"Barbara O’Brien’s wide-ranging account of Zen history is conveyed with a master storyteller’s ability to keep the forest from getting lost in a myriad of trees. Wearing her scholarship lightly, she blends just the right amount of skepticism about her hagiographic sources with a deep appreciation for the Dharma." — Barry Magid, author of
Nothing Is Hidden and
Ending the Pursuit of Happiness Order here!
As of today, two days after the close of the RNC, Electoral-Vote.com is shpwing Obama as significantly ahead. Indeed, Ohio and North Dakota, which were leaning Republican at the height of the RNC, are now leaning Democratic.
This is in direct conflict with the McCain campaign’s statements, whose web site is using figures from last June and July.
It takes 270 Electoral Votes to win the Presidency, and Obama is now projected as having 301.
With 60 days left in the race, the daily look at these poll figures will be important for the consideration of the campaigns. Couple this with the Republican strategy of keeping Palin away from the press and pushing of personalities instead of issues and it will put the onus right on the intelligence of the American voter to make a choice.
Under The LobsterScope
I wish Biden would launch his attacks directly, without softening them first by an almost equally-long spiel on what a great, marvelous, fantastic, and HONORABLE guy McCain is…
This is a great start, but it’s not enough. There isn’t a “SwiftBoat Veterans For Truth” group this time around, the candidates themselves – McCain/Palin – are doing the swiftboating. This really is a moment of truth for Obama/Biden – how they are going to handle the stream of lies? While the high ground approach Biden took is good, the liars need to be faced down and called Liars to their faces.
Until that happens, how will America trust Obama/Biden to face down threats like the terrorists if they cannot face down the Republicans and their blatant lies? The moment Obama/Biden can do this, and make it stick, is the moment the country will trust them and rally around them. It will also be the moment our politics is truly transformed – all the high minded stuff Obama keeps talking about – and brought back from total dysfunction.
Bruce #2 is absolutely right. The soft-pedalling BS has got to stop.
Gotta disagree with moonbat here, for once … the thing is, the right wing owns the low road. They own it lock, stock, and barrel. It doesn’t matter how low the dems go, the repubs can go lower, and do it more skillfully, and make the dems look foolish and spiteful and mean and weak every time … When dems try to take the low road, they get beat. When dems try to just ignore the repubs and take that particular high road, they get beat. Whn they pull a John Kerry and attempt to take the high road while spending most of their actual time defending against attacks from below, they get beat.
What Obama/Biden are attempting to do is take a NEW high road … they spend a lot of time on the attack, a lot of time on spreading their OWN message, and a fairly large amount of time attacking the low road attacks … pointing out that the repubs are taking the low road, being just dismissive and contemptuous of the more ridiculous stuff, etc.
It really is a new kind of politics, in my opinion, one that has the potential to be just as effective as anything the repubs can do, plus has the side benefit of not being completely immoral and evil.
Will it work? I dunno, not sure … but what I DO know is that trying to compete with the repubs on their own ground, with their own tactics, is absolutely a losing proposition, and Joe Biden being anything but respectful of the person of McCauin and Palin while being contemptuous of the ideas of McCain and Palin, that would be venturing into repub owned territory…
-me
(oh and Maha, you’l be happy to know your site appears to look and work just fine using the new Google Chrome beta browser … seems like it’s gonna be a nice little browser)
-me
I just watched the clip above, didn’t see the “soft-pedaling” mentioned above, so I don’t have an opinion on it. The three minutes of excerpts I did see…. Keep scrappin’, Joe. From now until November.
I think the Republican convention gave the dems a lot more ammo than the Democrats gave the Republicans. This new call for reform can be turned on them very easily. And I think Palin repeating her community organizer diss will backfire big time. They have practically written Obama’s & Biden’s stump speeches for them.
Ian #5 – I don’t advocate taking the low road at all. What I advocate is along the lines of a parent confronting a mischievious and lying child. Staring them in the eye and having a man-to-man, serious talk about their lying. Pinning them to the wall with their lies, with no escape. This is not taking the low road at all. This is ending the low road.
It is the failure of our politicians, our media, our institutions to identify and fight for the truth that has allowed our democracy to be poisoned and trashed and ruined. Until the same politicians etc find the courage and intestinal fortitude to confront liars with their lies, how is anything ever going to get better?
If the truth is on our side, then we should use it, instead of being tyrannized by unconscious people who will forever be trying to derail us. The country will respect us, will be healed, and we can then finally move on to stuff that really matters. Again, think of it as parents dealing with mischievious and lying children.
No, in my opinion the dems need to take a high-road, but at a very quick pace. No waiting around after an attack for responses to sink – answer and keep moving, while at the same time pushing back. Why not put them on the defensive? The issue wit attacks is that they work both ways – the Swift Boat nonsense could have been controlled if Kerry knew what he was looking at. Now the Dems know, and they should know how to respond. And, that response should be a full-on, serious clarification of the facts, followed by the Dem’s own push.
These negative issues work. Why let the Reps maliciously use them to their advantage again and again. Taking the high road only works if it eventually gets you somewhere…
Me2 I agree. If every time swiftboat was mentioned, Kerry had defended himself and had something to say about bush being awol and had a dismal (if any) record, you can bet anything military would have been brought up a lot less.