Can I get an honest answer, please?

Question

What does Obama have going for him other than a nice smile and expensive suits?

Specifics, please!

Answer 1

Sadly, people will vote for him because he isn't in the same party as George Bush.  They will also vote for him because he is black.  He is a great orator, though he says nothing of substance.  He preaches change (which every one wants), and many will follow him because he preaches change, regardless of whether he offers specifics or can accomplish any of the things he wants to accomplish.

He has a rags to riches story, and that is what every American wants to have.  He preaches that he is an ordinary American and is only about making things better.

Nowadays, people don't look at facts.  They vote for the person they LIKE, and he is likeable.  Anyone who looks at the facts, or his voting record (if you can find it...) won't be putting their checkmark by his name in November.

Answer 2

Obama's Margin of Victory: The Media

How Barack Obama Could Not Have Won the Democratic Nomination Without

ABC, CBS and NBC

It was the closest nomination contest in a generation, with just one-

tenth of a percentage point -- 41,622 votes out of more than 35

million cast -- separating Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton when the

Democratic primaries ended in June. Obama's margin among elected

delegates was almost as thin, just 51 to 48 percent.

But Barack Obama had a crucial advantage over his rivals this year:

the support of the national media, especially the three broadcast

networks. At every step of his national political career, network

reporters showered the Illinois Senator with glowing media coverage,

building him up as a political celebrity and exhibiting little

interest in investigating his past associations or exploring the

controversies that could have threatened his campaign.

These are the key findings of the Media Research Center's exhaustive

analysis of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage of Barack Obama --

every story, every soundbite, every mention --from his first

appearance on a network broadcast in May 2000 through the end of the

Democratic primaries in June 2008, a total of 1,365 stories. MRC

analysts found that the networks' coverage -- particularly prior to

the formal start of Obama's presidential campaign -- bordered on

giddy celebration of a political "rock star" rather than objective

news gathering.

Key Findings:

# The three broadcast networks treated Obama to nearly seven times

more good press than bad -- 462 positive stories (34% of the total),

compared with only 70 stories (just 5%) that were critical.

# NBC Nightly News was the most lopsided, with 179 pro-Obama reports

(37%), more than ten times the number of anti-Obama stories (17, or

3%). The CBS Evening News was nearly as skewed, with 156 stories spun

in favor of Obama (38%), compared to a mere 21 anti-Obama reports

(5%). ABC's World News was the least slanted, but still tilted

roughly four-to-one in Obama's favor (127 stories to 32, or 27% to 7%).

# Barack Obama received his best press when it mattered most, as he

debuted on the national scene. All of the networks lavished him with

praise when he was keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Convention,

and did not produce a single negative story about Obama (out of 81

total reports) prior to the start of his presidential campaign in

early 2007.

# The networks downplayed or ignored major Obama gaffes and scandals.

Obama's relationship with convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko was

the subject of only two full reports (one each on ABC and NBC) and

mentioned in just 15 other stories. CBS and NBC also initially

downplayed controversial statements from Obama's longtime pastor

Jeremiah Wright, but heavily praised Obama's March 18 speech on race relations.

# While Obama's worst media coverage came during the weeks leading up

to the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, even then the networks

offered two positive stories for every one that carried a negative

spin (21% to 9%). Obama's best press of the year came after he won

the North Carolina primary on May 6 -- after that, 43 percent of

stories were favorable to Obama, compared to just one percent that

were critical.

# The networks minimized Obama's liberal ideology, only referring to

him as a "liberal" 14 times in four years. In contrast, reporters

found twice as many occasions (29) to refer to Obama as either a

"rock star," "rising star" or "superstar" during the same period.

# In covering the campaign, network reporters highlighted voters who

offered favorable opinions about Obama. Of 147 average citizens who

expressed an on-camera opinion about Obama, 114 (78%) were pro-Obama,

compared to just 28 (19%) that had a negative view, with the

remaining five offering a mixed opinion.

Perhaps if he had faced serious journalistic scrutiny instead of

media cheerleading, Barack Obama might still have won his party's

nomination. But the tremendously positive coverage that the networks

bestowed upon his campaign was of incalculable value. The early

celebrity coverage helped make Obama a nationally-known figure with a

near-perfect media image. The protectiveness that reporters showed

during the early primaries made it difficult for his rivals to

effectively criticize him. And when it came to controversies such as

the Wright affair, network reporters acted more as defenders than as

journalists in an adversarial relationship. If the media did not

actually win the Democratic nomination for Barack Obama, they surely

made it a whole lot easier.

    END of Executive Summary

    Again, for the report online:

http://www.mrc.org/SpecialReports/2008/o...

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Answer 3

- A non-evasive approach to issues...

- The fact that he is not affiliated with the political party that spawned George W. Bush.

- The fact that the GOP has essentially devolved this country, slowly and systematically over the past 8 years, into the geopolitical equivalent of Cro-Magnon man.

- The fact that people want change, even if that change isn't really 100% defined, at this point, so long as it's in the opposite direction.

Answer 4

He represents a party OTHER THAN GEORGE BUSH. That does it for me!

Answer 5

Oprah.  Sad isn't it?

Answer 6

I think he smiles like a snake oil salesman.  So I don't get it either.  

Answer 7

He graduated from two Ivy League schools (Columbia and Harvard) at the top of his class.  He's an intelligent person and a hard worker.  

McCane graduated from the Naval Academy at the bottom of his class.   He's not that smart.  And he's not that hard of a worker.