Wednesday May 23rd, 2012    Home  |   Topics  |   Most Popular  |   Media Bookings  |   About Us  |   Contact Us  |   Book Store  |   Support
Search & Archives
 
View All Authors
View All Topics
RSS 2.0 Feed
Atom 0.3 Feed
Font Size
[+] Increase
[−] Decrease
Reset
Receive PM in
daily digest form

subscribe
unsubscribe


Must-Read Columnists
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Greg Crosby
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Jonah Goldberg
Jonathan Gurwitz
Victor Davis Hanson
Nat Hentoff
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Jonathan Rauch
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Debra J. Saunders
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
George Will
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman
Cartoonists
Chuck Asay
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Gary Brookins
Prickly City
John Cole
Cox & Forkum
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Ed Gamble
Bob Gorrell
Joe Heller
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Doug Marlette
Michael Ramirez
Jeff Stahler
Wayne Stayskal
Gary Varvel
Monthly Archives
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006


The Beginning of the End for Obama
By Seth Swirsky (bio)

  • Tell a Friend
  • Printer Friendly
  • Font [+]
  • Font [–]

Well, my greatest fears were not realized: Hillary Clinton was not chosen for Vice President by Barack Obama.

Instead, he chose the 35-year Senator, Joe Biden, the ultimate insider. Like his grandmother and his church, the “change” meme was just thrown under the bus!

More than not choosing Hillary, and her 18 million voters, (plus, her proven ability to get all those white, middle class votes in the states that will decide the election), Obama didn’t even vet her. What kind of decision-making ability, or lack thereof, does that show? If he loses one-fifth of Hillary’s voters, which the polls indicate, that’s almost 4 million votes. Did he think Joe Biden was going to shore up all those votes?

Plus, the choice of the 65-year old Delaware Senator, takes away the issue that sticks to McCain the most: his age!

Biden will, considering his predilection for serious, embarrassing gaffes, hurt the ticket. Don’t be surprised if the Obama campaign keeps him out of sight at the first sign of his serial ‘gaffe-it-is”. Being gaffe-prone is less a quirky trait with Biden, than it is a measure of his lack of intellectual discipline.

Have you seen the liberal pundits, like Eleanor Clift and Jonathon Alter on outlets like MSNBC? They don’t look or sound happy. You can see that they sense that it all may snowball down for their man.

The choice of Biden is uninspiring. Moreover, the simple ads that the McCain campaign rolled out quickly (showing Biden saying that he thinks Obama’s NOT ready for the presidency), are devastatingly effective.

Evan Bayh would have been a terrific choice. He and Obama “felt” good together, energetic and good-looking. Bayh was a bridge to Clinton voters (he avidly backed her campaign). He was highly qualified in his accomplishments, excecutive experience and foreign policy chops.

Plus, Bayh wasn’t much older than Obama. So,next to Obama, Bayh wasn’t too old (as Biden looks) and he wasn’t too young (as Tim Keane is). But, Bayh was deemed as a not tough-enough, attack dog and Obama was looking for, a “fighter”. Mistake. Bayh would have been similar to Bill Clinton’s inspired choice of Al Gore in 1992. Two, young, good-looking guys, (and, of different races. Doesn’t get more “post-racial” than that!).

Obama and Biden just look weird together. Is it any wonder that the Obama campaign doesn’t have the two appearing together for the entire week? Mmm. I guess they know what an an uninspiring duo Obama and Biden are.

In the end, no one Obama chose could hide his huge weaknesses: next to no experience and an inability to articulate WHAT “change” he wants to effect. In short, the “empty suit” charge against him, is becoming more and more palatable. Biden’s experience only highlights Obama’s lack of it.

When the obituary of Obama’s campaign is written, we’ll probably be able to trace the beginning of the end to his speech in Berlin in front of 200,000 Germans. The McCain campaigns “celebrity” ad against Obama, exposed the vacuousness of Obama’s rhetoric.

Then came the Saddleback Forum where voters witnessed a decisive leader in John McCain and a nuanced, indecisive, Barack Obama. The Forum not only showed Republicans that they had a real candidate in McCain, but it showed Democrats how deficient their candidate was when juxtaposed with McCain. You could feel the air going out of the Obama campaign during and after the debate.

Furthermore, Saddleback allowed voters to see what the presidential debates are going to look like starting in late September: experienced and decisive vs. unprepared, inexperienced, and unaccomplished. Liberals started to see the writing on the wall and it didn’t look good.

It explains why a rash of articles post-Saddleback, by liberal writers, all offered somewhat hysterical, advice to Obama as to what he had to do to win: “fight harder”, “choose Hillary”, etc. They knew their candidate was no match for John McCain.

Liberals are nervous and for good reason. With state by state polls in the states that will decide this election moving toward or already in McCain’s corner they sense - but have not fully come to the realization yet - that this election may be a landslide for McCain.

After the rollercoaster ride that Obama’s soaring speeches took the electorate and pundits on for months - a rollercoaster that they chose not to get off of - a sizable defeat of Obama would be tough to take.

Can’t say Hillary didn’t warn them that Obama wasn’t, in fact, THE ONE!!

Digg this

Have PoliticalMavens.com delivered to your inbox in a daily digest by clicking here

Posted by Seth Swirsky on August 24th, 2008
Permanent link: The Beginning of the End for Obama
PM Fellows
Dan Ackman
Arnold Ahlert
Robert Alt
Sheryl J. Anderson
Jeff Andrus
Bob Asahina
Thomas Fox Averill
Gerard Baker
Jeff Ballabon
Anne Bayefsky
Arnold Beichman
Ralph Kinney Bennett
Claire Berlinski
Brendan Bernhard
William Beutler
Chip Bok
Jerry Bowyer
Joe Bob Briggs
Peter Brookes
Frank Buckley
Dennis Byrne
Colleen Carroll Campbell
Amb. Richard Carlson
Charles Robert Carner
Ron Cass
Jim Ceaser
Lauren Chapin
Lionel Chetwynd
Ron Christie
Andrew Colarik
Phil Cooke
Seth Cropsey
Greg Crosby
Stanley Crouch
Monica Crowley
Gordon Cucullu
Keith Curtis
Lee Casey & David B. Rivkin, Jr.
Mark Davis
Sam Dealey
Brad Dickson
Alan W. Dowd
Political Mavens Editor
Paul Eidelberg
Steven Emerson
Tucker Eskew
Amitai Etzioni
Karen Feld
Robert Ferrigno
Danny Fontana
Peter Fox
Cory Franklin
Ilana Freedman
Will Friedwald
Doug Gamble
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Jeff Gedmin
Robert A. George
Dan Gerstein
George Gilder
Benjamin Ginsberg
Malibu Rules Girl
Mark Goffman
John Steele Gordon
Julia Gorin
Lloyd M. Green
Paul Greenberg
Cynthia Grenier
Jennifer Grossman
Judy Gruen
Allen C. Guelzo
Michel Gurfinkiel
Jonathan Gurwitz
Dennis Hale
Karen Hall
Eldon L. Ham
Earl Hamner
Matthew P. Harrington
Aaron Keith Harris
Betsy Hart
Sam Haskell, III
Jacob Heilbrunn
Mark Hemingway
David Henderson
Scott Hennen
Amb. G. Philip Hughes
John Hughes
Patrick Hurley
Blake Hurst
Susan Isaacs
Donovan Jacobs
Dallas Jenkins
Marianne Jennings
Bridget Johnson
Melodie Johnson Howe
Brian C. Jones
Mark Joseph
Mark Judge
Stefan Kanfer
S. T. Karnick
Jeff Katz
William Katz
Jonathan Kay
Terry Kelhawk
Jack Kelly
Paul Kengor
Larry Kenny
Andrew Klavan
Judith A. Klinghoffer
Elizabeth Koch
Eugene Kontorovich
Dave Kopel
Elie D. Krakowski
Michael Krauss
Josh Larsen
Leslie S. Lebl
Norman Lebrecht
Michael LeGault
Eli Lehrer
Allan Leicht
Michael Levine
Nathan Lewin
Phil Liberatore
Amy Linker
Herbert London
Mike Long
Laura Lorson
Douglas MacKinnon
Harvey Mansfield
Stephen Mansfield
Rich Markey
Josh Marquis
Dana Marshall
Craig Mazin
David McFadzean
John Meroney
Herbert E. Meyer
Richard Miniter
Howard Mortman
Gerald Nachman
Noam Neusner
Anna Nimouse
Cyrus Nowrasteh
sambo
Mackubin Owens
Kathleen Parker
Marilyn Penn
David D. Perlmutter
Phil Perrier
Peary Perry
Eric Peters
Paul Petersen
Walid Phares
Lisa Pinto
Everett Piper
John J. Pitney,Jr.
Steve Pomerantz
Steve Pressfield
Arch Puddington
Jeremy Rabkin
Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
David Reinhard
Lisa Reitman-Dobi
Richard Riordan
Heather Robinson
Dave Rosner
Evan Sayet
Felice Schachter
Abby Wisse Schachter
Richard Schifter
William Schmidt
Sam Schulman
Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz
Peter Schweizer
Todd Seavey
Jeremy Shane
Neal M. Sher
Dave Shiflett
Marvin Silbermintz
Max Singer
Curt Smith
Scott Stantis
Steve Stark
Harry Stein
Neil Steinberg
The Stiletto
Glenn Sulmasy
Joel Surnow
Seth Swirsky
Steven L. Taylor
Keith Thibodeaux
Bruce Thornton
Kelly Jane Torrance
Prof. Bob Turner
Cynthia Vance
Laura Vanderkam
Chris Warren
Ben Wattenberg
Ken Weinstein
Barry Weiss
Gary Weiss
Claudia Wells
Diana West
Christine B. Whelan
John O Whitaker Jr
Kaitlyn Wilkins
William Wintersole
Kate Wright
Meyrav Wurmser
Toby Young
Bryce Zabel
Robert Zelnick
John Ziegler
Spread Political Mavens
yahoo
myaol
mymsn
rojo
google
sub-bloglines
sub-feedster
newsgator
newsburst
pluck
delicious
furlit
searchfox
jrants
 
Home  |  Advertise  |  Privacy Policy  |  Subscribe

Copyright (c) 2006 POLITICAL MAVENS. All Rights Reserved.