GOP uses Obama to boost Republican candidates

[True_Blue]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Turns out Louisiana and Mississippi weren't quite finished with the Democratic presidential campaign. Sen. Barack Obama won each state's primary earlier this year. But these days his face still appears in television ads in both states, this time from Republicans trying to turn him into a liability for Democrats in two looming special elections for long-held Republican seats.

Democratic victories would be a serious setback for Republicans. But it also would go a long way to reassure nervous Democrats, particularly undecided superdelegates, that Obama would not present a hardship to House or Senate candidates running in tough races.

Democratic losses would give Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton new ammunition to build her case for her presidential candidacy by questioning the sturdiness of Obama's coattails.

...............

Republicans clearly hope Obama is a Democratic albatross. The Republican Party and one of its conservative allies have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads portraying Obama as a liberal and tying Cazayoux and Childers to the Illinois senator.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i1N5W9351gja6nqxEOHe2WQlgqMQD90E0FG00

[last_texas_dem]

1. What's new?

What Democratic Presidential candidate over the past several decades *hasn't* been painted by the Repugs as a "lib'rul extremist" and used in attempts to hurt Democrats in more conservative states? As long as our national candidates are more liberal than is "acceptable" in the red states, the 'pugs are going to continue using this tactic. Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, etc., all had their share of Repug attack ads devoted to them being out-of-touch liberals. Whether our nominee is Obama or Clinton, this shit is going to go on.

(Maybe it's good in a way... it lets poor Ted Kennedy get a break for a while. He's the fallback "out-of-touch librul" to attack when there isn't a Presidential election going on.

[Perry Logan]

2. The Republicans don't even like their own candidate! Their mojo is as limp as a winger's dick.

Fortunately, everyone has seen the Repubs go through their act several times. And--because Republicans have not a creative bone in their bodies--the act never varies.

All but the dullest voters have noticed that the Republicans always say the same thing about any Democratic candidate. The Democratic nominee is always:

1) the most liberal person in the world,
2) flip-flops on everything (contradicting #1, but never mind),
3) consorts with reprehensible people (i.e., their friends and family are smeared, too--just to be thorough), and
4) committed some terrible sin about 20 years ago...which has come out just in time for the campaign.

Of course, Americans have seen this all before, play for play. Only the brain-damaged Right still fall for it.

Americans are hurting from six-plus years of Republican-induced megacatastrophes. They're scared about the future. People are turning away in droves from the media that carries the Repub disinformation. The old ad hominem politics just won't work for the right anymore.

And they don't even like their own candidate. It would be sad if it weren't so funny.

[Double T]

3. Another perfect example of WHY BO is unelectable; an ultra LW elitist...........

has no appeal to ANY segment of the rethug party. Moderate rethug voters are needed to win this 2008 election.

[Mezzo]

4. but, but it's Hillary they hate more (yeah riiiiiiiiiiiight)

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

5. Shocked! Shocked I am that the republicans are attacking our candidate!

:eyes:

[terrell9584]

6. The truth is

Obama is a problem for every Democrat in the South, because he is not popular with whites (and it has nothing to do with his race, it has more to do with his name, his heritage and some of the comments he made) so white contenders cannot associate themselves with him. At the same time, if white Democratic candidates come out strongly against him, they face possible voter repraisals by black voters, whereas they wouldn't if this was a white candidate which was unacceptable to average white voters that all the local dems came out against.

This is going to be a very bad situation, that is my fear.

[high density]

7. Did Kerry even win the White Dixiecrat vote in 2004?

There are some votes we're just never going to get.

[terrell9584]

8. Kerry got drubbed

In a way in which Gore did not, and Clinton did not. Clinton won a lot of the rural machine counties, he was able to do so because he was one of them. Carter won the rural South in 1980, with all other things considered. The problem was, he was killed in urban areas and in each state, the urban areas just managed to pull enough votes to cost him an EV


But Kerry lost counties that he should not have lost. Jackson County, AL had not voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1972. Kerry lost it. Jackson County in Alabama politics is one of the staunchest white Democratic counties, on all levels. Kerry lost it by 15 points.

It's not that a Democratic candidate may necessarily win the EV's, but they do affect downticket turnout. In the South, the Democratic Party is a bottom up deal. Democratic percentages are higher the lower down the office totem pole you go, because it is a party driven by local organization, the Republican Party is a top-down organization, the strongest vote getter always being the Presidential candidate

Clinton was a good Presidential ticket head, even in states he didn't win, because the Republicans only cracked 50% in one state in the South, and that's where they hit it exactly, therefore, down the ballot ticket damage was not as bad. Clinton was great for down ticket races, Kerry was an unmitigated disaster. If you look at some races where the Democrat almost won statewide, if we had just had Gore's margin instead of Kerry's, the vote differentials would have worked out so those Democratic candidates could have taken office.


This is also why Southern state governments have been able to remain Democratic. Most of them do not have their elections in presidential years, so they can't be negatively affected by the strength of the Republican presidential ticket. The reason that Texas's legislature was able to go Republican is because they did put seats up in presidential years, and that was their death knell.

[joeybee12]

9. I think Kerry lost the so-called blue collar vote by a wider margin than Gore..

...and if the election were held today, BO would lose that demographic by even more. Not a good sign.

[DemVet]

11. Not a good one indeed.

If he is our candidate, that is.

[TragedyandHope]

10. Just another reason our party needs to unite behind our nominee

as soon as possible, instead of tearing down our candidates.

As we've been saying all along.