From Breitbart via Drudge:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8USVBS80& show_article=1
(Synopsis)
Sen. Barack Obama said Monday that he doesn't think it's a big deal that he borrowed lines from his friend Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, although he probably should have given him credit.

Patrick said during his gubernatorial campaign a year and a half ago that words matter, like "I have a dream" and "all men are created equal." Obama used the same lines Saturday night in Wisconsin.
Okay, FWIW, I agree with Obama, "so what?"

But think about this:
How many people heard that first Patrick speech 18 months ago?
How many people remember it? I mean, that's not exactly "Ask not what your country can do for you..."
I'm gonna say not many, even if you factor in people who may have read about it.

Now, 18 months later, half way across the country, another politician who really only has tangential links to Patrick says those same words again.
How many people heard THAT?
And how many heard the Patrick speech also?
And remembered it?
If you drew a Venn diagram of the audiences for those two speeches, and all Americans (or all humans on earth) would you really expect to find an overlap there?


I mean, both speeches, c'mon, how likely is that? But then, factor into it that they were confident enough that it WAS the same line to say anything about it, and being at an Obama rally (I'd imagine) you're a Clinton supporter?

To me this is tantamount to the likelihood of a couple of bullets on a battlefield meeting eachother head on... fired by identical twins.
That's freakin' amazing.

So if this happened, and it clearly did, maybe something as likely as all life evolving out of some one cell of unknown origins can happen too.

It does give one pause for thought at least.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

I'm not sure what your point is, but Obama and Patrick have the same campaign manager...David Axelrod.

Which makes the whole "hope train" rhetoric seem a little less organic to Obama...since his manager already used the whole enchilada on another candidate with a similar background.

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be aware that what the GOP says does not mean what it reads and what We perceive as to what THEY say is or isn't, is not what THEY mean. You dig....Great! (ms. e)

I suppose there could be someone who's really interested in David Axelrod, or Axelrod candidates, but in a nefarious way, taking notes at numerous campaign sites, and having shockingly impressive recall.
There's gotta be some explanation.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

I wonder what Joe Biden thinks about this? He withdrew from the 1988 presidential race after reports surfaced that he had plagiarized a British politician's words.

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I have legalised robbery. Called it a belief
I have run with the money. And hid like a theif
I have re-written history. With my armies and my crooks
Invented memories. I did burn all the books
And I can still hear his laughter. And I can still hear his song
The mans too big. The mans too strong

Not really. There are these people called journalists, in Massachussetts. They have to cover all the campaigns. They remember stuff like this. It started appearing in print after the MA primaries. It's not just a couple of words. It's the whole tone of the rhetoric, as well as specific (and I would say, very intelligently structured) concepts and phrases. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar..._their_limits/

That Obama is trying to pass it off as "oh, Duval and I are just buds" is a bit disingenuous, to say the least. I don't think it's about plagiarism...it's about originality. When he delivers that line about "just words" he really makes it seem like he just thought of it. But it's as scripted as any other political speech.

I really wish he would just run as a normal person -- a real live politician -- with some good ideas and fresh energy. It's the over-the-top rhetoric and the holier-than-thou attitude that really turns me off. I think it's his Achilles heel.

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be aware that what the GOP says does not mean what it reads and what We perceive as to what THEY say is or isn't, is not what THEY mean. You dig....Great! (ms. e)

I have seen the name Biden evoked on several other discussion boards. I thought the lawschool plagiarism was the real final blow but the Brit's words were the start of the avalance.
Not that it's terribly relevant.

This probably belongs on another thread not devoted to the link between campaign punditry and Darwin, but:

This type of thing doesn't bode well for the D candidates. Obama and Hillary have very similar stances, and let's face it, in the politics of today, you attack and counter attack.
If you can't attack your opponent's policies, you have to attack them. And those personal attacks leave a WHOLE lot of bad feelings amongst supporters, ESPECIALLY if you chose your candidate because you could identify with them personally (amongst other reasons of course).

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

You, M'lady (?) are derailing my political punditry Darwinism thread...

In all seriousness, the problem here is that the ideas are SO similar between the two, that they've got nothing to resort to but this, personal attack, tactic.
You can't say "His ideas are worse", "My ideas are better", "Look what a great person I am", so what do you have left?

Hey, it's February, a lot can and will happen between now and November. It's just that at this admittedly early point, the D's have some bad cards in their hand.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Well, that's an interesting point. But there's an equal challenge on the R's side not knowing exactly who they're going to be running against. Do you attack both equally? Just the front runner, with the chance that your attacks might cut into that person's lead?

This, to me, does not qualify as a "personal attack," any more than does Obama painting Clinton as "the politics of the past" or "unelectable," or Clinton twitting Obama about not debating. It goes to their style and the perceptions they are generating about themselves, not an attack on their personal lives, choices, or attributes. Much more defensible in both cases.

I am wondering what is going to be made of the Michelle Obama "for the first time I am proud of my country" remark. That seems like one that could dog you right through the general election for sure.

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be aware that what the GOP says does not mean what it reads and what We perceive as to what THEY say is or isn't, is not what THEY mean. You dig....Great! (ms. e)

oops, sorry! I confess I didn't understand it.

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be aware that what the GOP says does not mean what it reads and what We perceive as to what THEY say is or isn't, is not what THEY mean. You dig....Great! (ms. e)

Good question, and this is actually a separate bad card that the D's happend to get dealt.
What you'll see McCain do, is attack the policies of "The Democrats" because HRC and BHO are so similar.
This is a double advantage for McCain because he can also rhetorically point to C/O and accuse them of taking personal shots at eachother "slinging mud" etc. (this is regardless of what may have happened in the brief R primary or could happen in the General Election).
If he's smart, strategically, he'll begin to stake out the "high ground", by only talking about policy (at this point, unless he's going to bash both of them, that's all he can talk about).
Further, McCain, TO DATE, isn't a candidate that inspires revulsion from a lot of the democrat faithful (see: Bush, George) a lot of folks put off by a messy primary, etc. could sit this one out.
[Note, IMHO McCain is suseptable to a real mental meltdown at any moment. It wouldn't shock me if a mouth foaming McCain being wrestled from a podium by Secret Service while he screams "I'LL KILL YOU ALL!!!" was beamed across every television in America one October day.]

Long and short, I think a very big factor in this race is how much damage is done to the winning D candidate and the structure of the party, before June, and how fast can it be healed up. Is that by November? Only time will tell.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1