[bhamlaxy]

what obama is trying to do is to make the impression that having him as a president would make a huge difference to what would have been if mccain got elected.

Yea, he is trying to make the impression that he is different from McCain because he IS different from McCain. To argue that they have only minor ideological differences is absurd. Their policies on the Iraq War, arguably the most important international issue at hand, will be changed dramatically under Obama (and Hillary). Their views on health care, a huge issue, are very different, as are their tax policies. For the rich, your taxes will be heavily increased if the dems win, and remain at Bush tax-cut levels if McCain wins. I could go on and on and on about the differences, many of them are truly huge. For example, I think it is pretty much a fact that Gore wouldn't have gone into Iraq had he won. I'd call that a "huge difference".

fact is, however, that in major democratic countries, big parties always have similar views on how things have to be done. the way i see it, the constant political arguments are mostly over trivial aspects to carry out a power struggle. in election times, they try to differentiate themselves from eachother to polarize the voters.

Sure, they have many similar views. They all want a strong military, a good economy, etc. But they do have ideological differences when it comes to many policies. They may not be as different as we would like them to be, but there are differences.

obama just represents the democrats. there is no way he can just act out of line and suddenly trigger some "change". without help of those powerful friends who endorsed him, where would he be today?

His "change" stems a lot from two solid policy options (health care and the war), both of which are not "out of line".

Additionally, his "change" transcends the "powerful people" that helped him. Who are they? A few governors and senators that endorsed him? As I explained before, Bush not only relies on the powerful "bundlers" to raise a HUGE percent of his money, he awarded 40% of them positions in the government. At the point where Obama is raising money almost exclusively in small amounts, he doesn't rely on these extremely influential people who he has to cater to once in office. That's a huge part of his "change" argument that is already visible.

In any case, I'm kind of torn about the Hillary staying in the election. I kind of feel it would be best for her to withdraw, so that the two democrats aren't still fighting against each other- all these negative attacks are driving away voters from the democrats in general and going over to McCain, who has a pretty clear sailing so far (in comparison to Hillary and Barack). I know it wouldn't be fair for Hillary and her supporters if she were to drop out though.. but I'm just scared that, no matter who wins at the end of this bitter battle, the Republicans will win overall, because of all these negative attacks Hillary and Obama are going through.

I also agree. I think the only way Clinton can mathematically win is to get a huge chunk of the superdelegates. There is a debate going on as to what the function of the super delegates are. Recently Pelosi argued that they should vote along with the will of the public. The Hillary camp contacted her asking to retract her statement or something, because they argue the superdelegates should elect whoever best represents the democratic party. I think Hillary is just dead in the water now, and taking it to the election would be horrible. It would she alienate a huge amount of African American voters who saw their first chance at the presidency taken away by some bureaucratic bullshit although the American people wanted. At the least, this would lead to some blacks just not going to vote, and at the worst, massive amounts of blacks not voting.

So in the end, I guess my ideology looks like this. Clinton is a mess in my eyes. The Bosnia crap makes me sick, I mean how much do you have to blatantly lie. And to say it was a mistake? Sounds like a bold faced lie to try and look good. Although they are all politicians, I think Hillary bites into the reasons why politicians are bad much more than Obama. And he wins by default because I disagree with McCain on a few issues. Granted he is a more liberal republican, it could be worse, but I go with Obama in the end. I think Ron Paul is the man, but he didn't make it this time. But I still think the numbers he generated were pretty amazing for such a revolutionary candidate.