Oh, I agree. I’m just not ready to endorse the view that a (still theoretical but apparently likely) Obama victory touches off some kind of philosophical civil war in the GOP that results in a period of Dem dominance. Yes, that could happen, but it would require a fundamental shift among the voters that tosses the Rovian playbook out the window. Absent a continued economic decline (which I should note is all too possible), I’m not sure that happens.

Health care being a right of all Americans – bang, that sent the CNN rating meter to 100%. Relating how his mother died of cancer while fighting the insurance companies over coverage – powerful stuff. Only increasing taxes on the top 5% and giving the middle class a tax cut. Taking the fight to the central front of Afghanistan and Pakistan instead of Iraq, which we all know is a distraction.

He wins on those points alone, and no amount of McCain showmanship would take it away, Obama would have to trip and fall on his face, and then some.

Nope. It’s all about the Benjamins. Everything else is a distraction. Plus that kind of assumes liberals feel the opposite right?

“If McCain loses, as he’s almost certain to, we’re going to see two reactions. First, Steve Schmidt wasn’t nasty enough. In the future, Republicans need to return to their Lee Atwater roots and really teach Americans what liberal treachery is all about. Second, we told you a RINO couldn’t win. The conservative base will be convinced for years that the big problem with McCain was that he was trying to be a pale shadow of liberal Democrats…This is delusional, but it’s probably good news for Democrats. It means the GOP is going to be riven by factional warfare for years, with moderates unable to get a purchase on the party apparatus because of the McCain albatross hanging around their necks. Eventually, like Britain’s Labor Party in the 80s, they’ll find their Tony Blair, but in the meantime they’re likely to double down on the most strident possible social conservatism, convinced that the heartland will respond if only they regain the true faith. Ronald Reagan, who was more pragmatic about these things than any of them ever give him credit for, will be rolling in his grave. And Democrats, at least for a while, will go from strength to strength.”

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/10/real_conservatism.html#comments

Personally, I continue to believe that real conservatism is linked to conservation and preservation of the planet we inherited, as well as to our human culture. I know others consider this quaint, but I’m sticking to it.

In the second debate at one point when Obama was seeking the moderator’s approval to rebut McCain, McCain chimed in saying if Obama got time he’d want to rebut too. Until that moment I thought Obama was foolish to seem to ask permission, but then McCain opened the door and Obama immediately closed the deal. The grown ups had taken charge and would speak, they had agreed. And yet the last thing McCain wanted to do was agree with Obama after so clearly avoiding doing so in the first debate.

In this brief exchange Obama achieved a real and multiple victory, small but rare in these things. He got what he wanted, he showed that reaching out could in fact have an effect, he politically out-maneuvered both his elders on their home turf- town hall and television. And most importantly he gave the audience what it actually wanted- confrontation and follow up on both sides. That’s good poltickin’.

What IS that form? I didn’t see any detail about what a socialist education is or how it differes from a ‘capitalist education’ or even what a ‘capitalist education’ consists of.

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272623111.shtml

Quoted from Investor’s Business Daily of October 8th – “At an education forum in Venezuela, Bill Ayers showed the real issue is not his terrorist past. It’s the socialist revolutionary agenda that he and Barck Obama want to impose on the nation’s schools. An idea of what Ayers has in mind for America’s schools was provided in his own words not 40 years ago when Obama was eight years old, but less than two years ago in November 2006 at the World Education Forum in Caracas hosted by dictator Hugo Chavez. With Chavez at his side, Ayers voiced his support for “the political educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . I look forward to seeing how . . . all of you continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. Ayers told Chavez: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion” It is that form of socialist revolution that Ayers, and Obama, have worked to bring to America.

And I quote further below from The Hill:

The records of the administration of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), released last week by the University of Illinois, show that the Ayers-Obama connection was, in fact, an intimate collaboration and that it led to the only executive or administrative experience in Obama’s life.

Even apart from the details of the Obama/Ayers connection, two key points emerge:

a) Obama lied and misled the American people in his description of his relationship with Ayers as casual and arm’s-length; and

b) Obama was consciously guided by Ayers’s radical philosophy, rooted in the teachings of leftist Saul Alinksy, in his distribution of CAC grant funds.

Let’s sum up Obama’s Chicago connections. His chief financial supporter was Tony Rezko, now on his way to federal prison. His spiritual adviser and mentor was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, of “God damn America” fame. And the guy who got him his only administrative job and put him in charge of doling out $50 million is William Ayers, a terrorist who was a domestic Osama bin Laden in his youth.

We will want to know what kind of president he would make. The fact that, within the past 10 years, he participated in a radical program of political education conceptualized by an admitted radical terrorist offers no reassurance.

Why did Obama put up with Ayers? Because he got a big job and $50 million of patronage to distribute to his friends and supporters in Chicago. Why did he hang out with Jeremiah Wright? Because he was new in town, having grown up in Hawaii and Indonesia and having been educated at Columbia and Harvard, and needed all the local introductions he could get to jump-start his political career. Why was he so close to Rezko?

Because he funded Obama’s campaigns and helped him buy a house for $300,000 less than he otherwise would have had to pay.

I think these are all legitimate issues that need to be brought to the attention of the American People. After all within the first 5 few days of McCain announcement of Sarah Palin we saw hordes of journalist invading Alaska to dig up everything they could about Gov. Palin yet after almost 2 years in the spot light we are just now beginning to see and understand exactly what Obama’s relationship with Ayers was. I think that is not even handed reporting and it does no service to the American people. We deserve better in order to make educated choices when voting for our leaders. Thank you.

Incidentally, those are really interesting links in your previous post about the real Obama. The last time I thought I was voting for a messiah was 1980, and I’m not particularly eager to fall for that bit again. These days I just want someone who knows what the hell he’s doing, has some ability to redirect his energies based on new information, and isn’t susceptible to the crap that neoconservatives spew on a daily basis.

Daniel, do we still have some weird bet about Ohio? I think we do, but I can’t remember the details.

Along with the Ayers nothing-burger, one thing you hear McCain backers pleading with their candidate to do is to hit Obama with the Community Reinvestment Act, as if that were the crux of the entire mortgage crisis. Arguing about a piece of legislation that is a) 30 years old b) less than 5% of Americans have heard of and is what is taken to be solid strategy from modern conservatives.

It’s worse than that, Adam. They want to blame it on that, so they can blame the mortgage crisis on people who are…..different and not on the market greed of a few loons.

BTW, great post, Mr. Larson

I believe the race is going to be close especially if the well publicized signs about deteriorating economic conditions continue.