The Star Tribune releases polls today showing any Democrat beating John McCain in Minnesota by about 10 points. Barack Obama in particular does very well, showing numbers similar to Amy Klobuchar’s lead over Mark Kennedy in last cycle’s U.S. Senate race at this point. What does this mean? If the year plays out the way it’s looking, Minnesota might not be quite the battleground it was in 2004 and Tim Pawlenty probably won’t be McCain’s VP selection.
That said, this has been a year that defies conventional thinking. Democrats should feel good, but never safe, until the votes are counted.
While things look solid for the Dems now in Minnesota, I think that Obama is going to have a lot of trouble. Can he win Minnesota? Of course, but it’s way too early at this point. Obama will win the inner-city vote and some white collar suburban vote, but he is going to have a lot of trouble in rural Minnesota. Also, McCain is the type of Republican that a lot of blue collar Democrats will like as he is more of an economic populist.
Obama may win, but I doubt that whoever wins will have a margin bigger than 3 points.
He will not have trouble in rural MN. Right now people are still fuming because Hillary is not going to be the nominee. McCain is not an economic populist. He will continue the tax breaks for people in the upper income levels (who don’t need them) and will not offer any solutions for lower and middle class Americans (who occupy the greater percentage in rural areas). Where do you get economic populism from McCain? He is a continuation of the Bush policies; both domestic and foreign. Obama will win MN because people have woken up to the lie that Bush and the Republicans have perpetuated in our government.
McCain voted against both of Bush’s tax cuts and has never been in favor of cutting taxes. As a fiscal conservative, I wish he would. He’s not a socialist like Obama, but he’s hardly a conservative.
As for Obama, the only thing I have heard from him is that he’s for “hope” and “change”. He has the most liberal voting record in the US Senate in the four years he’s been there. When he first ran for the Illinois State Senate, he said that he was in favor of banning private ownership of guns. When you combine that with his comments before the Pennsylvania primary about “bitter” individuals and the Reverend Wright controversy, I think Obama will have a lot of trouble in rural areas.
Obama’s poll numbers may look good right now, but I have a feeling he’ll have major problems in the key states in the coming months. To win the presidency, you need to win two of the following three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. As of right now, I don’t see him winning any of them, much less two.
The only reason that you don’t know more about Obama than his hope and change message is because that is all you want to hear. It is easy to bash and say he has no substance if you have never looked into his policies. Which apparently, you have not, because he does have very substantive policy proposals that will actually help the middle class (the Republicans have only helped the privileged over the last eight years and McCain would be a continuation of that).
As a member of the IL senate Barack Obama was a cosponsor of legislation that passed and provided the largest tax cut in state history. Since the beginning of his campaign, Barack Obama has been advocating a broad-based middle class tax cut (actually helping people who need it, instead of the top 5% of our country –Bush and McCain).
While the last five Republican Presidents promised fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, all of them grew discretionary civilian spending by tremendous amounts, and ran up ever larger deficits. A big problem with the federal budget is that almost nobody knows where all the money is going; its easy to add earmarks and pork barrel spending and special interest giveaways when the people back home cant tell the difference. Sen. Barack Obama’s major legislative accomplishment in the Senate, the The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 has been to bring transparency to federal spending.
The most liberal record in the senate. What exactly does that mean. Please explain with concrete examples of why his voting record is bad for the American people.
As far as gun control is concerned, he in no way wants to take guns from people, especially those that hunt. It would be helpful if you could provide specifics regarding Obama’s gun policy instead of just making a blanket statement. He has stated in the past that he wants to stop unscrupulous gun dealers dumping from guns in cities (Jul 2007). He wants to keep guns out of inner cities (Oct 2006). You have to admit that there are a inner cities have different issues than rural areas when it comes to gun control.
As far as civil liberties are concerned why don’t we take a look at what Republicans have provided us with over the last eight years:
Warrantless domestic wiretapping,
warrantless searches and seizures,
arresting U.S. citizens without probable cause, holding them without trial, etc., etc….No REAL conservative believes these things are legitimate perrogatives of the federal government.
BITTER!!! I am bitter. I am a middle class rural American who is fed up with being fed BS by our government. I have spoken with and heard from many Americans who have said that they are sorry they ever voted for a Republican – specifically Bush in the last two presidential elections. They were hoodwinked into believing that the Republican had their best interests at heart. The deal was sealed when the Republican candidate utilized wedge issues such as Religion, Guns, Gay Marriage, Abortion, etc. to seal the deal. Now, eight years later, people are waking up and figuring out that they are no better off than they were eight years ago. When Barack Obama made his bitter comments he was referring to the fact that our government, collectively, has not been able deliver on economic promises and so people become bitter and cynical and they vote on wedge issues.
Actually, Obama does have a good chance of winning any of those three states that you listed and he also has a good chance of winning NM, CO, NV, WI, MI, IA–several of which would not be in play if Obama were not the nominee.
McCain is an extension of Bush and Bush has not been that helpful over the last eight years. It is going to be tough for McCain to distance himself from that and last week — with Bush’s statement at the Knesset — that just go tougher.
Wow, it sounds like Obama is going to save the world!
Yes, Obama did say he favored a ban on private ownership of guns on a questionairre he filled out when first running for the state legislature. I have never heard before that he sponsored the largest tax cut in Illinois state history. Somehow I doubt if it’s true, or seriously taken out of context.
I think it’s fairly clear what Obama was talking about with his bitter comments. I don’t know how somebody could think something else after listening to them.
Obama had better win IA, WI, and MI, as them Dems have won those states the last two elections while still losing the presidency. I doubt if he’ll have much of a chance at either Nevada or Colorado. New Mexico may be a possibility.
As far as taxes are concerned, where do you get that McCain supports only helping the top five percent? And do you really believe Obama will only have a middle class tax cut? I personally wish that we’d have one tax rate for everybody, for all types of income, with limited or no deductions allowed. It’s because of all of these that the “rich” are able to murder the system. As long as there are deductions, the lawyers and accountants that “the rich” have will always figure out ways to avoid paying taxes. It’s almost funny to hear how politicians always want to “close the loopholes”. Do you honestly think that is possible in the current tax system?