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JOHN BRUMMETT: It's the worst of all worlds for the DemocratsCommentary

Two very bad things have happened to Barack Obama. One is that he has been Jesse Jackson-ized. The other is that he has been Michael Dukakis-ized and John Kerry-ized.

Only one bad thing has happened to Hillary Clinton. It was that her husband continued to run his mouth and wag his finger without attention to plain truth. If she'd file for divorce right now, she'd likely gain six points in the polls.


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  • The biggest political news last week was not that Hillary beat Obama by 10 points in Pennsylvania. It was two other things.

    One was that she beat him that soundly despite his getting an estimated 92 percent of the black vote. She beat him from 2-to-1 to 3-to-1 in rural counties where white working people predominate.

    The Democratic vote is thus fully polarized racially, just as Bill Clinton endeavored to make it in South Carolina by dismissing Obama's win there as nothing more than Jackson's in 1988.

    That was despite the fact that Obama had just won one of our whitest states, Iowa, and run a strong second in another, New Hampshire.

    Positioned to be a transformational figure, Obama instead got typecast by the man who, in 1992, cynically appealed to white people by blasting a black rapper.

    For all the deserved criticism he's taken for abandoning one of his few remaining virtues -- racial reconciliation -- to drive a political wedge in his wife's favor, Bill's tactics have borne fruit. It's now white people for Hillary and blacks for Obama, and there are more white people than black.

    Second, Republicans in two conservative Southern states, North Carolina and Louisiana, saw advantages in running ads seeking to tie local Democrats not to Hillary, but to Obama. That's a sure sign that he is seen as the more culturally alien, the more out of the mainstream and the one about whom fears could most easily be fomented.

    He is now an updated version of Dukakis and Kerry, who were seen in the South as of frightfully alien values.

    Here's a conversation of two 30-something Southern males overheard the other evening:

    "Can you believe it? I'm more afraid of Obama than Hillary."

    "Yeah, I know. I mean, if you won't put your hand over your heart for the National Anthem ..."

    (There's this picture. You've probably received it by e-mail. Obama is standing to listen to a band play the "Star Spangled Banner." A big flag waves behind him. His hands are at his side. Personally, I've never saluted a band. This is silly, but powerful, because it's a simple symbol. Dukakis vetoed a bill to mandate the recitation by Massachusetts school children of the Pledge of Allegiance. Mandating a pledge is clearly an unconstitutional infringement on the free expression that the flag ought to stand for. But it doesn't seem to work that way with the mushy, pliable center of American politics.)

    In Louisiana, the Republicans have run two ads seeking to tie a Democratic congressional candidate to "the radical agenda of Obama and Pelosi." That's not, mind you, Hillary and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is as easy a Southern target as a San Francisco liberal.

    In North Carolina, Republicans are running a commercial calling on two Democratic gubernatorial candidates to say whether they support or denounce Obama's "associates," meaning the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and that old domestic terrorist, William Ayers, into whose Chicago home Obama once stepped.

    Hillary, meantime, has all the momentum, except for Bill's claiming insanely that Obama had played a race card on him, then claiming with exponential, finger-waving insanity the next day that he hadn't said what he had plainly said, as a radio tape verified.

    She needs to put a muzzle on the tomcat.

    John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@ arkansasnews.com.

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    David Feith wrote on April 28, 2008 03:57 AM: Even a die-hard Republican like me can not defend this moron of a President, and unfortunately I'm not hearing anything from McCain about changing course fiscally. Even if Obama is going to fail at this change I'm holding my cultural nose and voting for at least trying to change course.


    Mike wrote on April 27, 2008 07:44 PM: Re: Bush's poll numbers - given the main stream media reporting, even his mother probably is opposed to the job he is doing. Of course, the main stream media doesn't want to cover the true facts. Imagine if the Main Stream Media had opposed WWII the way they oppose the war on Islamofascism - we would be speaking German at this point. Imagine if the Main Stream Media had reported the truth during FDR's term - he would have been impeached in 2 years.

    To think the Democrats will do better - to improve everything, you would believe that in short order, they will allow nuclear plants to be built, they will allow drilling off-shore and in ANWAR, and they will end the use of food for ethanol. And in the war on terror, they will decide to send a strong signal to Iran that further support of terrorist actions in Iraq will be met with an aerial attack on their military facilities.

    But the reality, if the Democrats get control, they will make the energy crisis worse, not better; they will surrender to Islamofascist (making the likelihood of an attack in the US much higher), and the economy will get worse, and they will try to make it a time of FDR "recovery" - where pretending to fix the problem might cause the economy to stick for a decade, and only a large war might fix things.


    David Johann wrote on April 27, 2008 05:01 PM: WASHINGTON — President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.

    In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-21-bushrating_N.htm

    John McCain. More a' da' same.


    Alan Srout wrote on April 27, 2008 03:32 PM: Obama’s Pastor Celebrates 9/11 (explicit)
    Only 5 Days After 3,000 Americans Killed

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzhl-endvco



    Obama: Bitter Americans Cling to Guns and Religion

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNJAl8a3d9Q

    Obama Disrespecting U.S. Flag and Anthem

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8QCkgg5Kjo


    Obama — We Are Building A Religion

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtNr5-up0U


    Mike H in Cali wrote on April 27, 2008 02:03 PM: Newsflash to Obamaphiles: American voters will never elect as President an emaciated arugula eater with an Arabic name whose father was a Marxist Muslim goatherd.


    Uncle Sam wrote on April 27, 2008 01:53 PM: Supporters of Sen. Obama are doing him a disservice by shielding him from continued missteps which will inevitably doom his presidential bid. Although gifted, Mr. Obama is immature, both personally and politically, and his intellectual arrogance prevents him from acknowledging his weaknesses and thus learning from them.


    dn wrote on April 27, 2008 11:46 AM: This is not just about the Clintons - "2 biggerst liars and most deceitful human beings on the face of this earth", or Obama - the lieing extreme left liberal out to 'get even' with the country he and his associates hate. This exposes the entire Democrat Party as a willing vehicle for such people. The Democrat Party has always been the true enemy of the American people, but until now has always semi-succesfully hid it. Now, finally, it's ugly reality is out in the open, for every one to see. whether the American people will see for themselves or let the drive-by media hoodwink them again, remains to be sen.


    walt wrote on April 27, 2008 11:46 AM: THERE IS NOTHING WITH MORE AVARICE,NOTHING MORE SHALLOW,THAN THE CLINTONS.AFTER USING THE BLACK VOTE,THEY HAVE MARGINALIZED OBAMA SHAMELESSLY.


    Herb wrote on April 27, 2008 11:38 AM: Obama will win the primary battle but not the general election war. I am looking forward to election day. The Obama fans will be in shock and denial as their false God loses. Many a tear will fall and I will be enjoying every second of it.


    Jim Nance wrote on April 27, 2008 11:22 AM: I am bitter hick sitting here holding my gun and reading my Bible.

    Obama, I do not understand this story and you are sooooooo smart.

    Can you plezzzz explain it me?


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