Scenario Poll

[Ken Burch]

Poll question: Scenario Poll

If the following scenario occurs...

1)The HRC campaign actually does continue 'til the bitter end, using its current tactics relentlessly.

2)Senator Obama is nominated nonetheless(as most Democrats want).

3)The HRC talking points are quoted in McCain campaign ads all through the fall.

4)Senator Clinton refuses to denounce the McCain for using those talking points, and refuses to retract them.

5)McCain is elected.


...should HRC and her supporters apologize to Senator Obama, the Democratic Party and the country for causing a Republican victory that otherwise could not possibly have occurred?

(Note, if you don't agree with the scenario, just post "no" as an answer. Don't disrupt or derail the thread, as that is not an acceptable or legitimate response.

[Asia Expat]

1. nt

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[jlake]

2. You assume that Obama losing would be all Hillary's faults.

Obama is a fatally flawed candidate -- and that would be the case even if Hillary didn't exist.

[Ken Burch]

4. A fatally flawed candidate couldn't be leading in the polls.

Obama can only lose if your candidate sabotages him. And you know it.

Why not admit that NOTHING is worth helping McCain win?

[jlake]

5. Yeah, Mondale is a figment of my imagination.

[Ken Burch]

7. Mondale never had a sustained lead over Reagan.

He was up by one point in one poll right after the convention.

And your candidate, who has no popularity, no ironclad principles, and no passion, is this year's Mondale.

[jlake]

8. Obama trails McCain by 3.......

[Ken Burch]

11. If that poll is accurate, it is SOLELY because of HRC's unjustified attacks on Obama

And undoubtably HRC is further behind, as she has NEVER run well against McCain.

A candidate who runs ugly and wins ugly has to be useless and reactionary as president. You can't get progressive stuff through with Chicago Bears-style tactics.

HRC needs to admit she should ONLY be attacking McCain from now on.

[jlake]

13. Riiiiiiiiiight.

The GOP will crush Obama.
Hill pointed out a simple fact.

[Ken Burch]

16. You still don't get it that most Democrats prefer hope to spite as a campaign approach.

You still don't get it that Obama is the candidate most Democrats want.

And you still don't get it that ONLY Obama has passionate supporters, idealistic supporters and NEW voters. All HRC has is the remmants of the Humphrey campaign.

Nominating HRC means nominating a conservative and voting to give up. Why do you want that.

[jlake]

20. The spin that only Obama offers hope is one of the biggest PR rube jobs in the history

of the world.

[Ken Burch]

24. The spin that the Obama campaign is anti-working class is a bigger one.

Obama had and has massive working-class support in Illinois, and in many other places.

No new people have joined the party to work for her. No young people are galvanized by her.

She has the bitter and the spiteful, and that's it.

Please tell me why you are so unquestioningly loyal to a bland, conservative candidate who will doom us to a Mondale-size defeat.

What has she ever done that entitles her and her supporters to take the party down in flames?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. Your Premise Is On Fire

Hillary actually does better against Grand Pa than Obama... In fact she has been outpolling him against Obama the past three weeks- see post fourteen...

Anyway...To be blunt...Obama and Clinton and their supporters hate each others guts...Many of them will not vote for the other...

The Dems can't afford to lose Obama's African American and youth support and they can't afford to lose Hillary's working class, Lation, female, and older vote...

BHO and HRC are like two kids fighting over a toy who end up breaking it in half...

Like Jack Kennedy said , "life isn't fair."

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. I Prefer HRC To BHO But Al Gore To Both Of Them

Life isn't fair... But there is so much enmity between Obama, Clinton, and their supporters that I am confident in stating large numbers of either's supporters wouldn't vote for the other...

That is where we are...

[Ken Burch]

23. And the arrogance of the HRC campaign is the sole cause of this enmity

There was NO negativity in this race until HRC brought it in. She needs to apologize, because all she has done is to poison this campaign.

[LisaL]

25. And the arrogance of Obama supporters boggles my mind.

Your candidate seems to have a few skeletons in his closet.
There is no need to blame someone else for the potential loss but your candidate, but you can't figure it out.

[Ken Burch]

27. why do you want us to nominate an unpopular and doomed conservative?

You know HRC will never be electable again. Why should we put ourselves through another race that HAS to be just like Kerry's, Dukakis's and Mondale's? That's what nominating HRC means.

Don't make our fall campaign a hope and ideal-free zone. We couldn't do anything good if we won ugly anyway.

[LisaL]

28. And you want to nominate Obama?

One one hand you will have McCain.
On the other hand you will have a guy whose pastor said "God Damn America."
Good luck with that.

[Ken Burch]

29. McCain vs. HRC means a McCain landslide.

HRC can never be popular again. She can't make people feel that electing her will transform the country, and nothing short of transformation is worth working for. Trivial increments can't matter.

I want Obama because he can win and he can help redeem the country. Continuing to be a HRC supporter at this stage is like supporting Humphrey in Chicago in '68. In both cases, you know you're voting to lose.

One minister doesn't matter.

[LisaL]

32. One minister doesn't matter?

Right.

[Ken Burch]

44. Then again, you support the anti-progressive, anti-activist candidate who dissed Dr. King

So why should I even consider you a progressive at all?

[guidod]

42. Who cares what his pastor said.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. His Association With Wright And The Praise Offered By Farrakhan Did It

You need to go out and talk to regular folks... Outside of the four corners of DU Farrakhan and Wright scare the Hell out of people...

I'd like to see a plan for recapturing the White House that doesn't include support from working class folks , older folks, older females, and Latino votes...

[Ken Burch]

34. Obama supports all of those constituencies.

There was never any valid reason for Latinos to back a conservative white candidate against him. They only did so because Penn played on the myth that if African Americans gain, Latinos lose.

And Obama is just as sensitive to the concerns of working-class voters as HRC is, in fact more so(since he never backed globalization).
No one that used to hang out at Davos has any right to claim to be a friend of the worker. Nor did anyone who actively solicited donations from the health-care industry.

And Obama is strong on senior issues.

His troubles with older female voters stem simply from the lie that the Obama campaign ONLY gathered strength because people didn't want a woman as president. This was always a lie and everyone always knew it.

In the fall, Obama would get all those groups. They'd have no reason whatsoever to prefer McCain.

We know that HRC has no progressive policies and will simply lower us to the Nineties again. And we also know that she will keep the doors of the party closed to the young and the idealists.

Why is there STILL an assumption that HRC is simply ENTITLED to shove Obama out of the way, even if he's won more delegates? Why do her supporters refuse to accept that they owe it to the party not to sabotage the other potential nominee?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

36. The Empircal Data Suggets Obama Is Only Winning Sixty Five Percent Of The Democratic Vote Against

McCain...

That's George McGovern territory...

[Ken Burch]

38. HRC is permanently unpopular.

And it's impossible to do anything progressive in office if you win by going negative.

HRC has already forfeited any right to ask African Americans to vote for. None will.

It's this "She's inherently superior and is ENTITLED to do anything to seize the nomination" thing that is the problem. An arrogant person can't be progressive in office.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. If You Do A Search You Will See That I Am Beginning To Believe Both Their Candidacies Are Becoming

Increasingly Problematic...

I think large parts of both their constituencies don't care for the other regardless of how you or I or the liberal net roots feel about it...

The only way out of this dilemma that I see is that neither are on the ticket or both are on the ticket...

We will learn if I am right or wrong in the fullness of time...

[Ken Burch]

26. Mondale only lead by one point, and only in one poll. That's reality.

He never had an Obama level of appeal, and you know it.

There's no comparison between the two.

Mondale trailed Reagan throughout the primaries. It was the Beltway and the Beltway alone that insisted on forcing him through.

[Asia Expat]

6. So the idiot king isn't fatally flawed??? nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Here's The RCP Average

Obama and Grand Pa are a push, at best:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

Oh, and Obama and Hillary are a push at best:


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/democratic_presidential_nomination-191.html


If you put a gun in my mouth and told me you will pull the trigger if I picked the loser I would have to pick Grand Pa...


The problem with folks on the left and the right are that they only talk to folks who think like them, get their own views shouted back at them, and consequently think more people think like them than actually does...

The electorate is approximately 25% liberal, 35% moderate, and 40% conservative...That's what all the empirical data suggests... The quicker we get our "heads" around that the better...

[dempartisan23]

12. he is great

hillary is working for mccain

[Perry Logan]

3. You might want to lie down for a while. Turn the computer off.

[Ken Burch]

35. Why do you not care if we beat McCain this fall?

Why can you not see that what HRC is doing is making that a much more difficult task?

[DemzRock]

9. So you PLAN to lose in the fall? And you PLAN to blame others?

Bad plan.

[Ken Burch]

10. No, the Obama campaign doesn't plan to lose.

But you can't deny that HRC will be significantly to blame if she stays in to the bitter end, continues to campaign on nothing but negativity, spite, and rage, and continues to attack the person who almost certainly, as every HRC supporter knows, WILL be our nominee.

Why can't you guys admit that winning in the fall is what matters and stop working to destroy our chances?

You know HRC can't legitimately be nominated. You know she no longer represents anybody. Why fight on out of nothing but hate?

You know a person elected on a negative campaign has to be a conservative and a failure as president.

[MonkeyFunk]

15. And what if...

at the convention, while he's giving his acceptance speech, Hillary storms the stage, punches him in the neck and pees on his shoes? Huh? What then? WHAT THEN?!

[Ken Burch]

18. It'd end up on YouTube in ten minutes. And unlike that, my scenario ISN'T absurd.

You know it's plausible. And you know that HRC's tactics are not so certain of getting her the nomination that they're actually justified.

Why can't you accept the fact that HRC is obligated to protect the party's chances of winning by ONLY attacking McCain?

She and you need to accept that Obama is the strong leader for the nomination, having more chance of getting it than her, and that she therefore owes it to the party not to attack him.

Is that such a difficult concept?

She is the person who introduced viciousness into this race, and did so for no reason.

If she causes Obama's defeat in the fall, will you agree that HRC must NEVER run for the presidency or any other office again?

[Umbram]

17. That'd be Mission Accomplished for many H.C. supporters. (nt)

[LisaL]

21. Already made plans to blame everyone else for Obama's

potential loss, I see.
Coudln't possibly be Obama's fault.

[Perry Logan]

31. The irony of Obamites asking for apologies is dizzying. Must lie down...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5120659

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4779500&mesg_id=4779500

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4849238&mesg_id=4849238

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4922044&mesg_id=4922044

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4942967&mesg_id=4942967

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4964704&mesg_id=4964704

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4965088

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4965227

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4982708&mesg_id=4982708

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5036756

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5065868&mesg_id=5065868

Reporting threats against Hillary:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4999545&mesg_id=4999545

[Rockholm]

33. "(as most Democrats want)"

Last time I checked 50/50 isn't "most."

[Ken Burch]

40. It's 52-45 Obama in the new CNN poll

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/17/poll.democrats/index.html

[DemVet]

37. Hell NO!!! What is going on right now is just plain politics...

...pure and simple. One candidate trying to best another one. That's the way the game is played, people.

[Ken Burch]

41. You don't care if she guarantees McCain's election?

She can't possibly be so inherently superior that she's actually ENTITLED to do this to the leading Democratic candidate.

[demokatgurrl]

39. with a qualifier: SHE should apologize, not her supporters

We have all supported candidates with whom we did not agree 100% on everything they said. As supporters, we ultimately end up with a choice, typically between two candidates. We cannot be responsible for everything the candidate says and does- we simply CHOOSE one candidate over another.