McCain’s & Obama’s greatest weaknesses?

The game is on. And voters have two very different candidates to choose from to be our next president. John McCain and Barack Obama presumably won because they were the strongest candidates of their respective parties, but both men have issues they’ll have to overcome if they want to win.

Exit polls from the primary season show that both candidates’ problems start with the economy – the number one issue for voters this election. McCain and Obama failed to get even half the votes from people worried most about the economy.

When it comes to Republican John McCain, he has his work cut out for him. He never got strong support from the traditional Republican base – people who strongly oppose abortion, are born again or evangelical Christians, or support tough actions against illegal aliens.

Also, even though McCain gets high scores for “experience” – a quality only about 25% of Republicans were looking for, more want a candidate who shares their values – and McCain only managed to get a quarter of them.

As for Obama, he hasn’t scored well among working-class whites and Hispanics – getting only about 1 in 3 of each of those group’s votes. He also has to get the backing of white Democratic women who heavily supported Hillary Clinton. And, there’s the question of race, and whether it will keep voters from supporting Obama. As for voters over 65 years old, that’s the age group where Obama was the weakest in the primaries and where McCain did best.

Here’s my question to you: What are John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s greatest weaknesses?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?

How can McCain compete with Obama’s money?

Barack Obama has been a money machine in the primary season, raising more than $272 million from primarily small donors.

It’s got to leave John McCain, who raised about $122 million, scratching his head as he sizes up his opponent for the general election.

The Politico breaks down what the money story could mean come November, especially if Obama can tap into some of Hillary Clinton’s fundraisers, who raised another 200 million dollars.

Consider this: If each of Obama’s donors gave him $250, he’d have $375 million to play with in the two months leading up to the election – that would mean almost $50 million a week. McCain’s donors number a few hundred thousand. Barack Obama has a rolodex with 1.5 million names in it. Unless John McCain can figure out a way to fatten his wallet, it could be a long slog to November.

Conservative estimates put Obama’s fundraising haul for the general election at about $300 million, an amount that would allow the Democrat to compete in more states than McCain. It could also force McCain to spend money in states that should normally be safe territory for the GOP.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party announced today that it would not accept contributions from Washington lobbyists, putting it in line with Obama’s campaign pledges. Howard Dean and the Obama campaign say that the American people’s priorities, not the special interest groups, will set the agenda in a potential Obama administration.

Here’s my question to you: How can John McCain compete with Barack Obama’s fundraising abilities?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?

Roger from Virginia writes:
After McCain’s speech Tuesday in New Orleans, he will have a tough time raising money. What a disaster that was. He used a backdrop that was a bastardization of Obama’s change theme. Stumbled, stuttered, lost his place on the Teleprompter. What was especially pitiful was when he paused for applause and there wasn’t any.

Sandy from Ohio writes:
Jack, He’ll just do what Republicans always do, take money from all the big corporations. He’ll have his good buddies George Bush and Karl Rove and the rest to show him how it is done. I live on Social Security and I am going to find a few dollars to send Obama each month. We can’t afford for McCain to win.

Sy writes:
He can’t, even with all the GOP big bucks! Wait ’til you see the money donated right after Clinton’s endorsement!

Bob from Honolulu, Hawaii writes:
Thanks, you just reminded me to send Obama another $25. It’s a better investment than my 401K.

Sondra from Phoenix writes:
McCain won’t be able to match Obama’s grassroot support donations, but he will have the Republican money-making machine behind him. He might be able to catch up with Obama in raising funds, but it will be with second or third-hand lobbyist money.

L. writes:
It’s as easy as 1-2-3. I mean 5-2-7.

JW from Georgia writes:
He can’t compete for various reasons, including funds. The Patriot John McSame is going to get beat like a rented mule. He should just have a little fun for the moment, then move on out to pasture to enjoy whatever time he has left. The GOP won’t be choosing White House wallpaper for quite some time to come, courtesy of George W. Bush.

culled from "Cafferty File".

Jim Webb for VP

Jim Webb would be my choice, but he wrote a very powerful editorial against having women in combat (twenty or thirty years ago), and choosing him as VP would complete the job of alienating the women who supported Senator Clinton.

Kathleen Sebelius is a nice woman, and seems to be doing a great job as governor, but having ovaries shouldn’t be enough to raise her above other good governors.

Caroline Kennedy is a fine person, and her volunteer work is an example to all, but she has no credentials for this level of public office.

We could run down a long list of potential VPs, but my take on this is that Obama managed, in the face of astounding odds, to prevail in this contest. He prevailed by picking talented help, inspiring loyalty, forging alliances and being very smart. I think I’ll just focus on my garden for a while, and trust that he’ll be as smart about picking a VP, as he has been about almost everything else.

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by martie

Obama hasn’t united anyone.

He separated blacks from whites
He separateed Florida and Michigan from voting
He separated women from men

Now he separated all Democrats and is still doing it by acting like he is doing Senator Clinton a “favor” to take her 18 million supporters from her.

Mr “big shot” Obama with his three years in the senate experience, knows that Clinton won this contest.

He kept Michigan and Florida’s 300 delegates from being seated to brag about his lead and to sway the superdelegates to his side. “I am the one. I have the most pledged delegates”
He never tried to seat these delegates and completely ignored the voices of these two states.

You tell me who won. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

by Rick from Pa

Hip Hop Star Raps for Obama’s Victory/ NAS

As if the celebrations weren’t enough, Senator Barack Obama’s political triumph this week has been punctuated by a two giants of hip-hop music. “Black President,” a track that surfaced on Thursday [listen here], features Nas singing along with Tupac Shakur, whose rhymes were turned into a chorus:

And although it seems heaven sent
We ain’t ready, to see a black President

Ten years after Mr. Shakur’s line emerged in “Changes,” a 1998 hit released after his death, Nas turns it into another reason to believe that there’s a “new, improved J.F.K. on the way” in 2009. Although the overall thrust of the song doesn’t mesh well with Mr. Obama’s postracial campaign, Nas falls into line splendidly by the middle of the song:

On the positive side, I think Obama provides hope
And challenges minds of all races and colors to erase the hate
And try to love one another, so many political snakes

However, the ringing endorsement from Nas, who is often credited with creating the most celebrated album in hip-hop history, does come with a few doubts:

I’m thinking I can trust this brother
But will he keep it way real?
When he wins, will he care still?

And he has doubts about voters too. On that point, though, he would happily stand corrected. “America surprise us,” he raps, “and let a black man guide us.”

BARACK OBAMA BIOGRAPHY

QUICK FACTS Born: August 4, 1961 (Hawaii) Lives in: Chicago, Illinois Zodiac Sign: Leo Height: 6' 1" (1.87m) Family: Married wife Michelle in 1992, 2 daughters Malia and Sasha Parents: Barack Obama, Sr. (from Kenya) and Ann Dunham (from Kansas) Religion: United Church of Christ Drives a: Ford Escape hybrid, Chrysler 300C Education: - Graduated: Columbia University (1983) - Major: Political Science - Law Degree from Harvard (1991) - Major: J.D. - Magna Cum Laude - Attended: Occidental College Career: U.S. Senator from Illinois sworn in January 4, 2005 Government Committees: - Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee - Foreign Relations Committee - Veterans Affairs Committee - 2005 and 2006: served on the Environment and Public Works Committee Books: - Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) - The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006) - It Takes a Nation: How Strangers Became Family in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina (2006) Barack Obama, the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois, is the first ever African-American to become the presumptive presidential nominee for a U.S. major political party. On June 3, 2008, he gained enough delegates to be nominated by the Democratic party at its national convention in August. Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton's army. Dunham's mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii. Meantime, Barack's father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama's parents were students at the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama's father went to Harvard to pursue Ph.D. studies and then returned to Kenya. His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East-West Center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng was born. Obama attended schools in Jakarta, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language. Four years later when Barack (commonly known throughout his early years as "Barry") was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in 1995).

Fears growt in africa that Obama can't win

fears grows that barack obama will not win the us presidential election, due to racial issues that americans have been trying to cover up. We in africa knows that racist still exist in the united statess, forget all juice and butter that have been writen to cover the issue. Know a black man gunning for the top office on earth, lets not decieve ourselves, he only got nominated becos hilary clinton is a female... most american cant stand receiving orders from a lady... so lets wait and see what happens ..
good luck

Obama is Europe's dream candidate, but we may have to settle for McSame

To say that Europeans will welcome President George Bush on his farewell visit to Europe next week would invite a charge of verb-abuse. Welcome is hardly the word. But they will be glad to see the back of him. His two terms have been a bad time for relations between Europe and the United States. The question now is how much better those relations will get under a President like BO.