Once the GOP put their stamp of approval on GW Bush, he automatically got at least 40-45% of the vote. The rest was creative marketing .

The misperception in 2000 was unbelieveable.

Anyone who saw Al Gore on Leno or Letterman could see that he was smart, witty and cool while GW Bush on those same shows looked awkward and neither bright nor cool. Somehow people decided that they would rather have a beer with Dubya.

Nader convinced too many people that there was no difference between Bush and Gore.

George W. Bush was a born with privileges and opportunities that many people would kill for. Despite that, he was a neer-do-well drifter with a drinking problem until he was 40. In marked contrast to his father who was a war hero, athlete scholar at Yale, successful businessman and public servant Dubya was a failed businessman, intellectually lazy, uninformed and incurious. He had a significant ability to make small talk and compensated for his shortcomings by develloping a somewhat engaging, comfortable personality in social situations.He was put in office by neoconservatives to carry out their agenda with disatrous results.

Obama has lived in a foreign culture, worked in the streets of Chicago, excelled in law school, has a repartee honed razor sharp by 10 years as a law professor, trash talking in pick-up basketball games and the banter of poker game.He can communicate and relate on many levels. Unlike GW Bush he has succeeded brilliantly in every thing he has done.

Just because Obama seems like a “nice guy” it is inappropriate to compare him to GW Bush in any way.

Just because Hillary can make herself obnoxious, does not mean that she can be more successful as President.

I submit that , Obama demonstrated, EVEN BY HILLARY’S DEFINITION, even before he was a US Senator, that his grasp of foreign affairs and understanding of the political and military consequences of the Iraq invasion was far superior to that of people with decades of military and political “experience ” in Washington. Obama not only had the relavant knowledge but the requisite judgement to arrive at the right conclusion and answer to the problem.

If anyone has demonstrated that he has the knowledge, intelligence, common sense and judgement to handle that hypothetical 3 AM phone call it is Barack Obama.

Some of the relavant observations in Obama’s 2002 speech are the following.
(for the full speech ,google obama oct 2002 iraq)

“But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

IF YOU LIKE DUMB WARS, VOTE FOR HILLARY OR McCAIN WHO VOTED FOR ONE.

At least Hillary now agrees with Obama that the Iraq war was a dumb war . McCain insists on pursuing that idiocy.

For that reason, if God forbid, Hillary gets the nomination, I will hold my nose and vote for her instead of McCain even if she is encouraging people to vote for McCain if Obama should get the nomination.