February 17, 2008
POKING THE PIG IN A POKE:
Right slams Obama as 'shady Chicago socialist': Republicans are out to crush Barack by painting him as a leftwinger with dubious support (Sarah Baxter, 2/17/08, Times of London)
“It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary,” said Norquist. “Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don’t know him who he is.”Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and Republican guru, recently described Obama as the “most leftwing candidate to run since George McGovern” – a reference to the anti-Vietnam-war Democrat who lost 49 states out of 50 to Richard Nixon in the 1972 election. Norquist believes Obama’s questionable Chicago connections will stir things further.
The city has a reputation for corruption from the days when Al Capone and his mob ran the town in the 1920s. Obama is tainted by his long association with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a Chicago property developer who is scheduled to go on trial for extorting kickbacks in return for political favours on March 3, the day before the Ohio and Texas primaries. [...]
Clinton briefly raised the question of Rezko, whom she described as a “slum landlord”, in a televised debate with Obama in California, but was silenced when a 1990s picture emerged of her with Rezko and President Bill Clinton. Obama has returned around $85,000 in campaign contributions from Rezko.
“Hillary put the issue into the bloodstream, but it didn’t get focused on,” said Norquist. He believes that well financed “527” attack groups – named after their tax-exempt status – will mercilessly pursue Obama over his ties to Rezko. It was a conservative “527” group, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who did grave damage to John Kerry’s reputation as a war hero in the 2004 White House race.
Democrats are setting themselves up for a disaster by letting racial sensitivity prevent them from vetting his candidacy. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 17, 2008 6:52 AM
Republicans may make the same mistake.
Thus does the cancer of PC infect the lymph nodes of the body politic. (For those of you in Rio Linda, the lymphatic systems takes out the "garbage")
The possibility also exists that they go about trying to destroy him the wrong way. If it even smacks of race to the electorate, the dingbat soccer moms will flock to Obama out of sheer white liberal guilt. (and 527s won't be sufficient cover)
In a book called "The Culture Code," the author theorizes that there is single word that operates as CODE for every domain in every culture. His view is that every product or person or company that is closer to the CODE. He thinks the word for American Politics is MOSES.
Assuming he has a point, the best way to undermine Obama is to paint him as a false prophet leading "his people" back to Egypt. (1960s left wing drivel).
Throw in his votes against the "Infants Born Alive" act (Even NARAL supported it), and he can be exposed for the callow empty suit that he is.
Make it about race, or his middle name (or allow the media to create that perception), and he actually may win.
Posted by: Bruno at February 17, 2008 10:30 AM