Hi everyone, I'm semi-new here with a question

[Tropics_Dude83]

Hi everyone. I just started posting on this board a couple of days ago after lurking for a while. Now that the passion has subsided a bit, I thought it might be time to open up a discussion. I just recently started going to blogs like DailyKos, MyDD and message boards like DU. To me, as a new observer, it seems like there is overwhelming resistance to Senator Obama in the blogosphere, even more resistance than we see against Senator Clinton. Generally, it seems like of the major candidates, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton have majority support on the blogs and Senator Obama is roundly criticized. Why is this? Is it because of his voting record? Are his ratings from liberal groups not that high? Is he perceived as being unelectable? Is his personality just not liked? Or am I getting it way wrong. Jerome Armstrong, Chris Bowers, Todd Beeton, many posters on here, all seem against him more so than the other democratic candidates.

Please help me understand why and maybe I'll start looking at the media coverage of him which has been very positive of him more critically.

[aquart]

1. Really? Haven't been to the blogs lately.

And if you aren't looking at ALL media coverage of EVERY candidate critically, you are not doing your job as a citizen.

And why on earth are you relying on other people's opinions to choose YOUR candidate? It's YOUR vote, not theirs.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Boy, way to welcome a newbie.

sheesh.

[Auntie Bush]

13. I was thinking the same thing!

But considering the source...why not.
Welcome aboard Dude! :hi:
I apologize for the rough start. But this is DU...what can you expect? It's not the most hospitable or fair place in the world.

[Tropics_Dude83]

8. Did I say that?

Nowhere did I say that I was letting the media decide who I wanted to support. What I was saying was that the media coverage projects Obama in a better light than most of the blogs and I was wondering why. A MSNBC article picked up on this as well.

[Renew Deal]

30. Another pitfall of the blogosphere: blowhards

There's lots of them.

[Bucky]

14. Alright, Aquart! Way to nail 'em, baby!!

I agree. Fuck anyone who doesn't measure up to Aquart's understanding of what it means to be a citizen. I'd say kill 'em all, too, but why would we waist a bullet on the kind of scum who you don't approve of?

[Muttocracy]

24. ALL of EVERY

Wow, wouldn't that take about 24 hrs/day? I like sleep and employment and food too much. ;)

[Bucky]

28. You're entitled to sleep and work, if that's the way you wish to waste your life away.

The point Aquart is making is that you just don't measure up as a citizen. No one's saying a worthless non-obsessed neophytic gnat like you doesn't get to vote. The point is that according to the widely accepted Aquart standard you just don't fucking deserve to vote, you sleeping-working-and-enjoying-you-life good for nuttin' moocher.

[racaulk]

29. Geesh, it's like "automatic snark mode" in this forum.

:eyes:

Welcome to DU, Tropics_Dude83! :hi:

[LanternWaste]

36. How do you it?

"And if you aren't looking at ALL media coverage of EVERY candidate critically..."

That's a lot of media coverage to read-- probably hundreds of thousands of pages of position analysis. Probably more than a person could read if they spent months poring over every word 24/7.

How do you do it?

Edited: spelling

[aquart]

41. I apologize.

I really did mean what came before your eye, not every endless sentence written in this endless campaign. Forgive me.

[SteppingRazor]

2. I plan on voting for him.

And I would say that, contrary to what you're saying, a lot of bloggers don't really like Hillary. But I could be wrong. I haven't seen any meaningful polls done on the netroots. If anything, though, I'd say Edwards has the largest support of the keyboard brigades. The blogosphere tends to be angrier than the real world, and I think his more-bellicose rhetoric is appreciated here.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Edwards Is The Darling Of The Net Roots...

Far behind is Obama...

Hillary not so much...

[DangerDave921]

5. excellent

Welcome! I think you'll get a variety of answers on this question, as I don't think there is any one true answer.

I was never an Obama supporter because of his lack of experience. I tend to like older statesman types. I liked Biden myself, but he's a done deal. Between the remaining three (sorry all you Dennis supporters!), I would tend toward Obama. He is passionate, seems honest, seems like a decent man.

Edwards seems most popular on here because he is the one who most attacks corporations. I'm more of a free-market dem so I don't really get his message. I know, that loses me points on the progressive scale but that's my view. And I don't trust him all that much to be honest. Seems like he's selling something.

Hillary: I really don't get her support on this board. She's not progressive; she's more of a mainstream liberal. She's certainly not an "underground" candidate as we might use that term to describe an author or a movie. She's about as mainstream as you can get. And I don't really trust her either. She is shrewd and calculating and likes to dance around the issues.

So that's my take. Enjoy the discussions!

[Tropics_Dude83]

9. I do have to say-I like Edwards a lot

I saw him interviewed on Countdown and he came across as genuine and warm and passionate. His argument about "the forces of the status quo fighting when they are threatened" was mark on as well.

[asjr]

6. Welcome. You will learn we are

all either Hatfields or McCoys.

[catnhatnh]

34. Oh, SURE.....

We 17%er's don't EVEN get a name in the feud???Since McCoy and Hatfield are taken I think we ought to call ourselves the "Freds"...You heard that here first...It would make a nice T-shirt-"I'm here with Fred!"...

[Catherine Vincent]

7. Welcome to DU!

You sound very nice. I was like that when I first started posting on DU. :-)

[TomInTib]

19. Yeah, and then look what happened.

How ya doin', cat_girl?

I am trying to hover above the vitriol here.

[Adelante]

23. You NEVER were!~~!

:rofl:

[Catherine Vincent]

26. No, I was.

I used to always ask if I can interrupt the conversation to add blah blah. I finally realized I didn't have to ask and just jump right in there. :)

[Adelante]

27. I know you were and you still are

:)

[Catherine Vincent]

44. Why thank you, sweets!

I try to be but sometimes I do lose my cool.

[Bucky]

10. Welcome to DU

Obama tends to bring in newer voters. Internet communities are significantly more experienced and entrenched in expressing their political preferences--which would make them a population group of Americans who tend to skew away from Obama's support base.

It's a statistical sampling problem you're finding. If you went to a Luby's for lunch on a Sunday afternoon, you'd find more Huckabee supporters than the overall population would suggest. If you went to a Hooters on Friday night, you'd be more likely to find McCain and Ron Paul supporters than with the overall population.

DUers seem to be older on average than the rest of the internet, so you're more likely to find Clinton supporters. Her fan base skews up over the age of 50 and down under the age of 40. So DU is a more natural base. Edwards is running a more class-aware populist message this time compared to Clinton and Obama, so he will also skew higher on the internet than among the general population. This is because people on the internet who are motivated to engage in online politics are going to be more likely to adhere stronger to overtly liberal and class-conscious messages such as Edwards is sending out.

By the way, Obama has a pretty strong fan base here at DU. He is not without his blog supporters too.

[Tropics_Dude83]

12. Thanks-that explains a lot n/t

[Auntie Bush]

18. Obama has many more supporters here than Obama.

Don't believe me?...make a poll.

[Bucky]

31. I find that incredibly hard to believe. In fact, I find it hard to understand.

Perhaps you made a typo.

[asdjrocky]

11. Welcome to DU friend-

:toast: Give yourself a few weeks of posting, and your political IQ will go up 10 points. As far as what the bloggers and discussion boards are saying, I don't pay a lot of attention, or let it influence my choice.

I think what most people are looking for with Obama, is more specifics, but I think he's been a great candidate, and very good for the Democratic Party.

[Tropics_Dude83]

17. I agree

He has got to get substantive and fast. Maybe a couple of policy addresses twice per week between now and Feb 5. And yikes he needs to bone up big time before these debates! He's not at his best in them at all. Bush and Gore, Bush and Kerry sent days in seclusion preparing for theirs. He needs to do the same.

[davidwparker]

15. Welcome to DU.

The people knocking Obama are the Hillary supporters. A lot of people here don't want Hillary because she can't win the general election. Too many negatives. They have had a sense of entitlement/unstoppable/fait accompli. This ticked a lot of us off. It was a bad time for these posters after Iowa. After South Caroliina, they will be back to a low profile.

After SC, you'll see the Obama people back to being obnoxious. (Currently, these are the Hillary people).

Also on this board, you can be to the right of someone like Huckabee, but as long as you have a (D) behind your name, that's fine with them.

For myself, I'm supporting Edwards through the primary and hopefully beyond. I don't see myself having to vote for Obama to stop Hillary. Super Tuesday will do that.

You see Edwards and Obama winning the polls when they are posted.

[LSK]

16. you picked a bad time to start coming here

:rofl:

Really, we are better than this.

[Adelante]

20. A few reasons

Neither Clinton nor Obama is much loved in the blogosphere. Edwards went out of his way to cultivate bloggers for years, buy advertising from them, bring them in to his media track, and that has earned him a lot of support on various sites. Armstrong, I believe, is an Edwards supporter. Others just feel the netroots deserves love and care by candidates and Obama hasn't particularly met their standards for that. They don't like his unity schtick one bit. They'd rather red meat partisanship. And it's a fact of life that Obama is never going to tell you what you want to hear just because you want to hear it. I think the blogosphere is uncomfortable with that, as well.

Here are a few of his ratings - as you can see, it's not the case that he is not liberal enough compared to others.

Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) (from 2001-2006)

Obama 97.5
Clinton 95.8
Dodd 94.1
Biden 91.6
Edwards 82.5

National Journal

Obama 84.3
Dodd 79.2
Clinton 78.8
Biden 76.8
Edwards 75.7

Progressive Punch (lifetime)

Clinton 92%
Obama 90%
Dodd 87%
Biden 84%

[Rockholm]

21. Welcome to DU.

As it was commented on above, Hatfield's and McCoy's really sums it up. There are as many "pro-cause" types as there "anti-cause" ones. If you smoke, half the board will hate you, the other half will love you. This board can be a mine field. Innocent comments will rub at least one person the wrong way and they will haunt you into submission. Be prepared to be called a FReeper. Learn our lexicon. Keep your nose clean.
What else have I forgotten.....OH, a big one. IF YOU ARE A FREEPER IN DISGUISE, you will be found out. A sure tip off goes like this.."Some of my friends say but I don't think like that." Sure tip off.
Others class?

[Perry Logan]

22. Welcome to the madhouse. I visit several liberal sites--good sites, but they seem to favor Obama.

The places I'm thinking of are The Huffington Post, Project for the Old American Century, The Smirking Chimp. I get a fairly constant anti-Hillary buzz from those sites, even though I like all of them and visit them frequently, despite their sinful tendencies. I also like Buzzflash, which whomps Hillary fairly frequently.

A site with a more balanced view of Hillary Clinton (in my opinion) is ThinkProgress.

Er, uh...links:
http://www.buzzflash.com/
http://oldamericancentury.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/
http://www.thinkprogress.org/

[Renew Deal]

25. The Blogs are filled with establishment mouthpieces (Jerome at MYDD), and suckers!

First: The web and DU are not representative of the real world. If we were, Clark would have been president in 2004 and Edwards or Ron Paul (on the republican side) would be president in 2008.

The blogosphere is filled with establishment mouthpieces like Jerome at MYDD, and suckers with short memories. You know which way the establishment crowd is going (Hillary). They're falling in line with the Clinton's because of debts owed, the good old days, and fascination with celebrity politics. It doesn't matter that she will never actually be president. Reliving the good old days is worth it.

The suckers are a whole different story. There are people all over the web that have bought into John Edwards. Not for anything he's done, just for what he's said. Now someone could accuse Obama supporters of the same thing. But it's not. Obama's actions don't contradict his words. Edwards words and actions are opposites. Edwards was as right wing that a Democratic senator could be. Now that he's running for president (2nd time), he's running as far to the left as possible (different than the first). Unbelievably, some suckers (mainly on the web) have bought into it. It defies logic and reason. John Edwards, a wealthy lawyer with a right wing voting record has fooled thousands into believing he's an American Hugo Chavez.

The left wing blogosphere is terrific at sharing and spreading information. But watch out for hyper-partisans. They're often full of shit.

[Jane Austin]

32. My personal opinion is that the Kool Kidz,

that is the ones who want to be seen as More Analytical Than Thou and possibly smarter, too, don't want to be part of a faddish movement.

Obama is very appealing on a number of levels - he's young and smart and cool and a brilliant speaker. He seems to be pretty clean ethically and he's voted right on almost everything Dems care about except for funding the war - which all the other candidates have voted for, too.

He does have Rock-Star appeal, so there are going to be breathless groupies who will follow him anywhere. But that doesn't mean everyone who supports him is a groupie.

Generalizations along that line are insulting to me and others who like a lot more about him than lofty speechifying. And believe me I know as I've had friends who should know me better say I'm just being swept away by his glamor. (If you knew me, you'd howl!)

Anyway, I do think a lot of the folks on the net are image-conscious in their own way - they don't want anybody thinking they are part of some huge popular movement.

But that's just my opinion.

[DeepModem Mom]

33. Hi, Dude -- welcome to DU!!! Here's a link to an article on the subject I posted...

yesterday: Obama and the "Battling Blogosphere."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3993239&mesg_id=3993239

I hope it's helpful.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

35. Welcome to DU

You are a brave soul to post in GD-Politics!

I only visit DU, and I would say that there has been resistance to just about every candidate here by some faction or another. Personally, I look at how the candidates address the issues, see where they are getting their funding from, and read posts with citations to articles to gauge my opinion of the various candidates. Since you addressed concerns about Obama specifically, I will state that articles I've read seem to be concerned with his inexperience. The amount of money he's raised from lobbyists is worrisome to me, and possibly to others. As for race being a factor--sadly, it will. However, I think those who would never vote for a black man for president usually don't vote for any Democratic candidate.

[IronLionZion]

37. ignore the blogs, look at the records and platforms and decide for yourself. nt

[Adsos Letter]

38. Welcome to DU, Tropics_Dude83!

Believe only half of what you hear, and none of what you see...

and don't forget to visit The Lounge... :D

:hi:

[Niche]

39. Um... he's DLC. Most of us are bent toward more progressive politicians...

[Sparkly]

40. Welcome. I don't see it that way at all.

I think Clinton gets the lion's share of criticism and attacks, at least on DU.

[readmoreoften]

42. Welcome to DU! Here's an explanation for you.

A few months ago, it seemed Clinton was the bane of the blogs.

These things happen in cycles. This particular site has alternated from majority support for Kucinich to Edwards. I disagree with an earlier poster that this site attracts mostly folks in their 50s. There have been quite a few demographic polls done on DU and most folks here are from 30-55. There are quite a few in their twenties and a spattering of seniors and teens.

Criticism of Clinton was previously based on her war vote, her support for Kyl-Lieberman, and concerns over her health plan as well as concerns over her votes on foreign trade. As of late, the criticism seems to be more personal: expressiongate being the most recent. Although there have been personal attacks in the past, basically related to the noun "cackle."

Criticism of Obama really began when he began to distinguish himself as a candidate concerned about faith and politics within a party that's been beaten down by faith-based attacks for well over a decade. There was much argument over his appearance on the Christian Broadcast Network (Pat Robertson's deal) when he explained that he supported choice because he believed that abortion is a choice women make only after "prayerful consideration." Some felt that it was bold and positive of Obama to meet the religious right on their turf. Others interpreted it negatively, since his appearance lent an aura of importance to a network well-known for extremely sexist and homophobic rhetoric. Others felt that his characterization of abortion as a "prayerful choice" misrepresented the experience and identities of women: atheist and agnostic women believe they have the right to an abortion without the need for hand-wringing or consulting spiritual authorities. They felt that the idea suggested women might need "time" (to 'pray on it') and such rhetoric could be used to support mandatory waiting periods. Later in an AP article Obama said that Democrats have failed to "acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people". This attempt to reach out to the right while excoriating the left has been praised in the media as bipartisanship, but it raised the eyebrows (and the hackles) of many on the left. This later criticism of leftist baby boomers, Kerry, and Gore also ruffled feathers. The most recent debate about Obama (an emotional one) is his decision to allow ex-gay singer Donnie McClurkin (who performed for Republicans in 2004) to emcee Obama's gospel event. In the past McClurkin had gone on CBN and commented that "gays are killing our children". Obama's refusal to take the microphone away from McClurkin, his concession of adding a white gay preacher (instead of one of the many Black gay preachers who volunteered) and the addition of 3 other notedly anti-gay performers (who did not speak) made some question whether the event was an appeal to conservatives rather than a case of bad judgement. Although Obama's platform is almost identical to the other candidates in the field on LGBT rights, many in the gay community (and their progressive supporters) saw the incident as evidence that Obama's actions and rhetoric in office might not match his stated platform. That being said, his platforms are generally comparable to Edwards'. His record is decent and quite progressive--although he has a large number of 'present votes' (130 refusals to vote one way or the other) and has the largest number of absences by far of any of the candidates. The fact that he did not show up to vote against Kyl-Lieberman (giving Bush the right to attack Iran) raised hackles, especially after he criticized Clinton's vote.

Overall, Obama's record is solidly liberal but his intense courting of the religious vote as alienated many gay and non-religious voters and his statements about reaching out to Republicans combined with his heated criticism of others to the left of him have cooled many on the blogosphere--point of disclosure, myself-included :)

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[calimary]

43. Hey, Welcome to DU!

Glad you're here!

Seems to me there's a whole lot of everything on the blogs. I myself liked Biden's foreign policy thinking - he's paid attention in all those committee hearings and called Pakistan before it started exploding. But my heart really belonged to Chris Dodd for having the courage to leave Iowa and go back to DC to stand, pretty much single-handedly, against the new FISA bill and its retroactive immunity from prosecution for tapping our phones at the will and whim of the leader-du-jour. He really won me over. I also love Kucinich, but he's the ultimate long shot, unfortunately. But he sure is speaking my language (especially about IMPEACHMENT!).

The "big three"? Well, I'm thinking that I could live with any of them. I've found Obama appealing for quite a long time, and I feel compelled to rise to his defense when some of the more icky attacks start coming. And I love Edwards. Who couldn't love him for how he's championed the poverty issue and made it a leading priority? He's their voice in this - and they're a constituency that's been locked out the longest of all - longer than even people of color, OR women. And bless Richardson, because he gave Hispanic-Americans a place at the table. At the moment, I'm in the throes of sisterhood. I know how I reacted, instantly and spontaneously, when she took such a frickin' beating after Iowa. For the Love of God... In the "what you immediately feel before you stop and analyze" department, that really got me. Why didn't they just waterboard her, too, while they were at it? Hell, they did everything else.

Um... see what I mean?

Anyway, haven't checked many other blogs, per se. BUT... the advantage of DU means that you often have those links delivered to you rather than having to go out and fish for them. People are awfully well-informed and willing to share opinions and resources here. I have learned TONS, myself.