The 2008 US Presidential Election Thread

[conversationpc]

If you were Biden, for instance, would you be able to come up with a specific example of a bill that Obama had supported that specifically fought deregulation? I bet he couldn't and I bed most politicians or anyone in this thread could come up with something like that on the spot.

If you're gonna tout your party's candidate on national tv as a deregulator, or any specific title for that matter, you should have some instances to back it up.
That's not so hard.

Fair point. Then again, you may know in your mind that a specific politician, for instance, fought for education, as an example. You might not remember the specific names of bills they sponsored or passed but you know that they fought for it and perhaps even authored the bill.

Besides that...What is really bugging me at this point is Palin's accent. Her voice is extremely annoying.

[Enigma869]

Besides that...What is really bugging me at this point is Palin's accent. Her voice is extremely annoying.

I've been saying that since I first heard her. Her accent definitely grates on the nerves (almost like a Boston accent ). Any thoughts on her brilliant comment about Putin flying through Alaska's airspace, Dave?


John from Boston

[conversationpc]

Besides that...What is really bugging me at this point is Palin's accent. Her voice is extremely annoying.

I've been saying that since I first heard her. Her accent definitely grates on the nerves (almost like a Boston accent ).

Yeah, Boston accents and, even worse, New Joisey accents are the worst.

Any thoughts on her brilliant comment about Putin flying through Alaska's airspace, Dave?

I haven't seen the interview but that does sound pretty dumb.

[Enigma869]

Any thoughts on her brilliant comment about Putin flying through Alaska's airspace, Dave?

I haven't seen the interview but that does sound pretty dumb.

Here is just the one part of the interview where this specific question was asked. It's only about 1:30 long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwSbPxRZ3CI


John from Boston

[strangegrey]

McCain has tossed the election to Obama in the hopes of making this bill more equitable for US...that is you and me...the taxpayers.

Noble sentiment and all that, but it does mean that many people who have supported John McCain get to see all their hard for for the last 8 years go down the tubes.

I disagree Stu. He's thrust himself into this negotiation process to *appear* to have more leadership than he does....and the majority of people are seeing right through it, hence his plumeting poll numbers.

It has reminded me, why I was never enamored with McCain...and the only reason I briefly supported him was to prevent Obama from getting into office...However, perhaps what this country actually needs is Obama in the white house.



I'm sorry, this whole McCain charade smells of "look at me being 'presidential'". Its political grand-standing in the worst way...and sadly, it exposes McCain's lack of leadership ability, both in appearance and fact.

Historically, McCain has *never* been one to unify the republican base. Instead, he has a history of pandering to democrat interests (i.e. McCain-Fiengold, anti-torture-for-terrorist pandering, etc). I would submit, he has FAR less leadership abilities with the right than he does with the left...and he only *thinks* he has leadership abilities on the left. I FIRMLY believe the left views McCain behind closed doors as a Patzy that they can repeatedly use to advance their agenda on the republican side. He's like a dumb left-wing lightning rod for Democrat plans that the democrats know won't fly.


What's worse about this move for McCain, is that given this 'run back to washington' STINKS worse than a 3-day old shit on a hot porch in the sun, the democrats wont give McCain a single shred of credit. They will expose his actions as political pandering at every turn and take every opportunity to call out McCain on this...as they have already done. Because, in this particular scenario, McCain gaining any brownie points from this stupidity, means ground gained on Obama...which they wont allow.



Sorry....this very week, McCain actually exposed his complete and utter lack of leadership ability.....in an effort to try to fake it.

[conversationpc]

I disagree Stu. He's thrust himself into this negotiation process to *appear* to have more leadership than he does....and the majority of people are seeing right through it, hence his plumeting poll numbers.

His numbers have actually come back up since he decided to go back to Washington.

It has reminded me, why I was never enamored with McCain...and the only reason I briefly supported him was to prevent Obama from getting into office...However, perhaps what this country actually needs is Obama in the white house.

Yikes! No thanks to Obama. I'm not enamored of McCain but, at this point, he's still a far better choice than the alternative.

I'm sorry, this whole McCain charade smells of "look at me being 'presidential'". Its political grand-standing in the worst way...and sadly, it exposes McCain's lack of leadership ability, both in appearance and fact.

Regardless of whether it's political grandstanding, I'm glad he's in Washington to vote on this. He should be, regardless of if it's a ploy or not.

[RossValoryRocks]

McCain has tossed the election to Obama in the hopes of making this bill more equitable for US...that is you and me...the taxpayers.

Noble sentiment and all that, but it does mean that many people who have supported John McCain get to see all their hard for for the last 8 years go down the tubes.

I disagree Stu. He's thrust himself into this negotiation process to *appear* to have more leadership than he does....and the majority of people are seeing right through it, hence his plumeting poll numbers.

It has reminded me, why I was never enamored with McCain...and the only reason I briefly supported him was to prevent Obama from getting into office...However, perhaps what this country actually needs is Obama in the white house.



I'm sorry, this whole McCain charade smells of "look at me being 'presidential'". Its political grand-standing in the worst way...and sadly, it exposes McCain's lack of leadership ability, both in appearance and fact.

Historically, McCain has *never* been one to unify the republican base. Instead, he has a history of pandering to democrat interests (i.e. McCain-Fiengold, anti-torture-for-terrorist pandering, etc). I would submit, he has FAR less leadership abilities with the right than he does with the left...and he only *thinks* he has leadership abilities on the left. I FIRMLY believe the left views McCain behind closed doors as a Patzy that they can repeatedly use to advance their agenda on the republican side. He's like a dumb left-wing lightning rod for Democrat plans that the democrats know won't fly.


What's worse about this move for McCain, is that given this 'run back to washington' STINKS worse than a 3-day old shit on a hot porch in the sun, the democrats wont give McCain a single shred of credit. They will expose his actions as political pandering at every turn and take every opportunity to call out McCain on this...as they have already done. Because, in this particular scenario, McCain gaining any brownie points from this stupidity, means ground gained on Obama...which they wont allow.



Sorry....this very week, McCain actually exposed his complete and utter lack of leadership ability.....in an effort to try to fake it.

I respect your opinion, but I disagree on the motive here. In my opinion he threw it away because he felt that politics needs to be kept away from this deal.

A bit on the naive side there, but I believe he is working in our best interests.

[strangegrey]

His numbers have actually come back up since he decided to go back to Washington.

Where are you getting these so-called numbers?! Mickey Mouse? I've seen nothing but across the board complete free-falls regarding his return to washington. 6-7 point swings over the course of one week. It's out of control. Check your sources....

Yikes! No thanks to Obama. I'm not enamored of McCain but, at this point, he's still a far better choice than the alternative.

I got a call from the RNC back in February or March....and the first thing the money-hungry little bitch asked me was:

money-hungry RNC bitch: "Mr. Benuti"

me:"My last name is Benenati, jackass, get it right!"

money-hungry RNC bitch: "Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sorry Mr. Benenati....I have a simple question for you. Which Democrat would you least like to see in the white house next year? Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton?"

me:"John McCain"


After that, the phone call quickly ended, as the rnc bitch couldn't come up with a witty enough retort to that and he hung up the phone.

My point in all of this, is that if we are going to have a democrat in the white house...and make NO mistake about this....John McCain is just another democrat wearing Republican clothing. I would rather a president in there doing damage with a big ass fucking D after his last name. For the past 8 years, George W. Bush has been doing Democrat style damage from the Resolute Desk...and it has given the democrat base an opportunity to shift the center aisle even FARTHER to the left.


At this point, I really feel that this country has gone down enough of a road where people need to wake up from their apathy. Another republican signing democrat law and presenting democrat-style fixes to real problems is NOT going to help us...in the long run, it will cause FAR more damage than someone like Barack Obama can ever do.

Regardless of whether it's political grandstanding, I'm glad he's in Washington to vote on this. He should be, regardless of if it's a ploy or not.

You're missing the point. Whether or not he *should* be there....politics is perception....and the perception is that this is a fake-effort to present paper leadership....and that it's political grandstanding. I'm not the only one presenting this viewpoint. There's overwhelming agreement on this. His campaign is on life support and it's goen that way over the course of 4-5 days.

If he pulls a no-show tonight or tries to take credit for this bailout....it's political death for him. It was a no-win situation for him to go...he should have remained on the outside...because no congressional republican wants to support this mess (because they have to face their own constituency in 40 days)....so McCain will actually come out of this showing far less leadership than he ever thought or claimed he had.

[strangegrey]

I respect your opinion, but I disagree on the motive here. In my opinion he threw it away because he felt that politics needs to be kept away from this deal.

A bit on the naive side there, but I believe he is working in our best interests.

Then he's an idiot and doesn't deserve to sit in the oval office. Seriously, stu. He's one vote in 100 in the senate. He's a whole fucking veto signature to competely override the vote of 535 members of congress. Learn what battles to fight.

I would think that with all of his 'naval' experience he would understand when to fight from positions of strength. He can do *real* and *lasting* change from the resolute desk....he can only *appear* to making change from the capital building.

This is an appearnce move by McCain...and in the face of crisis, NO one in the public wants to see someone play an appearance game.


By far the stupidest tactical move I've ever seen a candidate pull in the past 10-15 years.

[grimlocked]

I respect your opinion, but I disagree on the motive here. In my opinion he threw it away because he felt that politics needs to be kept away from this deal.

A bit on the naive side there, but I believe he is working in our best interests.

Then he's an idiot and doesn't deserve to sit in the oval office. Seriously, stu. He's one vote in 100 in the senate. He's a whole fucking veto signature to competely override the vote of 535 members of congress. Learn what battles to fight.

I would think that with all of his 'naval' experience he would understand when to fight from positions of strength. He can do *real* and *lasting* change from the resolute desk....he can only *appear* to making change from the capital building.

This is an appearnce move by McCain...and in the face of crisis, NO one in the public wants to see someone play an appearance game.


By far the stupidest tactical move I've ever seen a candidate pull in the past 10-15 years.

On the first day, McCain's move seemed like a really brilliant one. However, after a few hours, everyone called the bluff. Now it all appears that his involvement is the reason why the supposedly "done" deal is going south again (I don't believe that, I think the GOP voice in Washington didn't want the terms of the deal in the first place). This is gonna look real bad on McCain if he appears injecting politics. On top of that, appearing or not in the Friday debate is bad for him either way.

[conversationpc]

His numbers have actually come back up since he decided to go back to Washington.

Where are you getting these so-called numbers?! Mickey Mouse? I've seen nothing but across the board complete free-falls regarding his return to washington. 6-7 point swings over the course of one week. It's out of control. Check your sources....

According to Gallup Tracking, Obama lost a point and McCain gained two. http://www.gallup.com/Home.aspx. I'm not sure what the other polls are saying or if they've factored in the events over the last two days. Does Mickey Mouse work for Gallup?

[strangegrey]

Does Mickey Mouse work for Gallup?

LOL

[RossValoryRocks]

His numbers have actually come back up since he decided to go back to Washington.

Where are you getting these so-called numbers?! Mickey Mouse? I've seen nothing but across the board complete free-falls regarding his return to washington. 6-7 point swings over the course of one week. It's out of control. Check your sources....

According to Gallup Tracking, Obama lost a point and McCain gained two. http://www.gallup.com/Home.aspx. I'm not sure what the other polls are saying or if they've factored in the events over the last two days. Does Mickey Mouse work for Gallup?

Rasmussen daily tracking has Obama up by 5 today...

[Enigma869]

He's one vote in 100 in the senate.

Not to mention, how many votes has the guy missed in the past two years while he's had a hard on to be president! This bullshit that "he just wants to do what's right for our country" is fucking nauseating! He wants to do what he thinks is right for him and his campaign. He is absolutely not attempting to intentionally sabatoge his own campaign, in spite of Stu's suggestion to the contrary! This is textbook political grandstanding, and the guy looks like a dope! If this guy loses this election to a black man, in this country, it will be a bigger collapse than the Yankees pulled off in 2004 against the Red Sox


John from Boston

[csiako]

zogby has mccain leading by two

[Enigma869]

Come on Palin ass kissers...there has to be one of you to put a positive spin on this train wreck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwSbPxRZ3CI


John from Boston

[7 Wishes]

That sounds dubious.

But not NEARLY as dubious as the Bush Administration's insistence upon ZERO oversight and prosecutional immunity.

And THAT issue, the Republicans have NO issue with.

So, as usual, both parties are pandering to their own fucked-up ideologies.

[conversationpc]

His numbers have actually come back up since he decided to go back to Washington.

Where are you getting these so-called numbers?! Mickey Mouse? I've seen nothing but across the board complete free-falls regarding his return to washington. 6-7 point swings over the course of one week. It's out of control. Check your sources....

According to Gallup Tracking, Obama lost a point and McCain gained two. http://www.gallup.com/Home.aspx. I'm not sure what the other polls are saying or if they've factored in the events over the last two days. Does Mickey Mouse work for Gallup?

Rasmussen daily tracking has Obama up by 5 today...

I saw that but I didn't see what their previous numbers were. I'll have to see if I can find out if Obama gained ground and if it factored in events from the last two days.

[RossValoryRocks]

Interesting take on the McCain v. Obama income taxes...

http://www.electiontaxes.com/

Based upon what has been revealed by each candidate...

[grimlocked]

According to McCain's web ads (found on WSG), he's already won the debate!

[csiako]

According to McCain's web ads (found on WSG), he's already won the debate!

what is wsg?
the image is hosted at www.mydd.com sounds like a democratic site

[7 Wishes]

How must it feel to be so wrong and uninformed? You are right about the lack of prosecution part. Dodd,Frank,Raines,Schumer,Johnson and many others need a bit of jail time IMHO.

WTF are you talking about? Your response had nothing to do with my comment. And I'm not "uniformed". A basic precept of the Bush proposal would be zero oversight (over what the ADMINISTRATION does with the money, not Wall Street itself). So we're talking about two different things here.

Looks like I'll save $1,552 under Obama's plan. Sounds good to me.

[grimlocked]

According to McCain's web ads (found on WSG), he's already won the debate!

what is wsg?
the image is hosted at www.mydd.com sounds like a democratic site

This is probably a McCain ad that was released too soon (along with a WSJ article). Story is here. There's a screen capture below (Washington Post):

[The_Noble_Cause]

I respect your opinion, but I disagree on the motive here. In my opinion he threw it away because he felt that politics needs to be kept away from this deal.

A bit on the naive side there, but I believe he is working in our best interests.

But contrary to his solemn promise, campaign ads were not pulled from the airwaves, surrogates did not refrain from making TV appearances and campaign HQs remained open as usual - so just how did he suspend his campaign?

[mikemarrs]

WASHINGTON (Sept. 26) - Republican John McCain agreed to attend the first presidential debate Friday night even though Congress doesn't have a bailout deal, reversing an earlier decision to delay the event until Washington had taken action to address the crisis.

With less than 10 hours until the debate was scheduled to start, the McCain campaign announced that the Arizona senator would travel to the University of Mississippi. The campaign said that afterward McCain would return to Washington to continue working on the financial crisis.
Obama had always planned to attend the debate and was aboard his plane preparing to take off when McCain's announcement was made. McCain quickly moved to his own private aircraft and headed South with his wife and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his wife, Judith, on board.
The action contradicted the position McCain had taken Wednesday, when he announced, "I'm directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis."
McCain had also said he would suspend all campaign activities, but in reality the campaign just shifted to Washington while the work of trying to win the election went on.
McCain had taken a gamble with the move, trying to appear above politics and as a leader on an issue that had overshadowed the presidential campaign and given him trouble. But Democratic rival Barack Obama had not bowed to McCain's challenge, and instead questioned why the Republican nominee couldn't handle two things at once — the debate and involvement in the bailout negotiations.
An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll out Friday just before McCain's announcement showed the public overwhelmingly wanted the candidates to debate, 60 percent to 22 percent, with the rest undecided.

By Friday morning, it appeared McCain was looking for a face-saving way to get to the debate even though a deal had not been reached. He met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, before heading to his campaign headquarters and issuing a statement that blamed others in Washington for the failure to reach an agreement.
"John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign was made in the hopes that politics could be set aside to address our economic crisis," the statement said. "In response, Americans saw a familiar spectacle in Washington. At a moment of crisis that threatened the economic security of American families, Washington played the blame game rather than work together to find a solution that would avert a collapse of financial markets without squandering hundreds of billions of taxpayers' money to bail out bankers and brokers who bet their fortunes on unsafe lending practices."
Just before McCain's announcement, Obama told reporters that he had spent Friday morning on the phone with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and congressional leaders and he was optimistic that progress was being made toward a bailout deal.
"At this point, my strong sense is that the best thing that I can do, rather than to inject presidential politics into these delicate negotiations, is to go down to Mississippi and explain to the American people what is going on and my vision for leading the country over the next four years," Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane as they prepared to travel to Mississippi.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a McCain supporter, said the Republican made a "huge mistake" by even discussing canceling the debate.

[RedWingFan]

Can't wait for tonights debate.

I'm stuck at work. A rundown of whatever goes down would be greatly appreciated.

[strangegrey]

I respect your opinion, but I disagree on the motive here. In my opinion he threw it away because he felt that politics needs to be kept away from this deal.

A bit on the naive side there, but I believe he is working in our best interests.

But contrary to his solemn promise, campaign ads were not pulled from the airwaves, surrogates did not refrain from making TV appearances and campaign HQs remained open as usual - so just how did he suspend his campaign?

Not only that, but I received not one, not two, not three, but FOUR compaign contribution solicitation phone calls from McCain's campaign yesterday during this so-called 'shut down' of his campaign!!!!!

[csiako]

leak footage of tonight's debate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4IyMuL9wos

[The_Noble_Cause]

I might ad, you can most assuredly expect this same sort of result with National Health Care or any other Government Run and funded program...see welfare.

Is that why McCain wanted to make our healthcare system more like the very banking system which is presently collapsing around us?

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation"

[RedWingFan]

I might ad, you can most assuredly expect this same sort of result with National Health Care or any other Government Run and funded program...see welfare.

Is that why McCain wanted to make our healthcare system more like the very banking system which is presently collapsing around us?

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation"

Not arguing this. Our choice is between a center/left candidate and a radical leftist/socialist who doesn't want to be called names.