From commenter FreeThinke in THIS THREAD here at Always On Watch:
Sorry to have to be the one to say it, but Obama will win in November simply because he's so "cute." He has "charisma."The average person doesn't know anything about "policy" and couldn't care less. Obama, whether YOU think so or not, has "Charisma."
Ever since the disaster of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, "Sex Appeal" has largely been the determining factor in American politics.
Most people do NOT think, do not KNOW, and do not CARE. They just FEEL.
If this were not true, why else do you think the Lie Factories of the Ad Industry have been so enormously successful?
The public has been deliberately "dumbed down" for the past hundred years. This has conditioned most of us to ACCEPT the ever growing amounts of [excrement] that gets forced down our throats every day.
We've been SEDUCED and then BRAINWASHED by crafty manipulators. There could be no other logical explanation for what has happened.
Opposing view HERE in "The President Plays Small Ball" by Charles Krauthammer.
I think he makes good points but I disagree.
ReplyDelete-I don't think he has quite the sex appeal that he had in 2008. His one big advantage in 2008 is he was an unknown. Now people know him and he has appeared small and petty. He is indecisive and often dishonest, although he is slick about it.
-I think the media will have a diminished role. The public is starting to see the far left media for what it is. Aiding this is a right-wing that is tired of being pushed around by them and are fighting back. See Gingrich in South Carolina (at the debate) or Alan West and his refusal to walk back his comments about the left ("get the hell out") in the face of media outrage.
-Finally to whether the average person understands policy. I largely agree although I think voters are becoming a little more educated via the internet and cable news (sometimes they are getting misinformation...). What people do understand though is that they, or their children, or neighbor, or family member, or etc, are unemployed. I think one of the themes in this election is that Obama had his chance and blew it. Not everyone will think this but it is possible enough will.
I still think this election is the GOP's to lose.
Excellent quote!
ReplyDeleteIf you go on nothing but appearance, which most voters sadly do, putting Obama next to the frail and doddering McCain was suicide.
The same would go with Newt, but not as extreme.
At this point it looks like it is out of our hands. The Tea Party, for the most part, is non-existent in the process now. How soon the GOP forgets us.
ReplyDeleteSocial scientists with decades of voter survey data back up what FT is saying.
ReplyDeleteVoters do not let facts get in the way of emotional impressions.
Ronald Reagan was a great man of substance, but his campaigns were powered by campaign ads full of gauzy patriotic themes that tapped a deep well of emotion in voters.
I tend to agree. Not only that, but when I was in Minnesota all of my very liberal relatives received 100% of their "news" from a cursory look at either the St. Paul Pioneer Press or the Mpls Star Trib - both commie rags. If they listened to the radio it was NPR. I have never seen such willful ignorance wrapped up tightly in arrogance.
ReplyDeleteHow about My Quote, "Mittens, brought to you by the land of the hanging chad."
ReplyDeleteMost people do NOT think, do not KNOW, and do not CARE. They just FEEL.
ReplyDelete--------
Hence the popularity of shallow pundits like the Krautzenjammer kid.
There are some who voted for Obama because he was Black, some because he was charismatic. Just watch Jay Leno when he does his "Jay Walking" segment. 90% of the people he interviews on the street are ignorant of basic politics, current events, they don't know the name of the VP or anybody else -- but many voted for Obama
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
Krauthammer's a Mondale flunkie. His political predictions usually have the success of Mondale's 1984 Presidential run.
ReplyDelete'Nuff said.
But, there is an easy guess there. If Mittens smears his way to the GOP nomination, the backlash from the 70% of the GOP rank and file that consider themselves conservatives and detest Mitt Romney will prove Obama is the "more electable" candidate.
Me, I'd much rather Obama be re-elected than go another Presidential cycle forced to hold my nose for another godddamned wishy-washy left-moderate.
Right back at ya:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3FppzmG8g&list=UUVdNl9H0d_YcJR5Yq3rBobQ&index=1&feature=plcp
Thank for featuring that comment, AOW. I had no idea anyone would see it as especially important, but I'm glad to learn that most of us see eye to eye on the way we, the public, have been systematically "conditioned" and indoctrinated; Having been born early enough to remember better times and having been peculiarly aware from an early age I spotted this decline coming on more than 45 years ago.
ReplyDeleteYou said something significant, yourself, along these same lines on the "Dumber" thread (illustrated with the big red apple). Here are your words:
"The sad reality today is that teacher training, for all its bells and whistles, actively promotes dumbing down. Teacher training has been doing so for 40 years that I personally know of. ...
"Sadly, parents today have bought into the wrong-headed idea that bells and whistles (fancy textbooks, for example) promote learning. Instead, as you pointed out, what we have today in mainstream education is creating an easily manipulated population."
Yes to all of that. To "fancy textbooks" I would add, new buildings, ever-increasing teachers' salaries, computers and other electronic gewgaws in the classroom, "sensitivity training," sex-education, "life-adjustment curricula," and of course the replacement of Prayer and Bible reading with the devout Worship-of Political-Correctness, which to all intents and purposes has become our new "god."
Only the Truth could set us free, but with an Educational Establishment and a Popular Culture fed from the same warped sources dedicated to denying, obscuring, defaming, discrediting and if-possibly burying the Truth, it may take hundreds of years before people start "Seeing the Light" for themselves one again.
Georges Santayana was so right when he said, "Those who cannot remember the past will be condemned to repeat it."
Apparently history has been one long Vicious Cycle.
Prayer is the only antidote, but it works only for the individual. Society as a while can never be "saved."
Nevertheless, continue to "Fight the good fight with all of thy might."
The alternative is to surrender oneself to the Forces of Darkness.
~ FreeThinke
Hmmm ? gotta agree he had great handlers in the last election, but the majority of them have jumped ship. I don't think Barry can pull another fast one this time around. Unless of course the GOP screws up royally! It could happen i guess.
ReplyDeleteFT,
ReplyDeleteYears ago, a friend of mine said that one contributing factor to worsening education was turning teaching into a career (as opposed to teaching having been a CALLING for centuries).
At the time, I didn't see Margaret's point.
I do now.
Teaching requires a dedication to an art.
I am of the belief that the art of teaching cannot be taught. Now, good teacher training does fine tune the art, but teacher training doesn't CREATE the art. No amount of teacher training teaches how to recognize and effectively use the teachable moment (and still fulfill core-curriculum requirements.
Right now, the field of education is fascinated (obsessed?) with using technology in the educational process. Certainly, technology can be a wonderful learning tool. But much technology doesn't an education make. In fact, research is now showing that all this computer time and device time may be rewiring the brain in ways that are too much like Brave New World. Instead of freeing us up to analyze and to think critically, the opposite is happening so that dumbing down is all dressed up.
Our educational process today creates sheeple, the willing serfs of the government. It's all so discouraging. I'm glad that I'm as old as I am.
Adrienne,
ReplyDeleteThose of us in the right-side blogosphere often forget that the vast majority of voters get their "information" from the mainstream media.
Paladin,
ReplyDeleteRight after the 2008 Election, I pointed out some facts on the web to my liberal neighbor's even-more-to-the-left son. He gasped!
I note that he's no longer singing the praises of BHO now. However, I can't see my neighbor's son voting for the GOP candidate, whoever that is.
You rightly point out that many of BHO's 2008 supporters have jumped ship. But will they vote at all or vote GOP? All of the former supporters with whom I have spoken do not like ANY of the GOP candidates enough to vote against Obama.
Brian,
ReplyDeleteDo you regard Bill Maher as a pundit?
BZ,
ReplyDeleteThe cost of "Free Cheese" escalates:
Economic woes have forced at least one city agency into a hiring spree -- adding more workers to process the demand for food stamps and other assistance.
The Human Resources Administration added more than 100 workers last July and plans to hire another 100 to serve the burgeoning number of New Yorkers applying for food stamps and rent assistance at their offices, according to the Daily News.
About 1.8 million New Yorkers are now on food stamps, which marks nearly a 65 percent increase from four years ago, according to city records. The increase in applicants has led to overcrowding at HRA offices throughout the city, and the agency said at a council hearing Tuesday that it had to hire scores of new workers and supervisors to manage the situation....
Chuck,
ReplyDeleteObama's slickness may serve him better than we'd like to think.
As for the role of the mainstream media, there may indeed be some diminishment going on. But I doubt that enough voters distrust the mainstream media enough to vote against Obama.
Brooke,
ReplyDeleteIf you go on nothing but appearance, which most voters sadly do, putting Obama next to the frail and doddering McCain was suicide.
The same would go with Newt, but not as extreme.
I've been thinking the same thing.
Beamish,
ReplyDeleteIf Mittens smears his way to the GOP nomination, the backlash from the 70% of the GOP rank and file that consider themselves conservatives and detest Mitt Romney will prove Obama is the "more electable" candidate.
I tend to agree.
However, I do know many who will vote ABO (Anybody But Obama). In that group are those who are groaning under the load of this ailing economy. And I mean REALLY groaning. In such economic circumstances, any port in a storm will apply.
Honestly, I don't see either Gingrich or Romney trouncing Obama in November.
Debbie,
ReplyDeleteThose Jay Walking segments are depressing. Oh, sure, I laugh, but it's a very wry laugh.
Got a hellfire and brimstone conservative "let's rally the troops and go whoop some lefty Obama ass" post up at my place today. It's a long one, with pictures :P
ReplyDeleteDrop by and disseminate it to all the commandos you know behind enemy lines ;)
Rage against the Tea-stablishment update: If the GOP is FORCED to follow its own delegate allocation rules, NEWT GINGRICH WON FLORIDA!
ReplyDeleteI hope he's wrong, but i see a lot of truth in what he says so....
ReplyDeleteI just hope he's wrong.
Free Thinke makes some good points but I disagree with his conclusion. If you look at each state and compare the number of people who voted for Obama versus McCain in many of the states there wasn't it wasn't a big margin between the two. People have awoken and others who supported Obama because they wanted him to be the first African-American president have become disenfranchised so I suspect some will stay home on election day. Plus, a number of liberal Catholics have already stated that they will not vote for Obama due to the outrageous anti-freedom contraception mandate.
ReplyDeleteJust to provide a little clarification:
ReplyDeleteThe remark AOW was kind enough to quote was not really about Obama per se, but much more about the way our society has been molded and manipulated over the past hundred years by forces we do not know and cannot name who are not in any way accountable to us either as a people or as individuals.
The election of Obama -- along with the choice of John McCain as his opponent -- was the product of decisions made by veritable "puppeteers" in high places.
"The Will of the People" is rarely-if-ever taken into account.
Sorry to appear so cynical, but we live by The Golden Rule -- i.e. They Who Have the Most Gold Rule.
It is painfully obvious to me that Romney is not WINNING this nomination, he is BUYING it -- and The Establishment of BOTH parties has done everything possible to aid and abet him in his quest for purposes of their own. Romney is THEIR man. He is ONE of "THEM."
If Romney gets to the White House, aside from a few new bits of window dressing, nothing will change but the color of the president's skin.
Sad!
~ FreeThinke
Interesting NRO article, Beamish, but I doubt if Newt's "threat" will be permitted to go anywhere -- for the reasons I cited in the post directly above.
ReplyDeleteThe Establishment was ROMNEY.
What all of US want doesn't matter in the least to The Establishment.
The OLIGARCHS make all the important decisions FOR us.
If that were not the case, why ELSE would things be as screwed up as they obviously are?
The People are not inherently stupid, but they HAVE been INDOCTRINATED.
~ FreeThinke
The electorate is easily swayed..perhaps the founders understood this better than us and thus established the electoral college to counter the mob mentality.....????
ReplyDeleteChallenges to a repeat of Obama term
--no longer the 1st black President
--Census results moved electoral votes to Southern States.
--Margin between Obama McCain was small in many normally Red States
--Economy despite what the news says people know when they dont have a job
Folks look at the number of Demos not seeking reelection. We just had another in NC as the Governor has said she is stepping down against a challenger she trounced just 4 years ago.....
Blogginator,
ReplyDeleteOur Founders had a great distrust of pure democracy.
For all the peculiarities of the electoral college, I think that our Founders knew what they were doing.
Also note how United States Senators used to get into office. That was another safeguard that America has thrown away.
I have to agree in large measure with freethinke. I have a friend who calls me after watching a particularly good segment on Fox News or listening on Talk Radio in which Obama's radical, corrupt and incompetent policies are exposed. He tells me that Obama can't possibly be re-elected with news like that.
ReplyDeleteI have to remind him that while he may watch Fox News or listen to Talk radio where such subjects are thoroughly discussed, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not.
The most popular program on Fox News is the O"Reilly Factor. On his best night Bill might get 4 million viewers. Usually a million fewer:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/02/02/cable-news-ratings-for-wednesday-february-1-2012/118438/
On that same night ABC NBC CBS might share 22 million households between them.
Out of 100 million television viewing households that leaves nearly 75% watching something else. The only exposure they get to news is what they hear during commercials as they are flipping channels with the remote.
If we want to beat Obama, it's up to every well informed American on our side to reach out to their friends, family and associates and give them the information that they need to become better informed.
Take today's unemployment news for example. Share the chart showing how participation in the workforce has dropped and how many millions of Americans are out of work in addition to the 8.3%:
http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/2012/02/under-obama-workforce-participation.html
Remind your friends that Obama promised that unemployment by now would be ~6% if he got his stimulus spending bill.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI have to remind him that while he may watch Fox News or listen to Talk radio where such subjects are thoroughly discussed, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not.
Those of us caught up in scouring the web for the truth are indeed the minority of Americans.
I am very concerned that this fact will be the overriding contributing factor in Obama's re-election.
PS: Thanks for that link to your important post about workforce participation!