Calculating The Change
A few of the blogs I visited today are talking about the disunity amongst the Democrats, I believe there is a certain portion of the Democratic base that feels that Senator Obama has betrayed liberal principles or that Hillary should have been the Democratic nominee. Given the political smarts the Obama campaign has on their side, I would ask the following question:
Why have the Obama campaign not urgently addressed this issue?
The only logical conclusion given the demonstrated political savvy of the Obama campaign is that the number crunchers have computed that this proportion of the democratic base is small and would not necessarily have an impact in the overall campaign. That does not mean Senator Obama has forgotten about some of the disgruntled democratic base but given the dwindling time before the general election, the Senator has a short amount of time to convince the so-called “left-leaning liberals” and “moderates” that he is the best person to be the next President of the United States.
Listening to some of my liberal friends in Massachusetts and the surrounding area, I realize that as Liberals we believe that a politician should embody only the principles that he believes in. Some of us want the perfect liberal president who says “No” to guns, religion in public places, and supports open borders. The reality for both sides of the political divide is that having a President that totally embodies liberal or conservative values would be detrimental to the United States. Given the size and vast political differences that span from West to East, a good President is someone that realizes he has to embody a vast number of principles, beliefs and values and makes the effort to do so.
As much trouble as some Democrats are having, the Republicans are having equally the same amount of trouble with some of the conservative base unable to get behind McCain policies on Immigration, Free Trade etc.. Both campaigns have their fair share of trouble but Senator McCain is in real trouble given the reorganization of his campaign today:
WASHINGTON - Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year as Mr. McCain, responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations and abandoned an effort to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, the senator’s aides said Wednesday.
There are also a few Republican Strategists who believe Senator McCain is going to lose given his current strategy as demonstrated by the “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC:
July 02 2008 09:59 pm | American Politics
July 4th, 2008 at 1:50 am
The underlying problem is that neither party is doing a good job of representing the needs and interests of the vast majority of the American people. Our economy is being skewed more and more to the richest; we are in a senseless war in Iraq; and our values as a nation are under assault by torture, government surveillance, and other attacks on human rights.
The electorate has every reason to be frustrated and suspicious of any jackass or rogue elephant we are being presented with.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Hey Lib, I agree with you that neither party is doing a good job at representing the will of the people but the kind of change you are talking about is not going to happen soon, that is not say that we should not fight for the parties to more accurately represent the people but we must do so in a constructive way that ensures that the policies of the last 8 years do not continue.