Do you think there is a danger of Obama being "Dukakised"?

[CTyankee]

Paul Krugman quotes Bob Somerby of dailyhowler.com as saying Obama will be "treated as an alien, unsettling presence." Krugman agrees in today's column http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I know Krugman is supporting Clinton. What I am asking is if you think this will be the strategy of the Republicans to marginalize Obama in the GE as "different" from average Americans.

IMO, and I voted for Clinton in our primary but will gladly vote for Obama in the GE, this is a real possibility. It's about the only thing the Repubs can throw at him at this point. What could really make the difference, I think, is a large turnout of new and Independent voters for Obama. They are less likely to be swayed by such an argument. The new, young voter would probably feel marginalized themselves and would be likelier to sympathize with Obama.

What do you think?

[Avalux]

1. No. n/t

[Deep13]

18. Okay, thanks for putting my mind at ease.

What a relief!
:eyes:

[Avalux]

21. Good grief. We know they will try to Dukakis him.

Obama is not Dukakis and thus far has been very quick to respond to what Hillary and others have thrown his way. I expect he will continue; he's had to deal with being different his entire life.

[Deep13]

26. Maybe you are right. I can only hope so. nt

[Yupster]

30. Not by McCain

He's out of money until the convention.

[Window]

34. Not only that, McCain has enough skeletons rattling around in his closet.

[democrat_patriot]

24. It's a danger for any candidate

Repig or Democrat. I'm not sure McCain can go 6 months of HEAVY campaigning and not make a gaffe - he's done it several times already.

The variable in all of this is the media. It depends on what story they pick up on.

[mculator]

2. If danger means certainty, yes.

[ananda]

3. Well, it's clear that..

.. the media is going very easy on McCain.
That's for sure.

[babylonsister]

4. I think whoever is the Dem candidate will have to expect as much

incoming as possible, because it will happen. The question is, will it work? Judging from the people who love Obama and his message, they will hopefully have a tough time.

[RememberWellstone]

5. The shoe fits

Oh well. Told you so.

[TwilightGardener]

6. I don't know--is he dorky? Unmanly? Mock-worthy? Uncool?

My guess is, no.

[ingac70]

7. Obama was involved in setting a criminal on the streets...

to be given the chance to kill again?

What a stupid nickname for an attack... the only person that could have been "Dukakised" this election cycle was Huckabee.

[CTyankee]

20. I interpret the meaning of "Dukakasied" as "not really an American like you and me"

and even a code for "black." Dukakis was short, swarthy, a "liberal" who supported the ACLU, and from (horrors!) Massachusetts. And he had a funny sounding name. His pressing of the immigrant thing (his theme song was "Coming to America") was turned against him. I really think Dukakis lacked the political smarts that Obama has, and so wasn't able to respond well to the attacks.

[ingac70]

23. Willie Horton was what did Dukakis in....

oh, and riding in that tank.

[CTyankee]

33. Well, I remember people snarking about Dukakis as "that little Greek".

But you are right about the Willie Horton thing. I don't know why Dukakis wasn't vetted better.

Funny about the tank episode. Maybe that's why Obama is joking about his jug ears. He can afford to, since he is so photogenic. Also he's got a friendly face. Dukakis had a tendency to look mean.

I just hope Obama doesn't windsurf...

[zabet]

8. My thoughts...

if Obama wins the nomination, the GOP
will pull out all stops. They will sway
the independents and the crossover repukes
back to the fold since McCain isn't really
a 'true conservative'. The GOP has already
visibly coalesced behind McCain, the NYT
story made that quite evident...it sure faded
away quick. The repukes that voted in the Dem
primaries will vote repuke in the GE by at
least a margin of 70%.

[RaleighNCDUer]

40. What's 70% of 237? nt

[smalll]

9. No, but I see him being elected - and then Carterized.

There's a lot of parallels between Jimmy of '76 and Barack of '08.

[Deep13]

17. Yeah, that's my worry too.

Though in truth I don't expect he will get the chance. I would almost rather lose in '08 than have the party wrecked by another Carteresque screw-up. It took us twenty years to live that down.

[CTyankee]

31. I have that fear, but I also think Obama has such a wide and diverse following

that he will be in a position to attract the "best and brightest" a la JFK. Carter, I felt, was too insulated with his Georgia buddies, and his "born again" status made liberals uneasy. Obama attracts a wider swath. Hopefully, they will bring to the table a more realistic view of world politics.

I'd be interested to know about the parallels you mention. I'm trying to remember back to the Carter days and think of specifics...

[smalll]

44. You have a good point about his chance to attract a broader group of advisers.

All I was thinking of vis-a-vis Obama and Carter is this:

1) Their inexperience: Carter only had 4 years as governor (and a couple of terms in the state legislature) when he ran for President.

2) They both have kind of come out of nowhere, and beat a wide Dem primary field of well-known Democrats (I had to look up the fact that Jimmy Carter in '76 was running against Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson, Ad. Stevenson III, Jerry Brown, Frank Church, etc. etc. etc.) And they BOTH had campaigns that were well-placed and well-planned to take advantage of the new rules in play (in '76, the dominance of primaries for the first time, in '08, the surge of "open" votes, caucuses, and extremely proportional delegate allocation.)

3) People forget that in '76, Carter was seen as a youthful figure. At that point, what everyone noticed most about him was his big, toothy smile. There was glitz (which of course was all lost by the time his term as President was over.)

4) Carter certainly presented himself as an "agent of change" without using that particular phrase (borrowed out of contemporary corporate jargon) -- Carter was going to re-organize government, de-imperialize the Presidency, be Mr. Ethics after Watergate. Nixon's resignation had led to huge success for the Dems in the '74 Congressional elections (as we did well in '06 on the war) and Dems picked up a few more Congressional seats in '76. Carter seemed to be riding the winds of change, and though he only beat Ford by a couple of percentage points, when the general election campaign started, Carter was WAY ahead of Ford in the polls. Of course being an "outsider" Dem President with an overwhelmingly Dem Congress didn't do much for him.

And lastly, I just worry a little that if and when Obama runs into trouble during his Presidency, he'll age as Carter did, and also "get old real fast" in the eyes of the electorate similarly: Obama may not end up giving Malaise Speeches, but his NON-rally hesitancy in speaking, the ums and the ers, I can easily see him being painted in the end as ineffectual and befuddled. I dread the Presidential press conferences. Obama will probably just not have that many. (I really don't remember Carter's press conferences, so I'm not trying to claim any similarity there.)

[Mz Pip]

10. All the candidates are "different"

from average people.

I do think Obama will appeal to a wider rage of people than Dukakis did. The base of the Democratic party seems to like Northeastern liberals though the rest of the country seems less impressed.

[frogcycle]

11. well yeah! duh!

[blm]

12. Name ONE Democrat the RW firebreathers won't lie about on a daily basis.

.

[susankh4]

13. Highly Likely

And the article is spot on.

[flor de jasmim]

14. We cannot underestimate the importance of the grassroots movement

So many more people are committed to this election than in previous years, that any attempt such as that would probably fall flat. You can see that with the spikes in money going in to the campaign when people feel their candidate has been wrongly attacked.

Further, some of the same people who would try to do it to Obama would try it with Clinton, as well. NO DEMOCRAT would/will be immune (or off-limits)!

[greguganus]

15. As long as Obama doesn't have a photoshoot driving a tank. n/t

[Deep13]

16. At this point, I expect it is a certainty.

The Rs are holding back until the D's paint ourselves into a corner again, just like they did with Kerry.

[flor de jasmim]

19. Maybe a cheery, "There you go again" would work... ;-) (n/t)

[MethuenProgressive]

22. The Duke was a real liberal. So no way Obama will be treated as Mike was.

That's what I think.

[scheming daemons]

25. 2008 is not 1988

The younger generation.... those under 35... were not even able to vote when Dukakis ran.

The "post-boomer" generations are much less "tribal" in their thinking and much more comfortable with those of different races and ethnic groups than their parents are/were.

The percentage of adults that are afraid of "scary black men" in this country continues to dwindle as the older generations die off.

Obama couldn't do what he is doing if it were 1988.

But it's not.

[redqueen]

27. Obama will be treated like blah blah blah?

Um... ANY Dem will be treated like a liar, traitor, and overall incompetent and corrupt person.

This is just dumb.

[shayes51]

Absolutely.

[Not the Only One]

28. Yes

There's a danger there will be a photoshop of Obama hugging Osama bin Laden in an ad, too.

Obama will have the kitchen sink thrown at him.

Lucky for us, he's an extremely nimble politician, like Neo dodging a bullet.

[MonkeyFunk]

29. Well I've said for a long time that that's the tactic

the republicans will try - to portray Obama as insufficiently American.

[MBS]

32. No, he won't be "Dukakised"

Just look at Obama's campaign. His campaign has been VERY well run, they're responding quickly (and with style) to smears, he's a very strong candidate, and his surrogates are also helping him, both to further his cause, and to tamp down the smears.(On a personal, and local-MA level, I like Dukakis a lot, so I don't mean to cast aspersions -- he's a very nice guy,good guy. But, as a national campaign, Obama's is by far the stronger).

Honestly, I don't know where Krugman is coming from these days.

[CTyankee]

36. Krugman supports Hillary. He was using this example to point out that we know

what will be used against HRC because we've already seen it. But with Obama we won't know till the GE. Frankly, I don't think that is a strong argument FOR HIllary.

[Thrill]

35. Dukakis wasn't nearly the candidate Obama is

[CTyankee]

39. No, he's not. And that's the flaw in the argument.

Most revealing is the difference of demeanor between the two men. Dukakis scowled too much and didn't have any roaring speeches. His campaign actually made a big point about how stingy he was! Mean and stingy don't get you much in a presidential campaign!

He also didn't show any outrage at the "what would you do if Kitty was raped" question. It made me feel relieved that I wasn't Kitty, at the time...

Oh, and Kitty had a drug/depression problem. Michele, who has probably learned from her misfire on the "proud to be an American" comment, is coming off as a lovely, articulate, smart woman. I know I'm not being fair to Kitty Dukakis, here, but I'm describing the way she was made to look, and that was really a terrible thing for the Repubs to do.

[oasis]

37. Sadly, Obama is a Democratic disaster waiting to happen. (eom)

[Neshanic]

38. Does a bear shit in the woods?

[Carrieyazel]

41. It's happening right now. "Hussein", the picture, plagiarism, Michelle's comments

Most of this stuff is coming from the other side. (Not so much from Hillary). They started the real hits in mid-February and its going to increase in intensity.

[CTyankee]

42. But it's pretty thin gruel, you must admit.

If Michele watches what she says in the future -- and I fully expect that she will do so -- that will go away. The plagiarism stuff is too silly. As for Hussein, that is just weird. Nothing of any substance at this point, but we shall see down the road...

[cryte9]

43. He can be Dukakised easier than Sen. Clinton