I do not know where he stands on the issues and he has appeared to use people as stepping stones to get to the next objective while discarding them when they are no longer needed or useful to him...

What they saw was a blank slate they could write whatever they hope for, whatever change they want.

We've seen signs of this in the campaign when his positions change based on the group he's addressing. But the stepping stone tactics he uses while tossing the prior support group under the bus reveals something terribly troubling.

It's no surprise. For myself Obama's always appreared to be nothing but a PR gimmick lacking any substance, a man with a very thin, cheaply padded resume deliberately taking credit for the efforts of others.

His supporters foolishly project liberalism on a man whose policy team is conservative and whose eletoral tactics are divisive and damaging to the party as a whole.

I don't need or want a snake oil salesman in the White House. I don't need or want another politician (esp one who postures himself as above all that). I want a statesman/woman who actually is going to get things done, or at least will try his/her best and doesn't say one thing and then turn around and do another at the drop of a hat. We've already seen how that works with Dubya. You'd think people would learn but they don't.

Walsh is telling progressives and liberals to get ready to be dumped on, dropped, and, not a phrase Walsh uses, thrown under the bus.  If and when it's "necessary" or politically expedient.  Indeed, he thinks Obama has already done that to DKos and MoveOn; they just don't realize it.

Ooof.

Walsh and Lambert both see a takeover of the Democratic Party. Somehow that seems too large a task to accomplish so quickly, but I'm not really familiar with how parties function. The more I'm reading, however, the more it seems within the realm of possibility. And to what end? Lambert sees big money powers behind it, if I get what he's saying. Who, what really?  Obama does not seem to me to be quite strategic enough to manage all this, but I could be simply bamboozled, etc.

Yikes.

Talking about Obama last night, I told a friend that for the first time in my adult lifetime of voting for Democrats I have deep reservations about a candidate because I can't pin down what that candidate actually stands for and plans to do. I did not work for Hubert Humphrey in the primaries, but, when he got the nod, I at least knew where he stood, what he stood for, and I could support almost all of it enough to work for him. I have no such comfort about Obama.

It's what's driven me away from Obama since I really began researching his past actions after he won IA. I wasn't getting info from the MCM (Mainstream Corporate Media) or the blogs I was reading most of the time (they were avoiding taking sides, so also pretty much avoided real digging into any of the potentials, it seemed to me -- very frustrating).

So, I began my own search for info. Which lead me eventually to supporting Hillary Clinton, a candidate I hadn't really anticipated feeling passionate about. I was even thinking that not running for president and having to consider the effects of her stands would make her even a more liberal senator, so it might be to the good. Now, I strongly believe she would be a very good president and work for things I believe in (and, yes, I know anyone will disppoint me in some things).

Now, a quarter of a year later after my search for information, and still with so little in the MCM about Obama, nearing the end of the primary season, the NYTimes finally comes out with something fairly comprehensive? Thanks a lot, Grey Lady, thanks a lot.

So why the disconnect? Why is Obama allowed to campaign as a reformer, virtually unchallenged by the media, though he's a product of Chicago politics and has never condemned the wholesale political corruption in his home town the way he condemns those darn Washington lobbyists.

And now we have the group responsible for the questionaire attesting to a meeting with Obama where his views on the questions were discussed in person from Senator Obama's mouth.

Still, he will not acknowledge the truth.

This problem has surfaced in many instances throughout the campaign. He steadfastly refused to attend or identify with the events and institutions of the AA community in the early days of the campaign.

 When the community was meeting to address challenges, celebrate, honor leaders or mourn, a Clinton was always there.  An Obama was not.  Then he toured Black groups in South Carolina, talking about "we all know what's going on here;we know what they're trying to do to us." His campaign accusses the Clintons of racial politics.Sudden solidarity.  Solid voting block.  But afterwards, will he accept invitations to speak to NAACP or The State of the Black Union or to lend his prescence and power to the Katrina conference and other groups trying to address community challenges?  No.  Before and after the Black community in a state unites to vote for him as one of them, he refuses to associate himself with them.

Another veracity issue that needs examination is centered around what he has alledged on the stump about Senator Clinton. He  often says things in events about Hillary that are demonstrably false but he does not get called on it by any truth squad type of reporting and Hillary's campaign has chosen, to her detriment,not to actively address them, alowing them to become "conventional wisdom" in the media.

In his public relationship with the Democratic Party and National Committee, Senator Obama has directly asserted or encouraged views of the rules and primary process that are not based in reality.   The whole delegate class distinction with some valid and some not is a meme that has helped him tremendously.  And the notion that winning a state that Democrats can't take in the fall is equivilant to winning a state we must.  Or that the number of states won counts the same or more than the number of electoral votes a candidate can collect, just to list a few.

 Now we have the big celebration for May 20 when he will claim total victory even though the rules say he has to have half of the convention delegates plus one to win.  If 50 states are seated in the convention, the total needed to get the nomination is 2209, not what he will claim May 20th. Another meme to confuse and twist the true process illigetimately to his favor.

 Another twist is to assert that a superdelegate, should bedeclared before the convention and once declared, can be counted. Not until they vote by secret ballot in August.In the meantime they may change their minds as often as they think they can get away with and vote for whomever they like in secret when the time comes! And remember the one about superdelegates having to vote their district until it no longer seemed to favor Obama.

Just this week the candidate, his wife, the campaign, their supporters and thier media fans push together very hard to get Hillary out of the race,again, delcaring that it is over. No explanation of why they are all determined to prevent the process from its' natural conclusion.  What are they all so concerned about that they risk totally alienating so many voters with this bullying impatience? It is not the way the rules of the process go. But is the campaign only loyal to the Party on some rules and not others?

  The Gallup poll this week says that while 15% want Obama to drop out now and 23% want Hillary to drop out now, 60% want both to keep in the race. The Democratic voters want this race to contiune and they definitely want Hillary to stay in, so what group are the Obama campaign being  loyal to now and what group is now being dissed to Obama's perceived advantage?

Thank you so much for doing this diary.

I am so relieved that some news outlet is finally addressing the problem Senator has with being appearing to be part of one group for support and then dissing them for another for their support.

 And we need to know what his views really are.  His supporters comment that he has 200 experts working for him in fifty subject areas but when we get specifics of his views they are often vague, or just like Hillary's but tweaked to favor some corporate interest group.

 Ex. taking over her Energy Plan with the Green Collar jobs and alternatives and such, but adding a whole lot of nuclear, coal and industry-favoring bits and voluntary compliance to Hillary's more environmentally friendly, re-regulated comprehensive plan.  Again, Senator Obama seems to appeal to environmentalist groups more than Clinton in the exit polls, but they don't seem versed on how he is associating with pollution bad actors and energy companies or his views on taxing and regulating them.

This is a good article:

Barack and Me by Todd Spivak

Can anyone name an major achievement of Obama? Something - separate from pork and patronage - that he did to help his constituents?

Who will be waiting in line for the favors that President Obama will be doling out? Rev. Wright has been quiet for a while. That should earn him something.

Vague is good?  Lack of true principles and beliefs is good?

In product management there's a well known saying that if you want to appeal to the widest group of customers you have to design to the lowest common denominator of requirements.

That's what the country is now getting. A person who appears to listen to everyone but when he has to deliver -- will not be able to do anything at all! His unity and coalition-building and re-parsing of words -- will be meaningless w/ the first real issue he runs into as President.

From chapter XV, "Men of Words":

Whatever the type, there is a deep-seated craving common to almost all men of words which determines their attitude to the prevailing order. It is a craving for recognition; a craving for a clearly marked status above the common run of humanity.

And

However much the protesting man of words sees himself as the champion of the downtrodden and injured, the grievance which animates him is, with very few exceptions, private and personal.

His slogans -- "We are the ones we've been waiting for" and "We are the change that we seek" are patent nonsense.  Why are these people supporting him?  What is really going on here?

I have no use for the kind of unity that trumps taking a position on issues based on one's beliefs in favor of a taking a position based on who it will appeal to and then not sticking to it.