only option open to her if she still needs to be president after losing this primary.

[MrRobotsHolyOrders]

83. Just a reminder: he's almost certainly beat the Clinton machine.

McCain's divided and messageless campaign will be a cake walk in comparison.

[Dawgs]

84. Battling the GOP smear maching AND LOSING.

12 years of a Republican Congress and 8 years of Bush are because of the GOP effectively smearing the Clintons.

[casus belli]

86. Self delete. Not worth the time or energy. n/t

[krkaufman]

89. "That's just the facts, Jack" ... speaking of Jack... Who is Jack Ryan? n/t

[dysfunctional press]

98. jack ryan is the idiot who wanted to share 7 of 9...

or maybe he just wanted people to watch...:shrug:

[krkaufman]

103. Yep, that's the moron.

(I was just asking the OPer, since they weren't aware of who Obama was first running against in his Senate race -- or at least were feigning ignorance.)

[THUNDER HANDS]

90. Hillary never even faced a Democratic opponent before...and look what's happening now

One opponent - BOOM - she's down and out.

Fine fine candidate she is.

[quantass]

93. Can Hilary seriously handle the GOP if she can't even handle Obama?

She is getting her bum whipped by Obama and so your hypothesis that Hilary would be stronger against the GOP is baseless....logic clearly dictates that Obama would be the much stronger candidate.

[AX10]

95. True.

[Infinite Hope]

100. Neither has Hillary.

And on the national level even if you count Bill as Hillary as Hillary supporters like to do, she's got a defeated Bush Sr. and ...yes, Bob Dole!

[cooolandrew]

101. Michelle Obama " Barack is stong enough to take on the GOP cos he is stong enough to dealwith me"

[tritsofme]

102. Well I'm glad we cleared that up then.