A Hug for Obama, a Handshake for McCain

[babylonsister]

A Hug for Obama, a Handshake for McCain

By JOHN HARWOOD
Published: July 28, 2008


Senator Barack Obama’s audience inside the Capitol this week will number about 200, not the 200,000 who gathered last week in Berlin. And with their own careers tied to his on Election Day, the House Democrats gathered to listen to him will bring more critical scrutiny.

Yet all signs point to a reception for Mr. Obama at the closed-door session that will be warm, if not as effusive as the cheery crowd in front of the Victory Column in Germany. In one of the notable turnabouts of the 2008 campaign, Democratic politicians and voters alike display more fervor for Mr. Obama than Republicans do for Senator John McCain.

Within Republican cloakrooms on Capitol Hill, the coolness toward Mr. McCain is mutual; while colleagues question his campaign’s performance and departures from party orthodoxy, he keeps a tarnished Republican establishment at arm’s length.

Democrats express remarkably few reservations about Mr. Obama — despite his tough nomination fight with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and the risks associated with his race, his liberal policy stances, even his nontraditional name.

“He’s preaching to the choir,” said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, once a staunch Clinton backer, “and we’re ready to sing.”

Tempering Passion

In part, Democratic contentment flows up from the grass roots. In a New York Times/CBS News poll this month, Mr. Obama enjoyed a three-to-one edge in the proportion of voters calling themselves enthusiastic about their party’s presumptive nominee.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/us/politics/28caucus.html?ref=todayspaper

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Hard not to support a candidate

when you find out what a large number of folks in your own district have sent in $60 or so to his campaign and are volunteering for him. The smart Congresscritter realizes that the Obama tide will raise their boats as well as his.