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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 6, 2008 / 29 Adar I 5768

Inevitability

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Suddenly inevitability is anything but inevitable. After being the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Hillary Clinton was being called upon by the newest inevitable nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw from the race. But after her hard-won victories in Texas and Ohio on Tuesday, it's Obama who doesn't seem quite as inevitable. Though Obama continues to hold a slight lead in delegates and the math favors him over the remaining primaries, Clinton has shown that, like her husband, she might also lay claim to the name "comeback kid."


The Clintons are anything but quitters and with the question of what to do with Florida and Michigan's disenfranchised delegates still to be decided, along with the continuing behind-the-scenes campaign for the superdelegates, the Democratic contest is far from over.


With his Republican nomination victory, Sen. John McCain has at least one advantage and several disadvantages. The advantage is that he has the nomination. His main disadvantage is that many conservatives still don't trust him. They want to know as president whether he will work more with liberal senators like Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold just to "get along," or will he stand on bedrock conservative principles regardless of what is said about him? Some conservatives wonder if his commitment to running a "civil campaign" means he won't be up to the fight.


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McCain has to persuade conservatives not only that he will advance conservative principles as president, but also that he won't put getting along and feel-good notions ahead of playing smash-mouth politics when it is necessary to achieve political victory and advance a conservative agenda. Democrats play that kind of game and conservatives are not interested in awards from Miss Manners. After laboring in the trenches since the Goldwater years, they want victories. They don't care whether they earn praise from the left for the political equivalent of practicing good table manners.


Another McCain disadvantage is his speaking style. After eight years of the inarticulate George W. Bush, must we be forced to endure another president who can't ad lib a speech and has difficulty reading a teleprompter? In his speech after locking up the nomination Tuesday night, McCain must have said "my friends" at least a dozen times. It is a verbal crutch and cliche that quickly wears thin. There were some good lines in the speech, but the way McCain delivered it, the words sounded as if he were reading someone else's speech and not expressing his own beliefs. At 71, it's probably too late to send him to speech school, but surely some improvements can be made.


McCain's greatest advantage is himself. His life story is compelling and something neither Clinton nor Obama can match. He can own the issue of national security. He must now convince voters that on domestic issues he is better able to manage the economy while reducing the size and cost of government.


McCain's consistency on earmarks is a good start. But because the greatest costs are tied up in Social Security and Medicare, McCain must sell a plan that will transform these programs. Democrats will practice their usual demagoguery in the face of any attempt to fix what even they know are two programs in drastic need of repair, but if he can persuade the public on the need to reform our two biggest entitlement programs, he will do for these what Republicans did for welfare reform. And, like welfare reform, he can prove the critics wrong.


Knowing that the Clintons are not quitters, it will be fascinating to watch them deal with Florida and Michigan and the superdelegates. Will those two states hold new primary elections? Will there be a floor fight over the seating of delegates this summer at the Democratic convention in Denver? Will superdelegates that seemed to trend toward Obama before last Tuesday's primaries continue to do so, or will Sen. Clinton's victories freeze them in place?


There is nothing inevitable about any of this, which is why the 2008 presidential race continues to be the most fascinating in modern times.

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JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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