FINAL COUNTDOWN FOR USA ELECTION 2008

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

there's a real smell of right-wing desperation in the air.

they see their stranglehold on america slipping away.

it would be sad if it weren't so richly deserved.

That's funny. That is just what I was thinking about YOUR side.

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Obama_campaign_blasts_Palin.html

Barack Obama's campaign -- thrown for a loop like the rest of the political world by John McCain's stunning choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate -- is trying to adjust on the fly.

After initially sending out a blistering statement belittling the first-term Alaska governor as "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience," the Democratic nominee's camp has since taken a two-track strategy.

The candidate, himself, is nodding to the historic nature of her selection, while emphasizing the argument that she, like McCain, represents a continuation of President Bush. Obama's first TV ad on Palin makes the same point -- trying to rebut the McCain campaign portraying her as a younger maverick reformer who will shake up Washington.

"Well, he’’s made his choice," the announcer says in the Obama spot. "But, for the rest of us, there’’s still no change. McCain doesn’’t get it, calling this broken economy 'strong.' Wants to keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. And votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time.

"So, while this may be his running-mate," the announcer says over an image of McCain with Palin, "America knows this is John McCain’’s agenda," with an image of McCain and Bush. "And we can’’t afford four more years of the same."

But on a separate track, Obama's campaign is continuing to rip the choice of Palin, sending out one critical article or editorial after another and accusing him of pandering to women and to the religious right.

And Obama's surrogates are trying to make the case that McCain failed his first true test of leadership, picking someone unqualified even though he had said repeatedly that his first criteria for selection was someone who could step in as president if, God forbid, something happened to him.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/obama_reacts_to.html

Obama: 'Not about the issues' comment means making stuff up
Posted: 04:45 PM ET

From CNN Political Producer Alexander Marquardt

DURYEA, Pennsylvania (CNN) " Barack Obama continued to hammer the McCain campaign on Friday for manager Rick Davis’s comments that the election would be more about the candidates’ personas, not the issues. The Illinois senator said he’s not running for president for his “pretty good personality” and that it’s a sign Republicans intend to scare voters away from him with false accusations of Muslim and radical connections.

“When [the Republicans] say this isn’t about issues it’s about personalities what they’re really saying is “we’re going to try to scare people about Barack”,” he told a small gathering at a glass factory near Scranton. “”We’re going to say that you know, maybe he’s got Muslim connections or we’re going to say that, you know, he hangs out with radicals or he’s not patriotic.” Just making stuff up.”

“I mean I think I’ve got a pretty good personality! But that’s not why I am running for president,” Obama said, later adding, “If you want it to be about personalities, you know, we’ll go out for a beer sometime and we’ll talk but you know you don’t have time, you’d rather spend it with your family.”

Obama has repeatedly hit Republicans this week of for lacking substance at their convention in St. Paul and consistently brands the G0P as out of touch.

“If you’ve got the kind of record they’ve got over the last eight years then, of course, you don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about the issues,” said Obama. He blasted McCain on the economy, called his energy plan “made for TV” and accused the Arizona senator of having no education plan.

“Apparently Barack Obama was not listening when John McCain and Sarah Palin offered their plans to keep taxes low and create new jobs,” responded RNC spokesman Alex Conant. “On the other hand, Barack Obama’s economic policies would only raise taxes and eliminate jobs.”

Obama gave a lengthy defense during the Q&A portion of the event when a woman asked about rumors that he was going to take away their guns, an issue that has gotten him in some hot water in the past.

“I think this is a great question so I just want to clear it up,” he started. “The 2nd amendment is an individual right and it means something: that people have a right to bear arms. What I also believe is that there’s nothing wrong with some common sense gun safety measures.”

“The bottom line is this: if you’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it away,” he said, adding that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t get it through Congress.

“I hope I made that clear,” he wrapped up, “Is everybody clear back there in the back? ‘Cause I see a couple sportsmen back there. All right? Spread the word with your friends. I’m not going to take away your guns.”

It could be a difference in perception. In a political campaign, I don't see comparisons as being I am black, she is white or I am Democrat, she is Republican, etc. I see the comparisons as being drawn between what "I" offer versus what 'she' offers, "I" am qualified, "she isn't" etc. That is what he did.

Foxfyre wrote:

It could be a difference in perception. In a political campaign, I don't see comparisons as being I am black, she is white or I am Democrat, she is Republican, etc. I see the comparisons as being drawn between what "I" offer versus what 'she' offers, "I" am qualified, "she isn't" etc. That is what he did.

Sorry, no, thats not what he did. Obviously, this is a campaign, both are going to say why they think theyre better than the other party. But Obama made no direct comparison between himself and Gov. Palin. And to my knowledge, neither has his campaign. The fact remains that it is the McCain camp that is drawing the comparison. I am asking why you think that is.

Last Sunday morning on ABC, George Will suggested that people will vote according to values rather than issues. According to Will, Palin will energize the base of the Republican party because she chose to carry a Down's syndrome baby to full term.

there is the thought that macker is simply a trojan horse.

suppose mac gets elected. then 6 months or a year into his term, he leaves office due to health reasons.

palin finishes his term. then runs for president on her own. question is, in this scenario would she also be allowed to run a 2nd free standing campaign for what would in effect be a 3rd term?

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on the press conference because we are obviously hearing difference things.

Read again those two excerpts I posted earlier. You have the same opinion about the 'purity' of the Obama campaign re those?

Foxfyre wrote:

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on the press conference because we are obviously hearing difference things.

Clearly.

Quote:

Read again those two excerpts I posted earlier. You have the same opinion about the 'purity' of the Obama campaign re those?

Purity? Come on. Look, maybe you can save us both time and just tell me exactly what it is that you see wrong in what the campaign had to say in the excerpts you posted.

And so far, nobody has been able to show me that my point is wrong.

Senator Biden:

“It’s not merely a lost job, it’s a lost sense of identity. I don’t think my Republican friends " and this is not your father’s Republican party, by the way. So folks, when I listen to the parts of the Republican convention I can hear…it’s not what I heard, it’s what I didn’t hear. The silence of the Republican party was deafening. It was deafening on jobs, on health care, on the environment, on all the things that matter to the people in the neighborhood’s I grew up in. Deafening! Their America is not the America I live in. They see something different than I see.

“Rick Davis, John’s campaign manager, said ‘this election is not about issues.’ Everything I saw at the convention demonstrated that.

“What do you talk about about when you have nothing to say? What do you talk about when you can’t explain the last eight years of failure?”

I saw nothing wrong in the excerpts I just posted. I see a LOT wrong with the spin and rhetoric trying to portray the Obama campaign as so high minded and so pure and above-the-fray that any criticism of their words or intentions or tactics or motives is unwarranted. They can and do play just as down and dirty as anybody else. Which was my whole point all along.

I don't think it is necessary to dissect every component that goes into my point in order to recognize that this is my point.

Amendment XXII

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

I think the Democrats would be a lot less boring if they would just become educated enough to know that President Bush isn't running in this election. But whatever. Keep the focus there and stew in that theme while McCain/Palin pull away and go for the prize.