Apparently not, unfortunately.

Take a look at the negatives for Clinton/Obama.

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=895#co mments

Supposedly Bob Shrum said that Obama should ignore the Jeremiah Wright thing and it will go away... just like he advised Kerry to ignore the swfitboat thing.  Will this guy ever learn?  Can we please keep him away from any and all Democratic campaigns?  His ignorance may be infectious!!!  The Hillary Clinton campaign is only beginning to recover from the Shrum "flu" that infected the earlier part of the primary season...

Assign him to the Nader campaign... he can't do any harm there!

I must admit to having those thoughts. I don't think we have the same Gore that blew '00. Anyway, Clinton surely has made just as many primary mistakes as Gore did in the GE. Doesn't matter who it is at this point, even Obama, we've got our back to the wall and though its nearly 9 months away, we are the underdog.

on states where Nader was campaigning hard: WA, OR, MN, WI, to name just a few.

If Nader hadn't focused on the must-win states for Gore, he would have had more time and money to spend in other states.

Oh yeah, and if the pre-election polling in NH had not shown Bush comfortably ahead, more NH residents might have realized they lived in a swing state and wouldn't have thrown their votes to Nader.

NH's 4 EVs would have put Gore over the top without Florida.

Less people will think he's a Muslim.

Gore lost because times were good, people were comfortable, and they didn't feel like it much mattered who was President.  

Now we're in a spot where people remember good times under a Democrat AND they're currently experiencing bad times under a Republican.  That's a great place to be.

Amazingly, the current Democratic frontrunner is a guy who wants to repudiate that legacy and treat the whole Bush/Clinton era as something we want to turn the page from.  The economy will still be a Democratic advantage, but it's amazing anyone would voluntarily avoid reminding people how well they were doing with a Democrat in charge.

It's the economy, stupid -- AGAIN!

http://OsiSpeaks.com

When Kerry signed on Bob Shrum, I said, "Oh no, this guy is a known loser!"  But, I was willing to believe that John knew what he was doing.  Boy, was I (and Kerry) wrong!  Bob Shrum ios a one-man wrecking crew of Democratic Presidential aspirations.  

As a media guy, I cannot believe that he keeps getting hired.

Maybe because people to this day debate how much effect a president actually has on the economy.  Moreover, wasn't there a pending crisis in the home heating oil market in November 2000?

We have yet to nominate our candidate and at this point, it could go either way. The best candidate by far for a Democratic win in the GE is Hillary Clinton. Forget about the stupid match up polls that are out now. They bear no semblance to the reality of November. She could beat McCain handily because this country wants to move in a new direction.

Obama cannot and must not be the nominee for so many reasons. He's simply too far left for mainstream America to embrace. His negatives in a GE campaign would be far too insurmountable for any success.

John McCain has some good qualities, loads of experience, and he will be a formidable candidate this fall. He's a moderate conservative with broad mainstream appeal. He's a positive change from Bush in that he's bright and articulate and would not allow the sort of inept, incompetent cronies to run things. If the super delegates are unwise enough to allow Obama to be our nominee, there would be many McCain Democrats come November, more than enough to sweep him into the White House.

If Hillary is the nominee, the dawn of a new era could well be born in this country.

Please do all you can to support Hillary. Try to get the media to be fair to her. Eschew the far left-wing blogs that won't allow anything nice to be said about her. Write letters to the super delegates. Continue to look on the bright side and be positive. We can turn this thing around if we try. Wait, as Yoda said, do or do not, there is no try.

Damn I wish John Edwards would have hung in there and not dropped out.  He would win going away vs. McCain in a general election.  We should have voted with our heads and not our hearts.  John Edwards was right during the South Carolina debate.

Gotta laugh at the do anything say anything to get elected.  What a crock that line is!!  Of course a politician wants to get elected, that is the game and to think otherwise is just silly.  What good would Obama be if he couldn't get elected?  He would be worth just as much as he is now, because he has yet to actually make the sale to the base of the democratic party.  This is his problem, he has not done that.  He has cobbled together wins with certain groups who are not the base of the party, that is why he is having trouble in the democratic strongholds so far.  He needs to find a way to get voters in the demographic that we must have this fall if he is the nominee and the dems are to win this fall.  I am not sure he can do that, and if not, then he will lose to McCain.

The reason I feel so strongly that Hillary is the democrat to win for the democratic party is because she is carrying the base of our party.  She can actually win this fall, her strong democratic roots are really representative of our party, contrary to the Obama supporters hate lines they always spew.  Obama is not a uniter because he has not demonstrated that he can unite our party.  He must be able to do that first, then appeal to the indy/repubs he is doing it backwards and that makes our base suspicious of him and his motives.  I wonder if he would in fact be a good standard bearer for democratic ideas, he is too willing to go along to get along for me.  There are times when one must hold fast to a position and not compromise, then there are other times where compromise is possible.  When he doesn't want universal health care for all, it indicates to me that he is not carrying that idea with him if he were to get into the WH and that is a strong democratic idea that we simply must carry through on for all of us.

I think it is in fact Obama who will do anything and say anything to get elected, and of course, that is what he is trying to do after all.  I don't think it is such an insult to try to get elected, but what  concerns me is that he has spent so much time trying to diminish Hillary and trash Bill Clinton's administration, he seems to forget that Bill Clinton's administration was good for the country, good for individuals in the country and was reducing poverty, growing incomes at all income levels and balancing the budget.  Obama could have and should have embraced the best democratic president we have had in several decades and then gone on to offer not just more of the same but more and then better democratic progress, nevertheless, he chose to dis Bill Clinton with remarks designed to trash Clinton by saying things like "the republicans were the party of ideas in the last 15 years"  "Reagan was a trans formative president unlike Bill Clinton who was not"  Democrats liked Bill Clinton, they did not think he was a racist, they found that his policies were good for the AA community, and before Obama was dividing us along racial lines, many AAs were in fact supporting Hillary Clinton.  Now the split in the party is deep and was unnecessary for him to do.  I find Obama's rhetoric about how Hillary is so divisive to be a Carl Rove lie that Obama has pushed onto his supporters to the point that they have poisoned the blogasphere with such uncalled for and needless trash.  The was not necessary, it was a lie, and I don't care for republican tactics and talking points being used to promote Obama.  These things only prove that Obama is a politician and will do or say anything to get elected, just like Hillary, he wants to get elected, but he just may have miscalculated about this race card he has continued to play and the racial smears he has used about her.  In the end this may be a bad thing for him, if the AA vote were a bit more balanced, then the white down scale voter might not have been so intimated and wary of him, but this obvious pander to the black politician and the support by black commentators who delight in insulting Hillary daily, they have no credibility when it is so lopsided.  It appears to be exactly what it is, a racial voting block.  Maybe that is why the Latinos are more wary of voting for Obama.

some people may feel that one community might have a better advantage with Obama as president, may feel superior, even though it isn't necessarily true.  I think women feel that way about the possibility of Hillary as president, thinking it would be better for women in general if she were to win the WH.  After all, we have never had a woman as president and that would be quite a change in and of itself.  Women have been the forgotten demographic.  Hillary can get a lot of support from women across the board, even some republican women, who have been willing to vote for her in NY.  There could be such a strong support among women that McCain could not overcome it even with some strong republican votes.  After all, there are about 35% republicans in America and 35% democrats and the rest fall outside any party.

(Now for those who want some links sorry this is merely an opinion, which as far as I can tell so are other posts who include links which are in themselves just some other's opinion dressed up to seem to be something that they really aren't, like polls, which are just peoples' opinions to questions that are designed to get certain results)  

"Remind me how Gore lost again... nevermind, I'm just reading the final Shrum chapters, on his running media & strategy for Gore in '00 and Kerry in '04."

LOL! Mr. Armstrong, you are wicked. I heard him blame Kerry the other day for not responding to the Swift Boaters. I wonder whose idea it was in Kerry's camp to distance themselves from the very honorable and credible Joe Wilson?

Just for clarity Al Gore was not behind in any polls from the Lewinsky episode on. He, in fact, came out of the convention in 2000 with a solid lead. He may have not run the best campaign in the world, but Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler is correct that Gore was systematically smeared by many in the news media for nearly two years. To not take into account the relentless attacks on him by many so called liberals throughout the campaign and the failure to effectively respond to the attacks against his character surely helped to contribute to his defeat.