Obama dry-gulched Colbert

[bobquasit]

It turns out that the Barack Obama's people played a large role in blocking Steven Colbert from running the the Democratic primary in South Carolina.

Obama supporters pressed Democratic Party officials to keep Colbert off ballot

This, combined with the way his people totally screwed over the guy who set up a MySpace page supporting Obama, just confirms what I already suspected: Obama is a sleazy, unprincipled liar who'll do anything to win. Except calling Republicans names, of course.

Actually, he sounds just like Hillary. He'll make an ideal vice-presidential candidate for her. And frankly, if they win they will run this country even further into the ground.

So would any of the Republican candidates, of course.

I will say this: If Hillary or Obama gets the nomination, I'm writing in Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but in my mind, the Colbert bit was just another publicity scam to keep his book high in sales and on the NYT best sellers list.

It had no legitimacy, since he was just doing it in the one state, and they were right to vote against it.

But then again, I don't like party politics and the concept that someone else decides who can run for president. I really think it should be an open candidacy and that everyone gets to run for office who wants to and that there isn't a money issue or a signatures issue to get on.

But, of course it would be impossible to cover the election system the way we do (since there are usually 100+ candidates for office but only a few manage to get on the ballot in each state presently).

We'd need to go to a ballot system done by certified mail.... which might be a good thing. At least there would be a paper trail.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

I never thought that Colbert was serious. Actually, a comment I just wrote to Eugene Robinson over on his weekly WaPo chat may be applicable:

Gene, regarding this Colbert-Obama issue: the point isn't that Colbert's candidacy wasn't serious. It's that Obama, or his campaign, were willing to indulge in a bit of back-door arm-twisting to keep Colbert off the ballot. It makes him look a bit sleazy, just as he did when his campaign took over a MySpace site set up independently by one of his supporters.

It seems that for all of his self-proclaimed niceness and his "new approach" to politics, Senator Obama IS willing to get down in the muck if he thinks he won't be caught.

Unless, of course, the targets are Republicans. In which case niceness rules the day.

All of which tells us something important about his character. And possibly his political savvy. I think he lost some potential supporters today!

I doubt Gene will take the comment, though.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

All politicians who plan on reaching office have a tendency to play backroom deals, no matter what party, philosophy or image. It's the nature of politics that half of everything gets done in the dark shadows, it's whether what is done is legal or not is what matters.

From what I can see of the press on the issue, one major supporter of the senator in that state pressed one member of the panel. Inconsequential and not necessarily endorsed by him.

I think Obama has a problem keeping the enthusiasm of his 'troops' from getting out of hand. This is quite common in politics. When you're running around the country make speeches, doing fundraisers and also trying to be a working senator, it means that you have to delegate authority or simply let the underlings do as they feel necessary at the moment. Even more so for volunteers and 'supporters' who's only connection to him and his office may be no more than a public support speech and a campaign check.

I see Obama as a better and more likely to win choice that I can stomach than I do Clinton (who has turned into a conservative hawk in democrat's clothing). Certainly a better choice than nearly every Republican that's running, and a better choice than most of the rest on the Democrat side. Lesser of the evils, if you would. I want to make sure we don't get a McCain, Romney or Thompson in there as it would be even more of the same if not worse than the current leadership. Certainly not Big J. And Ron Paul is not much better than Thompson, he's just disguised himself in Libertarian clothing over the years when it was convenient.

I see no 3rd party candidate out there of note this time, which would normally be where I would think of going in a non-war election (Green, or whatever).

It's like the local voting today, I voted for the one candidate that's actually listened to what I had to say and understands at least some of the problems everyone has with the current city council. She's not the best, she's not necessarily capable of changing the course of events, but at least she is a fly in the ointment and isn't in the pockets of the developers.

The other candidates I voted for was a one issue candidate (her issue is getting the city to stop discriminating against the handicapped and actually bring their buildings and sidewalks up to compliance with ADA) and a guy who only got on the council a month ago after failing to get on last election by a handful of votes (he was next in after one of the councilors resigned to take state office). His loss was questionable, and the guy he lost to got to be mayor even though he got the least amount of votes in the election for someone that got in office (Cambridge politics are weird).

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Eh, honestly I suspect that pretty much every political leader the country has ever had has flaws that if one could elect to disqualify them.

I seem to recall seeing a bit on some liberal blog that both the Republicans and Democrats did not want Colbert on the ballot (recall that he was going to be on both party's ballots) and thus worked to prevent him from being on it. Something to do with detracting from the seriousness of the election or something, I think. He could have gotten on the New Hampshire ballot easily; as I recall all that's required there is a registration fee. Colbert was going for more of a plot related stunt than Pat Paulson did way back when, I suppose.

Thing is, I can see that between Left inclined Democrats voting for a Green (again) and other Democrats voting for whoever Unity 08 ends up with out of some delusion that supposed bipartisanship or nonpartisanship somehow has magical virtues the Republican candidate has a really good chance of winning without having anything near a majority or even being ahead of the Democrat in the popular vote. Which is why Guiliani getting the GOP nomination might save America; the Religious Right (or at least the Evangelicals) will largely vote third party and unwittingly save us all.

Yeah, that's right; save us all. I don't give too figs about the Democratic candidate being a perfect Liberal or morally perfect or having screwed over somebody for trivial reasons or having voted for some bills that did bad things. You look at the presidents we had in the 20th Century and they all were scum by some measures. Even Saint John F. Kennedy got us into Vietnam more heavily, had CIA agents plotting assassinations during his term, had a dumb-ass stunt (the Bay of Pigs) fail measurably and lead to the near-destruction of Western Civilization (why do you think Castro wanted those Soviet missiles?), and was less than a crusader for racial equality (LBJ was the liberal of that administration). Saint Franklin D. Roosevelt interred citizens for no other reason than that their ethnicity matched a enemy state. Bill Clinton signed off on NAFTA, the Defense of Marriage Act, and he continued policies against Iraq that hurt the ordinary people more than the Saddam regime.

I look at the leading Democrats and I can accept them as President. The most reviled of the lot, Hilary Clinton, looks like she'll have an administration much like her husband; making deals and bringing consensus. I look at the Republicans and I see an empty suit (Thompson), a crazy person (Guiliani), a weasel (Romney), and a man unable to go with his better nature (McCain). All of them will continue the war in Iraq until a draft becomes absolutely necessary and the Chickenhawks abruptly turn against the war. Two of them (Romney, Guiliani) are cool with with torture. They'll all try to appoint far right Supreme Court justices who for decades will make any liberal laws Congress or a state passes at risk of being overturned as "unconstitutional," making anything liberals want to do futile. Another Republican President could very well mean the effective destruction of American as we know it; the Democrats won't destroy America.

So that's my contrary opinion. I don't want to wake up next year on the day after Election Day to find out that we have President Guiliani or President Romney to look forward to, and I really think there is a really good chance of this happening if progressives decide that it's more important to make a statement of idealogical purity than to get Republicans out of the Executive branch. Remember boys and girls, Republican Presidents now have a precedent for ruling as kings and there's not much that can be done if they want to do that and there are enough Republicans in the Congress to block impeachment. It's not a choice between sucky and less sucky but between Life and Death.

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article2752.html

This article contains quite a freakish conspiracy theory, but I agree with the part regarding the next presidential election. I believe that the next term will be a very, very interesting time period and whoever is going to be president, will basically be screwed. The Republicans are propably going to sit this one out and leave the Democrats holding the bag of disasters. Republican candidates are a very bland mass IMO with no one to stand out to collect the votes. I think republicans are going to let democrats win this one and make all the responsible and unpopular cutbacks so they can get the next presidency after that, when the people are fed up with painful sacrifices.