Thiokol was kind enough to inform me that David LaPell's thread was deleted, though not by him, because its subject was religion, which is a prohibited topic on this board. That makes sense to me.
I do not know if I was about to start a war. I was going to say something to express my amazement at the charge that Obama could at once be a Muslim, a Hindu, and a follower of Santaria (voodoo). As I have said here before, I do not think our cause is well-served by embracing, supporting, promoting, or spreading what Charlie called "the tin-foil hat stuff." It alienates centrist,largely Independent voters, who increasingly hold the balance of power in any national election.
American politics is played between the 40 yard-lines. As a veteran of some 200 campaigns for the House, Senate, White House, and numerous governorships, you are spot on when you say that the voters take the measure of the man before they start thinking about his stands on specific issues. Their emotional reactions to the candidate as a person color their perceptions of where he stands on the issues. Nonetheless, if you are going to base a campaign on the character issue, you've got to have more ammunition than groundless assertions that your opponent is some kind of flesh-eating zombie. The voters see through that stuff, and often punish the candidate they see as responsible for or benefiting from it.
Personally, I don't think the President yet understands how ticked off people are by the fact that the stimulus and bail-out packages have once again done a great deal for those at the top, and produced very little in the way of tangible relief for average working families. If I was running a campaign for 2010, that is where I would concentrate my fire. It is an issue that cuts across party lines, and, on the character issue, casts serious doubt on the claim that the President is empathic and sensitive to the needs of average working people.
Bullseye
