A Question

[caseycoon]

I can't see that Obama is particularly liberal, so why would the Kennedys endorse him rather than John Edwards? It seems weird to me.
:shrug:

[Lugnut]

1. Good question.

Unfortunately I have no answer.

[caseycoon]

3. I guess we'll never know...

Unless we can grab them & shake them & demand an answer, but it does bother me.

[smokey nj]

2. My guess is because they think he's going to win.

[caseycoon]

4. That's a sucky reason IMHO...

But you're probably right.
GRRRRRRR

[smokey nj]

5. I think so too. Frankly, I'm beginning to believe that our so-called "liberal icons" are nothing

but figments of our imagination. I'm beginning to think that they actually like the way things are and really have no interest at all in improving the lives of average Americans. :(

[caseycoon]

6. It would sure explain a lot of things....

Sometimes I'm glad I'm getting old so maybe I won't have to watch what happens to our country in 20 or 30 years.
(But usually I want to live forever)
:rofl:

[smokey nj]

8. I know how you feel. As this primary race progresses, I find myself thinking

about quitting smoking a lot less frequently.

[caseycoon]

9. Don't make me think of quitting...

Not now! Maybe not ever!
LOL!

[lisainmilo]

20. exactly what one of my residents said tonight

He is 86. I told him the kids are who are supporting Obama, he said they are going to be sorry about what is going to happen to this country.

[Two Americas]

11. they don't though

The weird thing is, that I don't think most Obama supporters think he can win the general. They refuse to look at it pragmatically. They are determined to be "the right wing's worst nightmare" but keep doing everything that makes them the right wingers dream come true. That sounds strange, doesn't it? But I think it is the truth.

They are playing the role of being liberals, as defined by right wing propaganda, reading the lines the right wingers wrote for them, acting their part in a drama written by the right wing propagandists.

The powerful people behind the right wing and the Republican party don't care about race, nor gender, abortion, GLBT rights, RKBA, or any of the rest of that nonsense. The wealthy people tolerate the gays within their circle, the women have tremendous freedom and power, they get abortions, don't go to church, and live happy hedonistic liberal lifestyles and eat organic. They are just using those issues to fool the opposition - us - and to fool the people into supporting their agents in the political realm - the Republican party.

So long as the handful - and Edwards supporters, it is a relative handful of bullies who control the party at all levels and who are trying to kill the Edwards movement - tell us that the wealthy and powerful are potentially our friends, to be admired, to be emulated, to be given a break, while telling us that the poor struggling single Mother with two jobs who doesn't know any better than to vote Republican is our enemy that we must fight to the death, the party will be weak and compromised.

No Democrat is speaking to that single Mother - and saying that she is too stupid to hear the message is malicious and elitist and aristocratic - and no one is offering a strong alternative narrative to the simple and seemingly self-evident (though dishonest) message from the Republicans.

The Obama and Clinton supporters would rather wreck the party and lose to the Republicans than they would give up their stranglehold over the party.

[caseycoon]

12. I'm still trying to figure out

why they support them at all!
It's like they don't know what a Democrat is SUPPOSED to stand for.

[Two Americas]

7. trapped

They are trapped and confused. So many Democrats, especially the more dominant and influential ones, are sleep walking. They have allowed themselves to be defined by right wing propaganda - programmed, almost. You can tell listening to them and watching them - they are going through the motions. They have a vague idea that the path they are on is a dead end, but they can't bring themselves to leave it. Even Feingold seems half-comatose, as though he is following a script that he does not have his heart in.

When you keep telling yourself that it is those people over there - you know, the fundies and the rednecks, and the WalMart shoppers and the American Idol watchers - who are asleep, that prevents you from seeing that you yourself are asleep - programmed, predictable, empty inside, passionless, lifeless. The Democrats are like a bunch of walking corpses as they repeat the same flawed and failing arguments over and over again.

I keep having this fantasy that one day a bunch of Democrats will snap out of the coma and say "hey! Wait a minute. WTF are we doing?"

It has nothing to do with liberal versus conservative, except in the fantasy world of many Democrats.

Edwards is relaxed, spontaneous and confident - he is alive. The other candidates are distracted, cautious, fearful, robotic, defensive. I keep waiting for Obama to stop in the middle of one of his mesmerizing (to some, to me it is boring) speeches and say "fuck this. WTF am I doing?? This won't work. Listen up folks, a handful of very wealthy and powerful people have seized control of everything and are turning us all into peasants and we need to fight, just as our ancestors did. Playing this 'I am a liberal and better than the Republicans' game, carefully mincing my words, watching the polls, playing the demographics, listening to the consultants, kissing ass to the insiders, looking for the middle - this is all too much work and won't get us anywhere anyway. Who am I fooling?"

Why do almost all Democrats have one hand tied behind their back? Why does their heart not seem to be in it? Why, when you scratch the surface of "hope" or whatever other bullshit they are peddling, are they so hostile, defensive, angry? Why are they so weak?

I think their is an internal unresolved conflict. Everything they do, think, and say is predicated on playing the game and being winners, and siding with and defending the wealthy and powerful. They have deep contempt and loathing for the general public, especially the least fortunate. But they cannot acknowledge that, let alone admit it, because then what? How can they claim to be better than the Republicans, other than having better fashion sense and better lifestyles? They have this thin veneer of pseudo-liberalism, but at their core they are committed to the same things the Republicans are. They are trying to serve two masters.

WTF is the difference between Rove and Penn. Not a damned thing. Penn is actually worse morally, and less competent than Rove. WTF is the difference between the corruption of the Republicans by big capital and the corruption of the Democrats by big capital? Not much.

[caseycoon]

10. Scarey & depressing...

I came to DU the day before the 'o6election. I (and most of us) were so thrilled to have majorities in both House & Senate. Slim. but majorities. Since then we have seen scandal after scandal & all the time more & more things Bush & cohorts have done to wreck our country & our hopes keep being smashed & I sit here with my jaw dropping open every 2 minutes yelling cuss words.
I think much of what you are saying is true. I certainly can't refute any of it.
So very sad.

[iris5426]

13. I know, I don't get it!

And I can't help but think if John could just get one AMAZING endorsement, like Al Gore or Ted Kennedy or maybe Bono or something random like that it could bump him into better coverage and wake people up. Of course the MLKIII endorsement was pretty f-ing amazing and we saw how much coverage that got...RFK Jr would have made the most sense to endorse Edwards, but he came out for Hillary...I just don't get it!

[caseycoon]

14. I hate it!

:mad:

[Two Americas]

15. like a disease

That false thinking we see by Democrats - the more privileged and upscale ones, and the more domineering and controlling ones, we should remember - is like a disease spreading among Democrats and it affects people who should know better, such as RFK jr.

They think liberal versus conservative is a matter of differing "values" between one group of upscale winners, and another group of upscale winners. They don't realize that they themselves and the people they hang out with represent an aristocracy, a very select and privileged group that has fallen profoundly out of touch with the everyday people, and they think that poverty is just a "cause" for weekends or to write a check for. They think that if they help "them" make the "right choices" that everyone could then join their inner circle of privilege. They don't get it. They are oblivious to how all of their political ideas are founded on protecting their own privilege and status - an understandable human weakness, by the way. They are not evil people, necessarily.

[iris5426]

16. amen!

[zalinda]

18. The reason RFK Jr came out for Hillary

is because he wants her seat, plain and simple.

zalinda

[caseycoon]

22. LOL! Maybe that's it. n/t

[frogmarch]

17. I think it might

have something to do with the dedication of JFK to the civil rights movement...and Obama is half black.

[CaptJasHook]

19. Obama is the realization of the Baby Boomers Dream

I'm about to lay down some possibly offensive ideas, so be prepared.

The Kennedy's are emotionally invested in a Charming African American viable Presidential candidate. It reaffirms all of the struggles that they have had for the last 40 years. The culmination of their dreams before they retire and become irrelevant. They want very hard to believe that this is a defining moment for the kind of America for which all liberals who fought in the Civil Rights era have waited.

It also helps that Obama uses the same themes, rhetoric and cadence borrowed from JFK and MLK. At the very least you must admit that he has grown into a strong orator.

Again, if you had fought all your life to see the day when a man was judged for the content of his character and not by his race... if you had waited forty years for that moment... if you were near the end of your active life... wouldn't you make a leap of faith? My guess is that is what the Kennedys have done.

[caseycoon]

21. Yeah, I can see you're point

and if Obama were more liberal *I* would be supporting him.
I WANT LIBERAL!!!
LOL