Bowled over by Obama
By Libby
Kristen Beam, who blogs from my old haunts in the Happy Valley, reports that her dad has queued up for Obama. [photos at link]
My dad called me Saturday night to tell me he was at a Barack Obama rally. He must have been pumped, because when I texted him later to ask him if he was going to vote for Obama, he sent back "Obama rules!"
... He's a white male registered Democrat in Central Pennsylvania and was until recently undecided about his choice for Democratic presidential candidate. ...
My dad emailed me his reactions to Obama's speech: "After 8 years of listening to GWB the bar had been lowered considerably but he was riveting to watch. It was all off the cuff and he never repeated himself for 45 minutes. The crowd was predominantly a white crowd, too. I may have been one of the oldest people there, which will hurt him in the PA primary given that PA has the second largest population of seniors in the country."
I had no idea there were so many old people in PA. That demo could well explain the discrepancy between the public displays of support and the polls that I was pondering in this post. It makes sense that they wouldn't necessarily turn out for rallies but they will most likely show up to vote for Hillary. It's her most reliable block and the only one that Obama can't easily crack. I guess we'll find out tomorrow whether those big rallies translate into enough votes to roll over it and finally end this ridiculous primary.
- Original article
- FILED UNDER: Guest Blogger
- April 21, 2008
end this ridiculous primary.
over it and finally end this ridiculous primary.
It was over when Obama lied as he was coming out of the box. He asured Tim Russert and the audience at large that he would not run for president in 2008.
Kind of like Bush lied that he wouldn't use our troops to nation build as he campaigned. Then what has he done? He used or troops to nation build.
And the 'we don't torture', and 'a wiretap needs a court order'
etc.
The primary will be over tomorrow, for Billary
...when she fails to take Pennsylvania by a large enough margin to gain the delegates she needs to maintain a credible campaign.
You heard it here first.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. ~~~John Kenneth Galbraith
If you go back through
If you go back through history you'll find lots of candidates that changed their minds and ran for president after initially saying they wouldn't do so. That does not qualify as a lie. It's called changing your mind in view of events. You've done it lots and lots of times in your life, unless you are rigid-minded and unable to be flexible.
You're pretty desperate to compare that to Bush's lies. Keep tearing down Obama. You're helping McCain to win.
Boxing vs. Wrestling
Two men, standing on opposite ends of a ladder, were ask a question "What do you see?"
The man on the bottom said, "I see the shoes of the man on top."
The man on the top responded, "I see the head of a man below."
Two men were standing in a two story house. One stood on the first floor, the other on the second floor. Each was asked a question, "What do you see?" The man on the first floor, looking up, said "I see the ceiling above."
The man on the second floor, looking down, said "I see the floor."
Hence, what one sees is predicated upon where he's standing and where he's looking. Often the discourse of human opinion is discussed from the generic--"right" or "wrong", rather than from the specific--primary vantage point or "line of sight."
The aforementioned parody is not about one's ability to be truthful about what each saw--the position of the two men. Each was honest. Each was informed and astute.
Equally, each was limited.
Both well-intentioned men, who stood on opposite sides of the spectrum, reflected that limited perspective. Thus honest, informed, and astute men were "half-right."
The importance of narrative is to offer perspective. Reporting of the facts, lends to interpretation of the story. Perception is neither true nor false, it is relative. What one thinks of the ball in the middle is viewed from that perception.
Boxing (sometimes known as pugilism, Anglais boxing, or English boxing) is a combat sport in which two participants (generally) of similar weight fight each other with their fists. Boxing today is conducted in a regulated way, typically in a series of one to three-minute intervals called rounds. Victory is achieved if the opponent is knocked down and unable to get up before the referee counts to ten (a Knockout, or KO) or if the opponent is deemed too injured to continue (a Technical Knockout, or TKO). If there is no stoppage of the fight before an agreed number of rounds, a winner is determined either by the referee's decision or by judges' scorecards. (From Wikipedia)
In 1982, Hollywood illuminated boxing on the screen in the story of Philadelphia's favorite son, Rocky Balboa.
In Rocky III,
Rocky agrees to a charity boxer vs. wrestler match with Wrestling champion, Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan). Rocky treats the whole affair as light-hearted fun, flicking gentle punches at Thunderlips, who attacks Rocky with a variety of wrestling moves, most notably Hulk Hogan's own signature move, The Atomic Leg Drop. After being thrown out of the ring, Rocky decides to remove his gloves and fights back, even managing to throw Thunderlips out of the ring himself. Just as the match degenerates into a shoot fight, the bell rings and the match is declared a draw. Thunderlips calms down, even agreeing to have his picture taken with Rocky's family. When Rocky asks Thunderlips how he got so crazy, he merely replies "That's the name of the game."
(From Wikipedia)
Politics, for far too long, has been defined as the sport of sparring between oppositions. Waxing eloquently with "jabs and hooks," politicians bob and weave through primary and caucus rings, landing blows on their opponents, in the hope of being declared the winner.
Although fighting with fists comes naturally to people, the ancient Greeks were the first to make a sport of it, by giving rules and staging tournaments with professionals.(From Wikipedia)
Albeit, boxing is a contact sport. It is not wrestling.
Politics and Pugilism:Rules of the Game