Big Trouble in Obamaland

Glenn Reynolds notices that all is not hunky dory with the Obama campaign:

JIM WOOTEN: Panic sets in for Obama, Democrats. "Barack Obama knows it. The election he had in the bag is slipping away." He could still win it, but the fact that he's acting panicky, with wild swings, isn't helping him. Plus, it suggests that he can't handle pressure, which has been a rap on him from the beginning.

Those molestation claims from Randi Rhodes aren't helping, either. Jeez. Plus this report: "Barack Obama and his senior advisers are under fire for ignoring the advice of Democratic senators and governors who are concerned that they do not know how to beat John McCain. . . . A senior Democratic strategist, who has played a prominent role in two presidential campaigns, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'These guys are on the verge of blowing the greatest gimme in the history of American politics. They're the most arrogant bunch Ive ever seen. They won't accept that they are losing and they won't listen.'" Yes, as I said earlier, hubris coupled with poor execution is not a recipe for success. Nice to see that the Democratic leadership agrees with my analysis.

UPDATE: Barry Dauphin thinks it's psychological: "One thing I have noticed. No matter who McCain is up against (be it Republicans or Democrats), he has an uncanny ability to get under the skin of his opponents. Most of his opponents become virtually apoplectic at some point. They make mistakes. And he simply smiles."

Time for my Hot Sports Opinion (see Glossary here). Fanfare please... :

You did not want to tell yourselves this, but admit it: you saw this coming. It was only a matter of time. A man who wants to be the most powerful man in the world, yet who simultaneously has spent all of his money and energy since June trying to concel from the electorate at large what he is really about and who he really is. Who doesn't want you to know. Because if a large majority of the American people truly understood who he is and who is behind him, he would be facing a tsunami of Red States.

Barack Obama is a Marxist. He has NO experience leading anything, ever. None. Zilch. He is the Lee Harvey Oswald of Presidential candidates. And just as dangerous.

Obama's primary post graduate experience consists of organizing and coordinating rabble-rousers, overseeing Hard Left educational initiatives, and "organizing" a community of paid vote gatherers (and YOU are paying for it...)

In truth the only real asset I see in Obama is his abilility to talk like a slick trial lawyer. That is it.

In virtually every election he has ever participated in, his thugs and sleazy lawyers have completely removed or else utterly discredited any opposition before a vote was ever cast. He has run unopposed multiple times. Other major competitors have been litigated out of the race by messy divorce scandals, Chicago machine politics, corrupt politicians, lawyers on the take, and an ugly, ruthless smear machine that will do ANYTHING to win. His machine.

Obama has achieved his current position with some incredible luck, and with the well-disguised assistance of very wealthy, very powerful, and very shady surrogates operating in the background. It is almost as if Obama is pretty boy figurehead--a weak, non-exceptional puppet of the real string-pullers. People that expect--and will get--payback. Just a thougt...

But seriously: Soros. Daley. Rezko. Ayers. Wright. Axelrod. Moore. A chorous of angry-at-life Kossacks, amoral relativist lawyers, clueless Hollywood elites, media sellouts angling for the best Georgetown parties, and even Anarchist Leftists.

For instance there are two Austin slugs who were arrested in Minneapolis for wanting to toss molotov cocktails at police cars and convention-goers. Who now turn out to be the prime suspects in the torching of the Texas Governors Mansion. The Left should be very proud. It makes me ashamed of my own hometown. It as if my old stomping grounds were now populated by people caught up in a War of the Worlds-like mass hysteria. (H.G. Wells was a Marxist also...)

Then there are the ACORN groups with which Obama was so intimately involved; ACORN is an organization funded by your tax dollars, whose leaders in various cities have been indicted for Voter Fraud ,fabricating voter registration rolls, enlisting illegals to vote early and often, etc. Obama's claim to fame is that helped to organize a "community" associated with the most notorious election-fixers in the United States.

And for this he should be President?? Hell he should not even be Mayor of Wasilla.

So far, a majority of the public is not even aware of these details--nor do they care to know. All they know or care about is that Obama is Black and has a (D) after his name. Period. No matter what kind of psycho he might be. Meanwhile his handlers insist that this is all voters should care about--other than that George Bush has an (R) after his...

The smear attacks on Sarah Palin may be ill advised strategically--but on the other hand they do accomplish one thing: they take attention away from Obama and what he is. To the Obama campaign the risk of overwhelming backlash is obviously less important than keeping the public clueless about Obama.

This is the only way they win. They must keep a majority of their voters oblivious to the legioins of disturbing facts about their man. Right now that effort does not seem to be succeeding.

Might be a good time to buy some McCain futures. Via Neo-Neocon:

There’s been a huge buzz over Obama’s essentially unfunny jokes featuring lipstick on a pig and stinky old fish. The question: did he or didn’t he mean the jabs to refer to Sarah Palin? Only Barack Obama knows for sure, and he’s not telling.

But even if we assume the most benign explanation — that he meant to allude to the McCain campaign in general and not Palin in particular — the crowd’s quick and delighted whoop of laughter at his remarks indicates many listeners saw them as a dig at Palin. Palin’s earlier joke about pit bulls and lipstick had gotten such widespread coverage that the connection was immediate and visceral.

One can only conclude that either Obama knew exactly what association he was conjuring up (in which case his judgment should be questioned), or he was unaware of what should have been glaringly obvious to him (in which case his judgment should be questioned). For a man who is supposed to be both intelligent and sensitive, he seems to have become profoundly tone-deaf.

The race for the U.S. presidency is one of the longest and toughest in the world, a marathon of travel, speech making, handshaking, interviews, and close scrutiny of every utterance by critics eager to pounce on errors real or imagined. It takes an exceptional person to want to be president in the first place. But it takes an even more extraordinary one to stand up to the rigors of the campaign, both physical and mental.

It’s a remarkably grueling process that ends up grinding down all those who are not made of the toughest steel. This assures us that whoever becomes POTUS is probably exhausted by the time he or she takes the oath of office. But the whole thing is also good practice — and an excellent proving ground — for the long tough slog that is the presidency itself.

A contender’s demeanor and stamina in the campaign can tell us a great deal about his or her grace and judgment under pressure. And in this respect, Obama looks more and more like a man who is not holding up as well as he should be.

The McCain campaign is playing rope-a-dope with Obama, and he is taking the bait. Because deep down, you know and I know that Barack Obama--at his core--is TERRIFIED that people are going to find out who he really is. Because he knows that would be The End.

This is the Manchurian Candidate, Chicago style.