I don’t know if you will read this or if the advice of someone who does not come from the consultant class is worth heeding, but you have to help Obama avoid your mistakes. Your biggest mistake was apologizing when you were not wrong. Take the missing lapel flag pin. Obama should tell anyone who brings it up that flag pins are patriotism on the cheap; that he doesn’t subscribe to my country right or wrong; only that my country be right; that challenging missing lapel pins is a dumb way to answer legitimate gripes for the way the country has been run the past seven years.

By the same token you were wrong to apologize for dumping your medals. Unfortunately you were wrong to sign Bush’s blank check. True, he cooked the intelligence, but invading Iraq was wrong. It violated international law, even though the UN passed some retroactive permission. Iraq was never a danger to the US. Millions of people around the world protested, but our
Congress couldn’t get it straight.

As for the “bitter” remark, rather than apologize Obama could have said he assumed those people were bitter after having been dumped on by Bush all these years and considering their situation there is nothing wrong with taking solice in religion. Obama could say it is difficult to understand why they are not angrier.

As for not invading Afghanistan, it was a bonehead move. There was nothing connecting the government with the terrorists. It’s like taking over the state of Michigan or wherever McVeigh came from because he blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City. You cannot hold a nation responsible for the acts of individual citizens.

You got swiftboated because you could not bring yourself to attack Bush who avoided service in Vietnam. Did you know he was AWOL from the Texas National Guard when they pulled the swift boat business? If so, why on earth didn’t you use it? Tell Obama he has to stand up for himself. Stop apologizing and stop being Mr. nice guy. He doesn’t have to get down in the gutter with them, but he must, in the nicest, coolest way, beat them at their own game.

In other words, the gooper majority if based on racism- not God.

Well, that has been true, i.e. racism and Republicans since the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It was the core of Wallace’s attractiveness to Southern voters for which States’ Rights was code. Code as well for Nixon’s Southern Strategy.

“In his Op-Ed, Mr. Bartels cited data showing that small-town, working-class Americans are actually less likely than affluent metropolitan residents to vote on the basis of religion and social values. Nor have working-class voters trended Republican over time; on the contrary, Democrats do better with these voters now than they did in the 1960s.

It’s true that Americans who attend church regularly are more likely to vote Republican. But contrary to the stereotype, this relationship is weak at low incomes but strong among high-income voters. That is, to the extent that religion helps the G.O.P., it’s not by convincing the working class to vote against its own interests, but by producing supermajorities among the evangelical affluent.

So why have Republicans won so many elections? In his book, “Unequal Democracy,” Mr. Bartels shows that “the shift of the Solid South from Democratic to Republican control in the wake of the civil rights movement” explains all — literally all — of the Republican success story.”

And what happens when the game begins to look like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ENPlaowMQ

It is not an esoteric argument. The internet represents infrastructure. The tired comparison to highways and bridges to the internet are perhaps more literal in this case: as infrastructure how is the internet to be governed?
How is it maintained? How is it funded? Who has access to it?
What are the rules of the game and who enforces them?

so yeah, your explanation makes sense… except for the part about people being so fanatically pro-clinton (or pro-obama). but that’s me – i just don’t get it.

So-so …

Ah, so.

I am not!

What?

You heard me…

I don’t know what you are talking about.

That’s just what I thought!

What?

You know what I mean!

???!

You are all cultists … and delusional.

Excuse me?

Whatever happened to rational discourse?

Are you taking to me?

Who else?

I don’t understand.

Well, that’s obvious.

I’m becoming confused …

You should be used to that by now.

What?

Don’t keep ‘what’ing me, aren’t you paying any attention at all?

I think I’ve had quite enough of this.

See, you don’t want to have a rational discussion, you just want to rant…

Excuse me?

There is no excuse for your behavior, none at all.

(At this point the internal dialogue becomes serious, proving that one should never be of ‘two minds’ when it comes to polly-ticks. Arguing with oneself is almost as futile as arguing with friends, especially when what mind they have is already made up. When one ‘makes up one’s mind’ is it akin to putting lipstick on? Or is it more like writing fiction?)