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Obama and the Power of Words
The Wall Street Journal ^ | February 26, 2008 | STEPHEN F. HAYES

Posted on 02/26/2008 10:11:22 PM PST by ThePythonicCow

...

One Reagan adviser had predicted such a win shortly after Reagan had become the de facto nominee the previous spring. In a memo about the coming general election contest with Jimmy Carter, Richard Whalen wrote Reagan's "secret weapon" was that "Democrats fail to take him very seriously."

Are Republicans making the same mistake with Barack Obama?

...

In just the past week, conservative commentators have accused Mr. Obama of speaking in "Sesame Street platitudes," of giving speeches that are "almost content free," of "saying nothing." He has been likened to Chance the Gardner, the clueless mope in Jerzy Koscinski's "Being There," whose banal utterances are taken as brilliant by a gullible political class.

...

The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: banglist; obama; reagan; stephenhayes; yobama
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To: ari-freedom
Do you want your cyanide in a single, strong bitter dose, or slipped gently into your morning coffee, with sugar and cream, over a period of weeks.

Obama sells gentle Marxism. Hillary is a bit challenged in the gentle touch department.

41 posted on 02/26/2008 11:16:07 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (By their false faith in Man as God, the left would destroy us. They call this faith change.)
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To: ThePythonicCow

canadian drugs are cheaper because of price controls. It is totally artificial. If we buy drugs from them then Canadians have to pay a high cost just so that we have cheaper drugs


42 posted on 02/26/2008 11:17:03 PM PST by ari-freedom
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To: ThePythonicCow
I certainly do NOT underestimate him. In fact, he is not only more dangerous than Slick Hillie--he is much more electable!!

Remember, Slick never got 50% of the vote. With her polarizing personality, and very, very high negatives--there is no way she could ever get elected.

Hussein, on the other hand, is eloquent and mesmerizes his audience (heck, they even faint when they see him). He is a much, much bigger threat (which is why Republicans voting in any remaining elections should vote for Slick Hillie--since the longer we can draw out the Dem primary process, the better).

43 posted on 02/26/2008 11:20:41 PM PST by stockstrader
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To: ari-freedom
I am understanding you as far as the artificial price controls part. But I am still confused as to why, if we buy from them, they will have to pay more. I'd have thought it would just be the drug companies getting paid less (because a higher percentage of their sales went to price controlled markets.)
44 posted on 02/26/2008 11:21:55 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (By their false faith in Man as God, the left would destroy us. They call this faith change.)
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To: ari-freedom

I really don’t think its that .
The Dem voters are just sheep and the old media is telling them that Clinton are finished and support the other radical leftist.


45 posted on 02/26/2008 11:25:30 PM PST by ncalburt
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To: stockstrader
One could argue that regardless of which one, Hillary or Obama, one wanted to see represent the 'Rats in the general, drawing out their primary fight is a good deal for us.

I will confess to being torn as to how I should vote next Tuesday, in the Texas primary:


46 posted on 02/26/2008 11:30:20 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (By their false faith in Man as God, the left would destroy us. They call this faith change.)
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To: ThePythonicCow

he is selling it to democrats though. The story is that even liberals are rejecting hillary’s mandates.

Also, she earned her chops on this issue. Look up universal health care in the dictionary and you’ll see her picture. If she wins the WH, she could claim a clear mandate for health care reform. Obama’s mandate would be very fuzzy.


47 posted on 02/26/2008 11:30:38 PM PST by ari-freedom
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To: ThePythonicCow

then there will be a shortage of drugs for canadians. Canada care would break the way the old soviet union did. And if PM Harper is still in charge, he’d be more than happy to help.


48 posted on 02/26/2008 11:34:53 PM PST by ari-freedom
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To: ari-freedom
All that just goes to show that Obama could make a living selling refrigerators to Eskimos. Hillary couldn't sell fur lined parkas to Eskimos.

Either way, even if McCain wins, we will continue to fight a rear guard action against encroaching Universal Health care until the fight is totally lost. We're just discussing here how long it will take to lose that fight.

49 posted on 02/26/2008 11:36:02 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (By their false faith in Man as God, the left would destroy us. They call this faith change.)
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To: ari-freedom
Why?
50 posted on 02/26/2008 11:37:22 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (By their false faith in Man as God, the left would destroy us. They call this faith change.)
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To: stockstrader

who is fainting? young liberals. Most Americans are older and pragmatic. They are concerned about pocketbook issues, whether their mutual funds will be enough for retirement. The last thing they want is for the stock market to crash right before they need to take it out.


51 posted on 02/26/2008 11:38:09 PM PST by ari-freedom
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To: drubyfive

You said just what I was thinking.


52 posted on 02/26/2008 11:42:42 PM PST by SlapHappyPappy
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To: ThePythonicCow

because if the price is artificially low, supply doesn’t meet demand. please see
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1684


53 posted on 02/26/2008 11:43:40 PM PST by ari-freedom
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To: ncalburt

My sister is a liberal, married to a Dutchman and they lived in Amsterdam for about 10 years. Their health care was great and her father and brother in law have great retirements...66% of their pay or something like that. However, they paid high taxes and there has been strains on the system due to immigrants.

Both my sister and her husband believe we shouldn’t be a “go it alone society” anymore. They are both voting for Obama.


54 posted on 02/26/2008 11:48:37 PM PST by Aria (NO RAPIST ENABLER FOR PRESIDENT!!!)
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To: Aria

I sincerely believe that Obama overestimates the power of the Presidency. He seems to think he can just speak his wishes and they will come true. Even as Commander in Chief he will find that the people he is beholden to, and I don’t mean the voters, will not allow him to simply pull out of Iraq. He can’t just wish universal health care into existence. In fact everything on his limited platform will meet resistance that he cannot imagine. Never has such a naive candidate come so close to being President.

If elected he will be much like Jack Kennedy. A President that truly accomplished little despite the aura of perfection.


55 posted on 02/26/2008 11:49:52 PM PST by SlapHappyPappy
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To: SlapHappyPappy

I’m thinking exactly the same thing....lofty ideas, very well presented, that mostly just won’t happen. That would be the silver lining I suppose and better than Hillary ramming her crazy ideas through the Congress.


56 posted on 02/26/2008 11:52:15 PM PST by Aria (NO RAPIST ENABLER FOR PRESIDENT!!!)
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To: ari-freedom
Price affects supply if price falls below cost of production.

That's entirely out of the equation here. The actual cost of production of the major drugs is a small fraction of even the artificially set price caps.

The question is how much profit the drug companies have left, from the sales of current drugs, to either (1) invest in research for future drugs (as the conservative claim) or (2) line the pockets of filthy rich drug company executives (as the liberals claim.)

The price is already cappped in Canada, and elsewhere, and so long as the supply is not rationed, in some effort to throttle the costs of nationally funded single payer drug benefits, there is no shortage.

57 posted on 02/26/2008 11:53:56 PM PST by ThePythonicCow (By their false faith in Man as God, the left would destroy us. They call this faith change.)
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To: ari-freedom

Why are drugs so cheap in Mexico? I was just down there with a group of friends and they always go to Walmart to stock up. One girl bought 4 inhalers and saved $700. Not everything is that dramatic but everything is cheaper.


58 posted on 02/26/2008 11:55:46 PM PST by Aria (NO RAPIST ENABLER FOR PRESIDENT!!!)
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To: ThePythonicCow

I guess I am one of the “gullible political class” because I understand Obama competely. Liberal and socialist commentaters have been filling in the details for years. Read Paul Krugman and Noam Chomsky for the specifics of Obama’s domestic and foreign policies. Hell listen to Hillery. Obama just puts it in grand phrases.


59 posted on 02/27/2008 12:00:14 AM PST by JimSEA
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To: ThePythonicCow; All
The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.

And speaking of health care, despite Obama's cheerleading skills, Obama is foolishly in contempt of the Constitution where his health care ideas are concerned. This is evidenced by the fact that his ideas are based on non-existent federal government powers. In fact, this post (<-click), while addressing a tax-related thread, explains in more detail why misguided dreamers like Obama are foolishly following in the footsteps of FDR's dirty federal spending politics.

In sharp contrast to Obama's health care plans, for example, note that Thomas Jefferson, while reflecting on the Founder's division of federal and state powers, emphasized that the Founders trusted the states, not the federal government, with the care of the people.

"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, (emphasis mine) our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4j
I think that Obama, like FDR, is clueless to the fact that he first needs to rally the people to exercise their Article V powers to amend the Constitution to properly authorize the federal government to address health care issues. In the meanwhile, we cannot allow people like Obama to make our high federal taxes even higher to pay for federal government programs that are constitutionally unauthorized in the first place.

The bottom line is that the people need to wise up to the MAJOR problem of a federal government that is not operating within the restraints of the federal Constitution, a consequence of FDR's dirty politics. Bluntly put, the people need to quit sitting on their hands and send big-shot, constitution-ignoring federal spenders like Obama and Clinton home instead of trying to put people like them in the Oval Office.

60 posted on 02/27/2008 12:03:17 AM PST by Amendment10
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