Obama = Charismatic = Hitler = Armageddon
Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama. He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And many of Obama's less obviously deluded ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 1, 2008 08:19
Appalachian Election?
Steve Tuttle takes to the pages of Newsweek to proclaim the ascendency of Appalachia as the decider of the next president. "Hick." "Hillbilly." "Redneck." "Inbred." "Cracker." "Ridge Runner." I heard and self-effacingly used them all when I left the mountains of Appalachia to attend college in the great metropolis of Williamsburg, Va., in the '80s. I was mercilessly ribbed as a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 30, 2008 09:20
It’s a Storybook, Man
Barack Obama has ostensibly* passed the magic number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination. The media have declared him the winner. He's declared himself the nominee. Hillary Clinton hasn't acknowledged either reality, yet, but seems resigned to it. Obama Claims Victory Sen. Barack Obama achieved the 2,118 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president last night ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 4, 2008 07:07
Obama’s Jewish Problem
While much has been made of Barack Obama's problems with white working class voters, especially in Appalachia, a more problematic trend may be signs of trouble with Jewish voters, a strong if relatively small part of the Democratic base. Today's NYT features Jodi Kantor's story, "Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama." On Thursday, Mr. Obama will court Jewish voters with an ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 22, 2008 08:31
Clinton Calls Next President ‘He’
Hillary Clinton made a wee gaffe campaigning in West Virginia yesterday, which London Telegraph correspondent Alex Spillius is taking as a sign she's about to drop out. Speaking to voters in the Appalachian state, she said: “All the kitchen table issues that everybody talks to me about are ones that the next president can actually do something about, if he actually ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 13, 2008 08:53
Would Armed Campuses Be Safer?
Glenn Reynolds argues in a column in today's NY Daily News that we'd be safer if only more of us carried guns. In fact, some mass shootings have been stopped by armed citizens. Though press accounts downplayed it, the 2002 shooting at Appalachian Law School was stopped when a student retrieved a gun from his car and confronted the shooter. Likewise, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 18, 2007 10:11
TNR Continues Campaigning for Webb
The New Republic, which laid the foundation for "Macaca-gate" with an April piece on "George Allen's Race Problem - Pin Prick," is back at with a pair of articles on Allen and his Democratic challenger, James Webb. The first, Michelle Cottle's "GEORGE ALLEN'S NIGHTMARE - Webb Feat," is a clever lefthanded mash note about how Webb (in the words of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on September 8, 2006 14:32
