posted
Would have been funny if there had been commercials during the ad, and in those commercials were more ads for Obama.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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From an advertising standpoint, probably one of the better political advertisements I've seen in a long time. Really is worth the watch, whether you agree with him or not.
Yeah that was good. As much as it was good to try and woo undecideds, and I certainly think it was, I also think it was a major pep rally for people already in his camp. I don't usually buy into the inspirational stuff like that, but I'll admit that even I was a little pumped up after that ad. I think that was for anyone who was considering staying home because Obama has it in the bag. Sure, it was also about getting undecideds on his side, and had a great mix of A. Character. B. Biography. C. Specific plans on issues. But I'll bet a lot of people who were already going to vote for him watched that and got that much more pumped about going to the polls on Tuesday and then partying Tuesday night.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Thanks Chris, at least I feel a little better knowing I have not lost all my google-gu skills. Off to read your links....
Happy to help! I wasn't finding the report either, so I went looking for the source...
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:I guess the alternative would be to have everything done on paper and counted by hand, which I guess would lead to smaller populations to be covered by each voting district and each precinct, but even then you still have to count on the honestly of the little old ladies running hte precinct and counting the votes.
In Canada we run on the Little Old Lady (LOL) system, although a lot of young people get involved too, including myself. Part of my job was to count the ballots. We have both people at the table looking at the votes, we had candidates representatives wandering around checking on the count (although only one person was allowed to touch the ballots.)
It would be possible to rig the ballots at the vote-counting level, I suppose, but to make any significant effect you'd have to get a lot of disparate people on board.
It would be more easy to do it at a higher level- in the returning office, where we reported our numbers. I assume that the computer system, just like the LOL system, spits out a number which is then reported in the same way to a higher office.
Either way, Canada seems to manage fine with a LOL system. The only thing is it takes a lot of paper.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Oh man that was awkward. Frankly, it's embarrassing that this has even become a talking point for the McCain campaign. It's irresponsible and dishonest to try and implicate Obama as a terrorist (or a supporter of terrorists) with such weak evidence. I think that out of Ayers, Wright, and Khalidi, Wright is the only one whose connections with Obama should have been questioned in the first place.
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posted
I'm beginning to get the impression you could make a fairly long montage of McCain campaign people being asked questions, looking like deer in the headlights, and repeating stock phrases and soundbites.
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posted
I think it was on the Colbert Report last night where they had a Fox News correspondent visually and verballly flabbergasted by some of what is coming out of the McCain campaign. Talk about a tipping point. I'll try and find the link.
I was watching part of a campaign event earlier today with McCain, and McCain said that he wouldn't support the massive $700 billion giveaway to corporations and banks, but that Obama was in the thick of it. Apparently McCain has memory flashburns concerning things like: Him voting for that measure, him suspending his campaign to fly to Washington to supposedly spearhead the Congressional efforts to get that measure passed, and him criticizing Obama for not doing the same.
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I would think after that that Joe would've been yanked, and on TV it seems he has been for Tito the Builder (God I hate those name), but even today Joe was at a campaign event.
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posted
At this point, I really get the impression McCain is willing to accept the help of anyone who's willing to throw something that might stick. Someone in his campaign ought to know better, though; a lot of analysis suggests this is backfiring with the "undecideds".
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posted
It is incredible that random men have been picked like this and allowed the time to speak on national television. Until today, I thought Joe the Plumber was an allegory.
Someone mentioned Marg the Human Resources Worker. That's a valid point. Why builders and plumbers? Why not people who work in shops? or low level office workers and temps?
In Canada, specialists like plumbers, electricians and builders are in fact quite a rare commodity and make excellent pay after they get started.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Would have been funny if there had been commercials during the ad, and in those commercials were more ads for Obama.
It would have been even funnier if there had been commercials during the ad, and those commercials were for McCain. Imagine McCains "Too Risky" ad coming on right in the middle of Obama's half hour info-mercial.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:At this point, I really get the impression McCain is willing to accept the help of anyone who's willing to throw something that might stick. Someone in his campaign really ought to know better, though; a lot of analysis suggests this is backfiring with the "undecideds".
You do realize that you are backing the candidate who is willing to take any money from anyone willing to give and not caring how often.
I may not like Mark Stryn, but I know the difference between right and wrong. Or Here
quote:As Bill Dyer asks:
Who ordered the anti-fraud protections turned off?
And as he concludes:
What did the wanna-be president know and when did he know it?
I don't understand why this isn't a bigger deal. This is tainting an election. I think this is at least as big of a deal as any voter suppression in the the 2000 election, and most of the talking heads are complicit. As we speak, Obama is knowingly taking advantage of a corrupt system, and truthfully, this is just the kind of executive ethics flaw that led to the financial meltdown. Gift cards are untraceable, why, except for naked greed, would you even open that Pandora's Box.
posted
As opposed to the candidate who has no experience, and whose number one qualification for high government office is that he's a good public speaker?
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: As opposed to the candidate who has no experience, and whose number one qualification for high government office is that he's a good public speaker?
I'm sure Governor Palin will grow into the job.
...oh wait, you said good public speaker.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: As opposed to the candidate who has no experience, and whose number one qualification for high government office is that he's a good public speaker?
Must i quote that most of your best presidents were new and inexperienced? And what has experience gotten you anyways? Old white guys doing more of the same? Palin is disastrous for someone to end up becoming President, no matter how bad you may think Obama is but having Palin as President would be a disaster.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: As opposed to the candidate who has no experience, and whose number one qualification for high government office is that he's a good public speaker?
Point to me please the last country Sarah Palin or John McCain ran.
None of them have presidential experience.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong:
quote:And are you backing the candidate who will probably die in office and have the most unqualified person in the world take over?
I'm backing Ralph Nader, and yes, I think it would be neat to have Matt Gonzalez as President.
I think Nader is an interesting candiate with a interesting history of consumer protection, however he doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning.
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posted
Executive experience is a lot closer than legislative experience. There've only been two senators who've become President in the history of the US. It's not a good place for learning the job.
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Yes, one of them saved the nation from splitting in two, and the other saved us from nuclear anihilation and took us to the moon. Clearly they were awful.
Regardless, your argument would be a great reason not to vote for McCain either, but even so, executive experience isn't the be all end all. What sort of foreign policy experience does she have? I won't begrudge McCain's credentials or Bidens, and even Obama has been a player on the subject of loose nukes and has been involved for a number of years now with international issues while Sarah Palin has been up in Alaska minding her own business. What sort of experience does she really have with the economy and balancing a budget? Problems with economic stiumulus? She just wrote everyone in the state a bigger check from their extreme oil wealth, which is why taxes or the budget aren't a problem since they are so flush with cash. The measure of a leader isn't how the ride a current of good fortune, it's how they deal with hard times, and Palin hasn't had any in Alaska to deal with. She doesn't even understand the job she's running for.
Just because someone was governor and someone else was a legislator at various levels doesn't automatically make one better than the other. You have to get into specifics. She's run a state for a year and a half with less people in it than most large cities in America. By that measure, most of America's mayors of large cities (or apparently even Wasilla) are more qualified than McCain to be president, which is a ridiculous argument.
Executive experience by itself with no thought to what that experience really entails is not the be all end all. I've yet to see anyone seriously articulate a defense for why any degree of executive experience is automatically better than any degree of legislative experience. History most certainly doesn't bear out that fundamental misconception.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: You do realize that you are backing the candidate who is willing to take any money from anyone willing to give and not caring how often...
While I wouldn't agree that it's necessarily as disturbing as some of the vote surpression tactics used in 2000 (I don't accept that campaign dollars are equal to votes), and I think the articles may overstate their case somewhat (that 2/3 of a candidate's income come from a system with faulty safeguards doesn't equate to 2/3 of that income coming from questionable sources by a long shot), I agree that there's something there to be concerned about. I dare hope the Obama campaign will follow through on investigation of its contribution list. And I recognize that the fundraising arm failing to apply safeguards may imply laziness or an excessive desire for an efficient monetary stream, and not necessarily intentional malfeasance. When I contributed to Obama, I filled in all the checkboxes that said I was a U.S. citizen, that I wasn't giving over the legal limits, and so on. That someone(s) are doing so fraudulently and the campaign isn't doing as much as it might to prevent it is unfortunate, and should be corrected, but is not necessarily the same as encouraging such actions.
The lenient inflow policy may be giving the Obama campaign a (temporary, if they follow through on investigations and returns) unfair advantage. But aside from that, the nature of the way the questionable contributions are given allays my biggest fear about excessive or overseas contributions: that the contributor feels he's buying the candidate. An annonymous benefactor can't come to an officeholder looking for favors later.
I grant that I have thrown in with Obama, and perhaps I find justifying or excusing the campaign's possible misdeeds too easy. But I do believe that his record contributions have far more to do with the kind of genuine supporters he's getting (I have many friends who say they've given to Obama and it's the first candidate they've ever given money to), and I do believe that he's still much the superior candidate on most issues.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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How do you suppose he managed to say "this was a good conversation" with a straight face?
I suspect it's much the same way some surgeons train themselves to say "Excellent!" during surgery when they want to say "Oh, @$#%."
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posted
I just think he wants to renew his obstinate self-righteousness cred for another four years. If he votes for the man he might feel he's not as justified in trying to tear everything around him down.
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posted
Also, Obama does not have Palin's executive experience, such as it is. But he has run the largest and by far most effective presidential campaign ever seen. He may very well have more people in his campaign than live in Alaska... And little to no dissension in the ranks, no problems with money, no embarrassing scandals from campaign workers. His people mobilized, fired up more people, and did their jobs.
He speaks well. He picks good people. He listens to ideas. He seems to understand that America is made up of more than just his base. Right there he's an improvement over President Bush.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Executive experience is a lot closer than legislative experience. There've only been two senators who've become President in the history of the US. It's not a good place for learning the job.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Executive experience is a lot closer than legislative experience. There've only been two senators who've become President in the history of the US. It's not a good place for learning the job.
And her 'experience' shows her abusing her power, acting unethically, and giving positions of power to her friends with little to no concern for their abilities.
Sounds familiar, no?
That's not the kind of experience we need.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Seriously Lisa, why isn't it enough to simply say "I disagree with Sen. Obama because of his political, socio-economic, and ideological views" and from there at least respect the man for what hes done? I was like this with McCain and Huckabee, but the former hasn't done much recently to retain that respect.
Why with the unfounded attacks on the mans accomplishments and character?
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I agree with your assessment of Palin, and I don't think she's helping the McCain campaign much right now, but I have to agree with columnist Eugene Robinson that Palin's long-term prospects are very very good.
quote:My view of Sarah Palin has changed in the two months since John McCain named her as his running mate. I'm guessing that McCain's view of Palin may be changing, too, and not entirely in a good way.
I thought Palin was a lightweight; she's not. I thought she was an ingenue; she is, but only as long as her claws are sheathed. I thought she was bewildered and star-struck at her sudden elevation to national prominence; if she ever was, she isn't anymore. I thought she was nothing but raw political talent and unrealistic ambition; it turns out that she has impressive political skills. I thought she was destined to become nothing more than a historical footnote; I now think that Democrats underestimate her at their peril.
Robinson's column is worth reading - especially for Obama supporters inclined to write her off as a lightweight.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Executive experience is a lot closer than legislative experience. There've only been two senators who've become President in the history of the US. It's not a good place for learning the job.
Uh, actually... there have been FIFTEEN. Only two made the jump directly from Senate to Presidency.
That's about one in three, no?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
The thing with McCain/Palin is that if they win the presidency, there's going to be a lot of disenfranchised citizenry. McCain and Palin both (but especially Palin) have made it quite clear that they don't care one lick about the concerns of what may be over half of the people. We're not "real" America. At least with Obama, even if you don't agree with his politics, he has made it clear that he wants to work with the other side. He at least wants to make the attempt to be everyone's president.
McCain and Palin haven't even tried to present themselves that way. It's always Us vs. Them.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by sndrake: Javert,
I agree with your assessment of Palin, and I don't think she's helping the McCain campaign much right now, but I have to agree with columnist Eugene Robinson that Palin's long-term prospects are very very good.
quote:My view of Sarah Palin has changed in the two months since John McCain named her as his running mate. I'm guessing that McCain's view of Palin may be changing, too, and not entirely in a good way.
I thought Palin was a lightweight; she's not. I thought she was an ingenue; she is, but only as long as her claws are sheathed. I thought she was bewildered and star-struck at her sudden elevation to national prominence; if she ever was, she isn't anymore. I thought she was nothing but raw political talent and unrealistic ambition; it turns out that she has impressive political skills. I thought she was destined to become nothing more than a historical footnote; I now think that Democrats underestimate her at their peril.
Robinson's column is worth reading - especially for Obama supporters inclined to write her off as a lightweight.
Being a demagogue is not the same thing as being material for being President. She's unqualified period.
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quote:At least with Obama, even if you don't agree with his politics, he has made it clear that he wants to work with the other side.
There is the difference in perception. With the McCain campaign, there is a lot of us against them. With the Obama campaign, there is a lot of unifying, one America talk.
With McCain's approach, there is a healthy conflict of ideas that acknowledges the existence of opposition. With Obama's approach, and all the talk of a disciplined, controlled campaign, put together with the sense I'm getting that an Obama term will be a tacit four campaign for 2012, anyone who is not in his One America will be disappeared.
___________
I was listening to this Florida congressman yesterday, and he was talking about how all of the donations means that America is behind Obama, 110 percent. I thought to myself, "No, anywhere from 45 to 55 percent of the voters are for Obama. The a large balance of the rest are probably pissed."
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Executive experience is a lot closer than legislative experience. There've only been two senators who've become President in the history of the US. It's not a good place for learning the job.
Uh, actually... there have been FIFTEEN. Only two made the jump directly from Senate to Presidency.
That's about one in three, no?
And if you add to that Madison, Filmore, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Ford and GHW Bush who had seats in the House, you get 22 Presidents who've had legislative experience or more than half.
Only 15 of our Presidents have had executive experience as eight Governor or Vice President prior to their election.
I dislike the way people cite "executive experience" as though being the "executive" of anything automatically gives you experience that would be relevant to being President. The mayor of Wasilla signs checks, not exactly something relevant to being President unless you consider that practice for putting signatures on bills.
As I've pointed out before, the division of powers between state and federal government means that there is relatively little over lap between a Governor's duties and the President's duties.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I agree with your assessment of Palin, and I don't think she's helping the McCain campaign much right now, but I have to agree with columnist Eugene Robinson that Palin's long-term prospects are very very good.
quote:My view of Sarah Palin has changed in the two months since John McCain named her as his running mate. I'm guessing that McCain's view of Palin may be changing, too, and not entirely in a good way.
I thought Palin was a lightweight; she's not. I thought she was an ingenue; she is, but only as long as her claws are sheathed. I thought she was bewildered and star-struck at her sudden elevation to national prominence; if she ever was, she isn't anymore. I thought she was nothing but raw political talent and unrealistic ambition; it turns out that she has impressive political skills. I thought she was destined to become nothing more than a historical footnote; I now think that Democrats underestimate her at their peril.
Robinson's column is worth reading - especially for Obama supporters inclined to write her off as a lightweight.
I think it depends entirely on what she does in the next three years. What moves she makes, how she keeps her name in the GOP sphere of influence. But I don't think her chances are that good. She has zero crossover appeal to independents and moderate Democrats. She's fantastic with the conservative base, and that's it. The only crossover appeal this year's GOP ticket has is because of lingering attachment to pre-2000 McCain who actually was a maverick of sorts. As soon as she joined the ticket, the base went nuts, and moderate independents in the country grew wary, and then most jumped ship.
Running by herself will excite the base, but everyone running against her will cite the exact same credentials and then bring up electability. That's going to be the buzzword of the next GOP primary if she runs for president. If she does with the nomination, her victory I think will depend entirely on Obama, and not a bit on her. She can't use the "look who he pals around" crap after he's been president for four years. And she can't use scare tactics. She'll have to attack his record. So if he screws up, the GOP has a window. If he does a good job, then I don't see what they'll be able to do. Especially if they use a figure like Palin who unifies the Left as much as it unifies the Right.
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posted
I look at Samantha Power and I look at Jeremiah Wright, two good Americans who didn't march in lock-step and were banished to the phantom zone. I, myself, worked in Obama's Senate office a few years ago, before he announced. I've seen the machine up close, and I didn't like the view.
The nation gets what it deserves. When Powell pointed to tire tracks and said WMDs, the media bit and the country went along. Obama's biggest campaign issue is himself. We are going to forget that he literally lied, cheated, and dropped his church to get there. The long term effects of such egregious behavior in public service is impossible to determine.
I wouldn't even mind an Obama election, if people were suitably outraged about the consequences of buying the US Presidency, with credit cards. Honestly, I don't even think that credit card campaign donations should be allowed.
posted
Eh, Obama was playing chess with Clinton in the primary, and Power was a strong piece that Clinton was able to force off the board. I'm hopeful that Samantha Power will be a part of the Obama White House.
[Edit - If she's not a part of it, I'm going to be pretty disappointed. I think that Samantha Power was what I liked best about the Obama campaign during the primaries.]
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Irami, would it really kill you to, just once, let yourself win something?
For a very long time, I voted in every election but never voted for anyone who won. It was a comfortable position to be in because whenever things went wrong -- it wasn't my fault. I voted against the idiots.
I'm not sure that logic can really hold if you vote for Nader or any third party candidate that has no chance of winning. When you vote third party, you are choosing to use your voice for a purpose other than deciding the election. The purpose may be important to you, but from a pragmatic standpoint its no different than choosing to stay at home.
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