Rest of the world: Who will be Obama's running mate?

Salon.com: Why is Obama not as good a choice as Hillary Clinton?

The weird Hillary worship has put Salon into a netherworld of bizarre articles redefining "missing the point" over and over.

As someone above wrote, maybe the problem is how the US deals with the fact that some sections of the populace vote for war-mongering neocons even against their own self-interests in virtually every other area, i.e. the ones that actually matter.

The good part is that Obama doesn't have to win every vote, just the ones not insane enough to vote for John McCain. The ones who are that insane deserve everything they get. I mean that's really the point, isn't it? Who else will you vote for if not Obama, now? It's like Salon is caught in some Hillary-centric time warp, asking questions that mean pretty much nothing now. We could have told you they meant nothing months ago also. Oh wait, we did.

In order for a candidate to get votes, he/she must earn them with empathy and understanding. Bill Clinton did so with his ubiquitous "I feel your pain". In that one simple sentence, he allied himself with all who were trying to climb up but were not able; it said, basically, "I understand because I am one of you".

For all his attempts, Barack Obama just doesn't have that, for lack of a better term, "good ol' boy" persona about him. He is smooth, charming, slick and nuanced; I describe him as John Kerry with a better tan. And, imho, that's the problem: he's too slick.

John Kerry never really bonded with Joe Sixpack and his wife. He was seen as aloof, overly-refined and distanced. Barack Obama has a similar persona...even though he does try to win over the voters with a message of hope and optimism.

I'm not sure that the "average hillbilly" core Democrat white guy blue-collar voter dislikes Barack Obama because he's half-black; I do think he isn't bonding with that voter because he doesn't "feel their pain" and is NOT one of them. After all, how many "hillbillies" graduated from Harvard Law School?

Can you see Barack Obama in jeans, a t-shirt and baseball cap at a NASCAR race? I can't and neither can many so-called "hillbilly" core Democrats. THAT is the problem.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp#muslim

Note the top myth on that list. Note the guy who accused Obama of being the anti-Christ.

People voted for George W. b/c he felt their pain, they could imagine having a beer with him, and he looked NASCAR-y in his jeans and t-shirt.

HOW DID THAT VOTE WORK OUT FOR THOSE LOVELY PEOPLE?

Did that beer and empathy pave the way wonderfully for a chance to pay $4.00 for gas, have 4,800 soldiers dead, 1,000,0000 Iraqis dead and displaced, etc.?

Bill Clinton was a LOUSY president. His disastrous foreign policy led directly to 9/11. He failed to intervene in Afghanistan after Kabul fell; he failed to intervene in East Africa after the embassy bombings there; he failed to intervene when there were credible intelligence about cells in America. HE WAS A LAME DUCK PRESIDENT FOR MOST OF HIS SECOND TERM.

His wife is a opportunist, a neo-con sympathizer (Bill Clinton worked with neo-cons in 2000 to force Arafat to accept a joke of a peace treaty, which resulted in the 2nd Intifada), and one of the most corrupt politicians in the U.S. history.

But of course if Bill says that he feels people's pain and speaks with a Southern accent, then he must be the great president material.

For once, I think we can be civil to each other because, to some extent we agree.

The mistake a lot of people make when trying to fit in with other cultures is actually trying to fit in. You can't imagine Obama fitting in at Nascar, but you probably can imagine him trying to fit in and failing horribly - he has after all tried it before in other settings.

When you try to fit in with a group which you aren't familiar with you invariably end up insulting them because while most people don't mind someone "Not being one of us" they do mind someone trying to ape being "One of us" in an inauthentic manner. It comes off as being disrespectful.

Obama is at his best when he is himself, not some caricature of the very political campaigning he claims to be against. The only way Obama can overcome this is by being different, because he just isn't a good enough actor to pull being the same off.

I was in Appalachia for a few days not long ago (eastern KY), the part those from Lexington and the rest of KY say is really backwoods ... people in Lexington told me that "KY would never vote for a black man for president," especially the mountain people in the east (this would include West Virginia). These are very uneducated, very isolated white rural people who are very Republican, conservative, Bible-believing christian, and are still fighting the war between the states. This is a description, not a put down. I did look over my shoulder everywhere I went; I heard it is easy to hide a body in the hills and it would never be found ... and they don't like outsiders. One can't appeal to every voting demographic; one can win elections without doing so, don't you think?

If the Democrats want to win back rural whites, here's an idea - stop picking on gun owners!

Despite the way it's been depicted in the media, gun ownership is not a liberal v. conservative or Democrat v. Republican issue. It's a rural v. urban issue with urban voters and politicians acting as gun grabbers while rural voters and politicians believe in the 2nd Amendment and it's protections of the right to keep and bear arms.

Still, the Republican party has shown that they have a big enough tent to accomodate gun grabbers like Rudy Guiliani and NRA types like Dickhead Cheney.

The Democrats have failed miserably.

BTW: Until last year, I was a registered Democrat. I'm pro-choice on abortion, I support single-payer health care, I think Clinton's so-called welfare reform is cruel and draconian, I opposed that war in Iraq from the beginning, I support gay marriage and I own guns.