He's a flake:
I'm using the term in its generally accepted sense. A flake is not only a screwup, but someone who truly excels in making bizarre errors and creating incredibly convoluted disasters. A flake is a "fool with energy", as the Russian proverb puts it. ("A fool is a terrible thing to have around, but a fool with energy is a nightmare".)
I've long been on record as believing that Obama cannot win (nor, at this point, could Hillary). Nothing has happened to cause me to alter that view.
[Update late morning]
Here's the latest tea leaf that the vice-president pick will be Evan Bayh. If they were smart, they'd put him at the top of the ticket--it would give them a lot better shot.
[Another update a few minutes later]
Some folks over at DU are starting to get worried: "What is Obama doing wrong?"
Nothing, of course. It's our fault, because we're racists. It couldn't have anything to do with his left-wing politics, inexperience and flakiness.
A lot of the commenters are whistling past the graveyard.
[Update a few minutes later]
A leftist sees the future:
All that Obama audacity of arrogance from the smiling, glib politician finally died the death it so richly deserved. Too many pundits will blame his loss on his blackness and racist voters. But the larger truth is that sufficient voters saw through the many lies and deceptions. Obama always had a hard time giving a simple, short straight answer to tough questions. He was always mentally calculating exactly how to game his answers so that he would achieve all the benefits he had his eyes on. He was simply too damn presumptuous and too smart for his own good. In the end, Americans do not want the smartest person in the presidency or endless nuancing. They want someone they can easily understand and trust, despite their skepticism. There were many reasons not to trust the calculating Obama to do anything he promised to do or, for some people, to fear he might.
As Lincoln said, some of the people, some of the time, but not all of them all of the time.
[Update just before noon]
How low do the polls have to go before the superdelegates have second thoughts? Keep the popcorn handy for next week, when Hillary!'s name is put in nomination, and the demonstrations begin.
I don't question his polls going down, he's a stuffed shirt. The longer he talks, the more hollow he sounds.
The question is, how the hell did he get where he is in the first place? It's a huge jump from Community Activist to Leader of the Free World!! Evel Knievel's grand jump didn't work either.
Well, he's the nominee of a party that takes Daily Kos seriously. I think that explains most of it.
I think that all of this is bloody nonsense.
I'm still going 5-1 that Rodham pops out of her coffin at the convention.
"Surprise!"
I could only make it through the first few posts. It always seems to be the same thing with those folks.
We're either all racists, sexists, anti-someone types.
We're too stupid to really understand the issues, and we just listen to soundbites and marketing.
The "corporate media" are pulling for a Republican victory and are obviously in the tank for McCain. (Are they watching the same channels I'm watching?)
But my favorite excuse is that Obama was doing his Middle East / European tour and then on vacation, so no one was hearing about him because he wasn't campaigning.
I have to agree with them on that. The entire time he was in Europe, I didn't hear a thing about him on any of the 'rethuglican controlled corporate media.'
Earth to DU...
I like how people who won't vote for Obama are racist, yet they can get away with saying this in their party platform, in reference to fireams laws:
"we know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne".
In other words, we trust you white people with guns, but not them darkies!
I think Obama is tanking, to the extent he is, because the Democrats misread the tea leaves. They thought they were going to be running a campaign in an economically flush, low inflation, no international threat environment, a "domestic issues" time when people get itchy and crabby because good times aren't perfect, and while life is good it isn't endless. So they nominated a McGovern who would appeal to our narcissism with various programs for feeling good about ourselves, the equivalent of wealthy actresses with $5 million mansions buying carbon offsets and volunteering monthly at the soup kitchen.
Had they really thought things were as they painted them -- economic disaster -- they would have nominated an FDR, who would be as blue-collar and sunny as Reagan, and put his heavy guns on nationalizing and "rationalizing" various bits of the economy. (To the extent they've done that at all, it's in health care.)
And had they really thought the international scene was dire for America, they'd have nominated a Truman, someone just as nationalistic and pugnacious as GWB. No one focusses on the UN and "globalism" if they really think they face serious threats internationally.
So why did they misread the portents? I suggest it's because they've been steeped in their own cynicism and duplicity so long, they were slow to recognize when factual reality actually did start to correspond somewhat with their story line of economic disaster and international thunderclouds. You know, like a habitual liar is a bit slow to realize when he has (if only accidentally) spoken the truth.
"Keep the popcorn handy for next week, when Hillary!'s name is put in nomination, and the demonstrations begin."
Heh heh heh. I've got an extra boxcar-load parked on the siding in the back yard, and the industrial-strength popper is already warming up.... :-D