Do you think Barack Obama is ready to fight the GOP smear machine?

[bidenista]

Poll question: Do you think Barack Obama is ready to fight the GOP smear machine?

[peacebird]

1. Obama represents a real change - Hillary didn't support true campaign finance reform. Obama did.

Without finance reform we will continue to get politicians who are bought and paid for by the corporations.

[Prefer]

2. The question is "Are we?"

[Radical Activist]

3. He does well enough against the Clinton smear machine.

Every time he's attacked his opponents suffer more damage than he does. It was true in his Senate race too.

[Rageneau]

18. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You think the Clintons have a smear machine? Just wait til you see a REAL one.

Obama seems to have led a charmed life so far. Everybody has gone goo goo over how "cool" he is. He's never faced even the negative publicity that Hillary is getting THESE DAYS -- much less what the Right-wing will hit him with as soon as they get rid of Hillary.

Obama is a new quarterback who has never played a down before.

[Radical Activist]

20. Chicago politics is the big leagues.

You don't get elected there without knowing how to play. You should really look at more of what he did before '04.

[nonconformist]

24. You mean against Alan Keyes?

:rofl:

My CAT could beat Alan Keyes.

[Radical Activist]

28. No, not Alan Keyes.

Educate yourself. There was an Obama before the convention of '04.

[maddiejoan]

4. After defending Hillary on DU

I'm quite confident that *I* could defend Obama against the GOP -- but I'm taking a page from Michelle Obama and thinking about it.

[gravity]

5. He will make the repugs play by his rules

Look what he did with the Clintons

[jlake]

6. Hell to the no. He believes his own hype and thinks they will drink his Koolaid.

[cottonseed]

7. Repubs hate their candidate, that smear machine will stay in the garage.

They might rev it up for a Hillary campaign though.

[Qutzupalotl]

8. Are you ready to serve Hillary?

[DiamondJay]

9. i really don't know

its tough to tell, because we have never seen a campaign like this, with a black man as the contender. Many may run scared being afraid to be labeled "racist", while others may just exploit it all outright. His name is Barack HUSSEIN Obama, which doesn't sound to different than Saddam Hussein Osama, as I guarantee there will be many anti-barack shirts with such a saying. His background in indonesia doesn't help, neither does history. All presidents except Van buren have had anglo-saxon names, he has a muslim name. And muslims are hated all across the world, even in o so liberal free healthcare and education Denmark. Remember the cartoons? They will get surrogates to propogate the false rumour. many gopers i know who don't like him call him a radical muslim all the time even tho he is not. He also admitted doing drugs in college in a book, not a smart move. Sometimes, its better to be accused of something and deny it even if u know everyone knows its true, so no one can you "you even admitted it", as they may try to say "Barack Obama pushed crack cocaine while at columbia and harvard in the mid 80s, during the height of the crack epidemic" and they will get him on the "present" votes. They will also get his record on being "soft on crime". Race WILL be the strategy to derail him. As will his name, and anything he has ever done, from community organizing, to Rezko, to any number of things. That being said, maybe he does have a solid war room, tho it just seems he doesn't. There looks like there is so much to smear and so easy to do it it makes me nervous, coupled with the Bradley Effect, i think it would not be easy for him. I mean look at what they did to the Clintons, who came into washington not too divisive. hillary is vetted, and proven. she is popular enough she has beaten mccain in many polls. its a trick, but i mean its hard to actually not learn from campaign 04 to be ready for anything and everything.

[earthlover]

15. sleazy post....playing the race and the muslim card....yuck....gooey crap on the shoe

[DiamondJay]

16. u r right, they GOP will be doing it

and don't expect anything less than that. they have proven to be scum, hurting a mans war record which was nothing less than unimpeachable. They smeared Gore as saying he "invented" the internet, and Bill Clinton on everything else.

[sidwill]

10. A big part of smearing is wether or not the target of the smear

is percieved as deserving of the smear.

[sidwill]

11. A big part of smearing is wether or not the target of the smear

is percieved as deserving of the smear.

[caraher]

12. I voted yes, but the Clintons do have more experience at this

Right now I think Obama would be the candidate more likely to win the GE, in part because the RW smear campaign has been attacking Hillary for almost 2 decades. This shows up in her high negatives. At the same time, the Clintons have the fighting spirit Gore and Kerry needed more of.

I will be happy to vote FOR either one (as opposed to merely against the Republican!)

[Hieronymus]

23. Hillary has picked a team of Rovian types who she hopes are mean ..

enough to fight the republican attack machine. So far, they've hurt her.

[H2O Man]

13. Yes.

He is doing well against its sibling now.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. He's been doing a good job fighting it for the last few weeks now.

So yes, yes I do.

[earthlover]

17. There are a few things we should remember....

1) we are in the midst of a bitter primary battle, so it may be hard to picture this....but if Obama is the nominee, the entire Democratic Party will be behind him. We all have witnessed the swift boating in 04 and our ineffectual response to it. We will have learned this lesson and respond immediately. Obama will speak out and have every Democrat's support.

2) Unlike Hillary, whose memes have been already established and planted years ago, Obama is more a clean slate. It will therefore be harder for the Reps to start with a new meme than to merely reinforce a meme that already exists. And there are plenty with Hillary.

3) Obama's secret weapon is his message. If the Reps come up with their usual slease....he can swiftly point out that this is part of the old politics that his campaign is trying to battle. Obama actually could use swift boating as an ILLUSTRATION of his points and turn it around on the Reps!

4) The Hillary dirt campaign is equally dirty as the republican campaign....and they would stop at nothing to smear Obama with dirt. They would have....you can bet your life savings....used this dirt if there was any, and you can also bet they were looking very hard for it.
So, the fact that there is no smoking gun out there, no swift boat crap out there, is not a testament to Hillary's reluctance to use these tactics.

[Danger Mouse]

19. I hope he does.

They WILL play the race card, and they will play it hard and dirty.
If Obama is our nominee, he CANNOT afford to 'take the high road' like Kerry did.
He has to hit back hard and aggressively.

[rjx]

21. I voted YES, but

I would like to see him get tougher with Hillary.

[nonconformist]

22. Fuck no. They're going to eat him alive. nt

[Hoyt]

25. That's a "fight" I'll pay to see.

I think he'll win in a "cakewalk".

Obviously, there are a lot of Republicans who will deride him for no other reason than ethnicity -- but maybe they'll learn a lesson or two from it.

If it's Sen. Clinton -- that'll be a good fight too.

[Rosemary2205]

26. More like our truth squad can fight the GOP smear machine.

No matter who it is - you throw one guy all by himself to the wolves and he's going to get munched. Luckily, no matter who gets the Dem nod they will have a posse.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

27. He's a lightweight that just wants to get along with the pukes. What a naive empty suit.

[Bread and Circus]

29. He handled the Clinton race-baiting machine pretty well so far.