Conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck Supporting Barack Obama

[Bob Juch]

The View's conservative cutie Elizabeth Hasselbeck stunned viewers today by throwing her support behind president-elect Barack Obama.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,447385,00.html

[Weyoun]

Really? While it may shock you that someone showed graciousness and a respect for the political process, almost everyone is hoping for the best.

[dimmzy]

I have been very inspired by the graciousness of Barack's opposition ...

Classy.

[gsabc]

WGAS. And more importantly, WHY should we GAS about some celebrity's opinion? Whether she's conservative or liberal, she is only a celebrity. You might as well have asked Jessica Simpson. Or Matt Damon. I didn't want to see Oprah on my TV screen on how she felt about the election. I wanted Jesse Jackson's reaction, Martin Luther King III's, Al Sharpton's (well, maybe not his), Bill Clinton's, Jimmy Carter's, those of other politicians including opponents.

I continue to be embarrassed by the news programs which insist on asking celebrities for their opinions on public issues where their opinion is of no more or less importance than some random person-on-the-street. Talk to the policy makers. Talk to the people who helped shape the conditions leading to the current situation. Leave the celebrities to the tabloid entertainment programs where they belong.

[climbing off the ranting soapbox now, and letting the medication and coffee kick in]

[BackInTex]

I have been very inspired by the graciousness of Barack's opposition ...

Classy.

We are a classy group.

[Sir_Galahad]

The View's conservative cutie Elizabeth Hasselbeck stunned viewers today by throwing her support behind president-elect Barack Obama.

This is not surprising in two aspects.

First, the lemmings that attend The View (and Letterman, Oprah, for example) and clap like maniacs at all the stupid remarks
made by the various hosts are the same people that cry foul when things don't go their way. These are the same people
who would be "stunned" by her support as they would never consider supporting someone they did not.

Second, many of the "celebrities", myself included ( ) who did not back Obama are showing their patriotism and
"country first" attitude by supporting Obama. Whether we like his background or his policies, we are willing to give
him a shot. He is going to face enormous pressure and he is going to be pulled in all directions. Since, in my opinion,
he is a paper candidate that was a face for the extreme left, he is going to have to decide whether to do what is
best for America or to cow-tow to the backers that promoted his candidacy. I do not envy him.

[flockofseagulls104]

Bob, This is America. I give my support to President Obama,too. I hope he does well and that our country prospers under his administration. At this point he has a clean slate.

He will no doubt do a lot of things that I disagree with, but I hope I never stoop to the level of vitriol and personal hatefulness that a lot of people on your side of the fence threw at President Bush. I agree with BiT's assessment of Bush's terms. He disappointed his supporters and his detractors, which is hard to do. But he was not to blame for everything in the world. I will try to keep that in mind with Obama.

[minimetoo26]

Well, Hallelujah. I hope others follow her example.

Unlike the idiot who wrote into today's paper renouncing McCain's call to support the new President-elect, saying compromise is for sissies. And the yahoos who came roaring up from 20 feet behind my husband yesterday so they could cut him off and give him a double-fisted one-finger salute from their truck festooned with three McCain stickers (they must have objected to his lone Obama one. Alas.) And the student who came into my son's school actually crying and wishing he could assassinate Obama, which would have gone overlooked if the girl who consistently had the highest or second-highest average in the entire grade over the last three or four years hadn't seconded the idea, triggering a lecture from the teacher about handling disappointment.

I'm surrounded by nutjobs here. Yikes.

[silverscreenselect]

During the weeks to come you can expect virtually every Republican leader to pledge to work with Obama to find "bipartisan solutions" to the problems that face the country. That and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee most places.

Many people honestly wish Obama well. I personally hope that I've been wrong about him because he has the potential to make this a transformational election much like 1932 or 1980 if he's up to it. We have two conservative Democratic congressmen in Georgia in Republican leaning districts, Marshall and Barrow. They were elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2006 by the skin of their teeth and should be among the most vulnerable Democrats out there. Both were re-elected this time with over 60% of the vote. They may be conservative but their districts now seem comfortable with them and they could be on the verge of becoming what we had a lot of in the South through the 60's, 70's and 80's: Congressmen for life, because the House leadership will protect them as they gain seniority by giving them plum assignments. The reason that it took so long for the Republicans to gain control of the House after the Reagan landslide was these entrenched Democrats in the South. People were voting for Republican presidents but for the same Congressmen they'd supported for ten or twenty years. When that wave died or retired, they were replaced by Republicans. Now we're finally beginning to turn that around.

If Obama does well, he can lock in states like VA, FL and CO in the Democratic column, and make states like IN, MO and NC competitive. That could lead to years of election results looking very similar to this year's (which looked a lot like the 1996 election results).

On the other hand, if Obama bombs, all the knives will come out again and the people who held their noses to vote Democratic this time will turn away.

The Republicans are going to do the smart thing for now, pledge support but commit nothing. They can't afford to try to stonewall Obama on everything he puts out there... it would be disastrous PR. The best thing would be to go along on some relatively modest proposals, and put out some counterproposals of their own on other things, just to prove that they are "bipartisan."

If Obama is smart, he will get people who know what they are doing (as opposed to Pelosi, Frank, and Reid) as point people on his legislative proposals. He will table anything that smells of a tax increase or universal healthcare for at least a year and start out with measures that should meet with a reasonable degree of bipartisan approval. He should appoint a couple of Republicans to useless positions in the Cabinet. Expect to see some sweeping new proposals for regulatory oversight to hit the track early. The other thing he can do is to talk to Justice Stevens and suggest he retire from the Supreme Court quickly after having pre-selected a suitable replacement, i.e., I've talked to Judge X and he's willing to take your position and now's my best chance to get this appointment through the Senate. The Republicans won't be able to stonewall that one right off the bat especially since it wouldn't change the ideological makeup of the court and it would appease the progressives for quite a while.

That's what Obama will do if he's smart. Which remains to be seen.

[sunflower]

I also think we should give her a little more credibility by not comparing her to Jessica Simpson. Jessica is lucky she knows her own name, Elizabeth is a smart girl who understands politics, even if she is often opinionated and maybe ruffles a few feathers. Will I let her (or any other celebrity) influence how I think/feel? Not likely. But I do think she deserves credit for getting behind Obama and moving on. I think anyone who has that message should be accepted and not criticized...you're never not going to see celebrities talk about stuff like this, so let's at least be thankful when intelligent stuff comes out of their mouths.