Sunny, how many Democrats in Ohio did you call, and how many responded in the way you describe? FWIW, 538.com rates “Obama loses Ohio, wins election” as a 79% chance.

Sunny,

It would take a miracle for John McCain to become the next President of the USA. Short of that dirty tricks on an unprecedented level.

Straws in the wind:

The Governer of Florida, one Charlie Crist (a Republican!) has agreed to extend voting hours. So, not every Republican is the devil incarnate. apparently he believes in electoral rights. That is one Republican I could vote for. So, strike one.

Nate Silver @ fivethirtyeight.com has Obama at a 348 / 199 advantage in electoral votes.

And the very wonderful Rachel Maddow says this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#27427362

You are doing a great thing in getting out the vote. Which is the point.

If democracy is to mean anything worthwhile, the McCain/ Palin idiocy has to be beaten. We, the people, have to be better than that.

Strange, that. Another comment gone into limbo.

Keep repeating the line that the only way to beat conservatives is to behave like conservatives and in the end you’ll turn into a conservative.

At least then you can say you beat those nasty people who had the gall to oppose you. Well you’ll have to, because you won’t have changed anything else except the faces.

depends on what selection of people you were calling… you say it was ‘democrat supporters’… you might have been calling a specific area with certain exceptional characteristics etc, it is very confusing when it is not a representative sample used in a true ‘opinion poll’

I haven’t seen state by state polls that include Nader and Barr recently. At least in August, Nader was having the odd effect of taking votes off McCain in Pennsylvania. So, Penn. might be safer than it appears for Obama.

‘it’s the only way Democrats will become good at playing Republicans ‘

Truer with the words ‘good at playing’ removed.

You might as well argue that the Democrats would be leading more if they were calling for bigger tax cuts for the rich paid for by more foreign wars and explained by less teaching of arithmetic in schools…

Oh come on, its rubbish to say that a bit of aggression will turn Democrats into Republicans.

the only thing separating them isn’t merely aggression – you should try living here and seeing how far apart conservatives and liberals are – how far apart the policies Republicans and Democrats actually support.

In comparison, the UK is way more centrist than the USA. aggression isn’t the only thing separating the two parties.

Sunny,
I think you should try counting the independents and non-voters too.

Keep repeating the line that the only way to beat conservatives is to behave like conservatives and in the end you’ll turn into a conservative. ~ Thomas

I suppose when you’ve lost two elections because of your opponent’s vicious – unanswered attacks – the consensus is that you toughen up.

US elections, going back to the founding fathers, have been incredibly aggressive – with the latter-day low point being LBJ’s attacks on Goldwater.

I think the most endearing aspect of Mr. Olbermann and Ms. Maddow is that they really piss-off conservatives.

That in itself should be enough for lifetime tenure.

I watch/listen to both every day. Indeed, Olbermann’s daily battle with Bill O’Reilly is brilliant.

If Obama wins in spite of his “lack of open aggression”, will anyone conclude that there is more to winning than hatred?

I don’t think it is accurate to say that previous elections the mud was slung only in one direction, just as it isn’t this time. The difference is that it isn’t the Obama’s campaign team which is getting it’s hands dirty – mudslinging will happen anyway, so why waste political capital being seen actively trying to encourage it when you can use it to complement your more focussed narrative? Not discouraging it is just as effective and can be more so if you don’t get distracted by it.

I also don’t think it is wholly accurate to say that the democrats lost the elections in 2000 or 2004 – they lost the counts (which matters more)!

“Keep repeating the line that the only way to beat conservatives is to behave like conservatives and in the end you’ll turn into a conservative. ”

What an idiotic comment, and so typical of late night student debating society nonsense. Politics is about power, and with out power you can’t do anything. Conservatives have no particular love of democracy, it is just a means to an end. Republicans play to win, and they usually do. No one is saying you have to turn into baby eating monsters to win elections, but you have to fight, and fight hard. And that means attacking your opponents weaknesses.

Democrats should have had this election in the bag long ago. Bush is seen as a disastrous president, Iraq has been a disaster, and the economy is shit. McCain has supported all of this rubbish. But far too many Dems, including Biden and Kerry, still say, “ John McCain is a good man but,” No, McCain is not a good man. He is a two faced, rightwing toe rag, who has a history off double talk and bullshit. His record is there and should be exposed over and over again.

Sunny,

Is this what your getting at?

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_runs_constructive_criticism

The minor flaw with that analysis, sally, is that with elections nothing is in the bag until polling day, and even then strange things can still happen.

Yes, politics is about power, but it’s all too easy to let your determination to take it corrupt your ability to use it.

It is quite easy to make a counterfactual case for both Kerry and Gore to have made worse presidents than George W Bush however much that rubs up against your personal prejudices, so don’t try being wise after the event.

Here’s the latest attack:

John McCain’s campaign is making what appears to be a final, full-throated effort to paint Barack Obama as a sympathizer with the Muslim world. In the process they are putting out into the public domain as many images as possible of Obama’s face cast over a map of the Middle East.

The latest salvo came Wednesday afternoon, when the Republican nominee released a web ad placing Obama’s visage in front of an outline of Iran, and presenting aspects of the Senator’s foreign policy alongside music traditionally associated with a Muslim call to prayer.

“Obama doesn’t have preconditions but Iran does. Iran, whose president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel must be wiped off the map. Iran demands that the U.S. must cease its support of Israel and that all U.S. military forces must leave the Middle East, meaning we abandon Iraq, Turkey and Kuwait. What will Obama do? Will he admit he was wrong or will he accept Iran’s demands?’

You guys can sit on your high horses and claim aggression means turning into Republicans, but if you don’t win any elections because you’re sitting around on the sidelines complaining how nasty the opposition is – then you won’t get anywhere.

You need to stop hypothesising, Sunny, it’s making you paranoid.

The best way to respond to scare-mongering and insult is not to get angry, but to retain your dignity by getting on with the job at hand.

Andrew Sachs has behaved in an exemplary manner over the last couple of days, he could teach you a thing or two about how to resist the urges of temptation. He’s got a lot further by ignoring all of the noise than any amount of lawsuits and he’s done it a lot faster too.

Those attack ads might reduce the gap, but they won’t bridge it – and in the end it may actually be a good thing that the dems don’t win massive house and senate majorities because it will force them to be more pragmatic in the day-to-day business of government.

Obama can’t go negative in the last month before the election, since he’s based his entire appeal on a new kind of politics without division. As well, whether it’s his lack of traditional experience, or the fact that some Americans don’t trust whatever an African-American says (he’s not born in Hawaii; he’s not Christian; he’s a socialist), Obama simply couldn’t say right out that McCain is “a two faced, rightwing toe rag, who has a history off double talk and bullshit.” Until the country got to know him — and it’s a bit worrying that half the infomercial last night concentrated on Obama’s core values, they still don’t quite buy he’s the guy he says he is — he didn’t have the credibility. I think the Obama team should just count its lucky stars that McCain didn’t pick Lieberman/Ridge/Pawlenty/Crist, and that McCain didn’t use the socialism scare earlier.

You guys can sit on your high horses and claim aggression means turning into Republicans, but if you don’t win any elections because you’re sitting around on the sidelines complaining how nasty the opposition is – then you won’t get anywhere.

Ah… the strident Sunny, heh.

You know I think you have a point but my real concern is what it will do to our politics, and importantly political participation, over here.

When we get divisive and polarise we take the streets and riot.

Sunny is right. Thomas is wrong.
To find out why, everyone on this thread — and everyone who reads LIBERAL CONSPIRACY — should read Drew Westen’s superb tome, ‘THE POLITICAL BRAIN’. (See e.g. my previous posts on this on ‘Rupert’s read’, e.g. http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2008/08/we-have-right-policies-so-how-we-make.html ).

Strange use of capitals, Rupert! Obama is doing well because he has been able to transcend the muck being thrown at him by the GOP – that doesn’t mean he has been sitting on his hands:

“…unlike the timid Kerry campaign (which didn’t initially hit back hard against SBVT), the Obama campaign has aggressively countered the attacks, urging TV stations not to run them, challenging the legality of certain organizations, debunking false charges on the website FightTheSmears.com and launching response ads of its own.” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081110/berman)

He is trying to project a new politics that goes beyond personal destruction. And for everyone who thinks the Democrats aren’t aggressive, you should read the reports of Democratic volunteer activity on Daily Kos, and on the Off The Bus section on HuffPo.

“if McCain flips Pennsylvania red while hanging on to Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado” – that ain’t gonna happen!

Ah, the Rupert and the Green Party – truly the font of all wisdom!