This is the Presidential Campaign Thread.

Barack Obama Vs. John McCain.

Edited November 6, 200817 yr by Toups

If McCain really ahs the answers to our questions, he would do himself much better to explain to us what he wants to do. I may or may not agree, but at least I can respect him for putting his ideas out there.

But, to answer "who would you nom as your TS?" and say the lady who started Ebay (Who has just laid off thousands of workers) while Obama actuall said a man who I have heard would make a great TS, spoke volumes. Maybe McCain doesn't do that because he's scared he will come off as not knowing what he's doing, and it will make him Bush-like if he starts naming friends of his instead of people who can do the job (I don't care if he put friends in there - just make sure they can accomplise something).

I don't know. Maybe they both will have these deficiencies fixed by next Wed.

Are you feeling better today, Ryan? I hope so!

Eh, I went to work. Got a verbal warning for being out, as I was accused of holding up the place by my absence

Eh, I went to work. Got a verbal warning for being out, as I was accused of holding up the place by my absence

You should have "suspended" your work day, and told your co-workers that you would not return until there was positive movement of your cold leaving your body.

And if they asked from where......you coyld have said "By my bowels".

For First Time, Palin Takes Questions

BETH FOUHY | October 7, 2008 09:53 PM EST |

GREENVILLE, N.C. — After weeks of limited contact with the news media, Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin ventured to the back of her campaign plane Tuesday and answered several questions from reporters.

The Alaska governor discussed why she and the McCain campaign have made an issue of Democrat Barack Obama's relationship with 1960s-era radical Bill Ayers amid a market meltdown that has many voters fearing for their investments. Palin repeatedly has claimed during the past two days that Obama had launched his political career with help from Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group responsible for bombings during the Vietnam War era.

Obama campaign aides said the Illinois senator did not know of Ayers' past when they first met in Chicago. Palin told reporters the lack of clarity about their relationship was precisely why it was relevant to raise it on the campaign trail.

"It's relevant to connect that association he has with Ayers, not so much he as a person Ayers, but the whole situation and the truthfulness and the judgment there that you must question if again he's not being forthright in all of his answers, "Palin said. "It makes you wonder about the forthrightness, the truthfulness of the plans he's telling Americans with regards to the economic recovery."

Pressed on whether she was saying Obama was dishonest, Palin said no.

"But in terms of judgment, in terms of being able to answer a question forthrightly, it has two different parts to it, that judgment and that truthfulness," she said.

Palin said also claimed her husband, Todd, is "an open book" on the controversy back home involving allegations that the couple pressured state officials to fire the governor's former brother-in-law, a state trooper.

"Nobody has anything to hide," she said.

Both Palin and her husband had refused to be interviewed in the state Legislature's probe, and Palin said the inquiry "has been kind of a goat rope, very partisan and very controversial type of investigation."

Palin reiterated her disappointment that John McCain's campaign had pulled out of Michigan, saying she had hoped to share the GOP ticket's economic message with blue-collar voters there. And she said she'd love to appear on "Saturday Night Live" with Tina Fey, who's made famous a hilarious caricature of Palin.

"I love her, she's a hoot and she's so talented. It would be fun to meet her, imitate her, and keep on giving her new material," Palin said of Fey.

Reflecting on the campaign in which she was transformed from relative obscurity into a visible national figure, Palin said she'd been "energized" by the experience and had high hopes for victory in the Nov. 4 election.

"We're at the halfway point and there is a lot that can happen and will happen in this campaign still to go," Palin said. "I've been in an underdog position quite often in my life and so has John McCain and we've both come out victoriously from that underdog position."

Back when it was Barack vs Hillary. This lady said that the white Democratics men was voting for a Obama because they didn't want a woman. But when it comes down to Obama vs McCain they will vote for McCain because they can't vote for a black man.

My thing is now that Mccain got Palin who is slow in the head. Are these white democratics men still going to vote for McCain.

If McCain really ahs the answers to our questions, he would do himself much better to explain to us what he wants to do. I may or may not agree, but at least I can respect him for putting his ideas out there.

But, to answer "who would you nom as your TS?" and say the lady who started Ebay (Who has just laid off thousands of workers) while Obama actuall said a man who I have heard would make a great TS, spoke volumes. Maybe McCain doesn't do that because he's scared he will come off as not knowing what he's doing, and it will make him Bush-like if he starts naming friends of his instead of people who can do the job (I don't care if he put friends in there - just make sure they can accomplise something).

I don't know. Maybe they both will have these deficiencies fixed by next Wed.

I kind of don't think so since McCain was taking the gloves off and all and this is what it looked like and the whole Town Hall setting was supposed to be his forte' and this is what we got.....'see the theme.

McTechnology savvy threw eBay out there since he couldn't tell that sell a plane on eBay story that makes them all technologically advanced and light years ahead of Obama. He should never had said crony because he's got to be the illustration of it in the dictionary.

Eh, I went to work. Got a verbal warning for being out, as I was accused of holding up the place by my absence

What bullshit. But I like Roman's idea!

Anyway.....feel better soon my man.

Back when it was Barack vs Hillary. This lady said that the white Democratics men was voting for a Obama because they didn't want a woman. But when it comes down to Obama vs McCain they will vote for McCain because they can't vote for a black man.

My thing is now that Mccain got Palin who is slow in the head. Are these white democratics men still going to vote for McCain.

Mo, there probably are some people like that. I can only speak for myself, as a white democrat, that there's no way that I could ever vote against someone simply because of the pigment of his or her skin. I would hope that most Democrats feel this way, but whose to say. I recall during the primaries that there were some exit polls (in WV I think) that showed some white people voted for Hillary based on the fact she was white.

Frankly, it scares me that there are people out there that still feel this way. As long as African Americans have had the right to vote in this country, they have had to vote for a white person for President. I don't recall anyone asking the same questions of them. Why? Apparently, it was a non-issue for them, as it should be for white people.

Anyway...I'm rambling on now so I'm going to simply stop typing!

Anyway...I'm rambling on now so I'm going to simply stop typing!

Rambling is my specialty so here goes:

So I was reading Nora Ephron's take on the debate and she said she was shallow and she mentioned something that bugged me as I was watching. McCain's heavy breathing....for a split second I imagined that breathing on the other end of a phone whispering obscenities. After that I thought he might work himself into a frenzy and pass out.

I know this has nothing to do with the issues......I could spin it as a health concern though.

I guess the Democrats are more technology savvy for this round and too bad this guy didn't use his talents wisely:

Palin Email Hack: Man Indicted

DUNCAN MANSFIELD October 8, 2008

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker charged with hacking the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has pleaded not guilty.

David Kernell (kur-NEHL'), 20, of Knoxville, Tenn., entered the plea in federal court in Knoxville on Wednesday. His father is longtime state Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis.

David Kernell was released without posting bond, but the court imposed several conditions. Kernell, an economics student at the University of Tennessee, is not allowed to own a computer and can use the Internet only for checking e-mail and doing class work.

Trial is set for Dec. 16. Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.

I came across this commentary by Roland Martin on the McCain/Palin use of Ayers. This man makes a good point.

Why Ayers case is risky for McCain/Palin

This excerpt is [!@#$%^&*] brilliant, IMO.

The McCain camp, along with their right-wing media comrades, want to convince you that Obama should not have decided to serve with Ayers, who was named the Citizen of the Year in Chicago in 1987 for his education work, and who is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Now, if someone was seen as an acceptable figure by business, political and education figures, many of whom support both Democrats and Republicans, should Obama be faulted for sitting on a board with the guy?

So, let's use that same logic and apply it to McCain.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat from Chicago who serves as one of the national co-chairs for Obama, told me on The Tom Joyner Morning Show that if we are to use the association tag as evidence of a candidate being unfit for president, what about McCain serving and working alongside people with virulent bigoted pasts like Sens. Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd?

Do we have evidence that these individuals committed specific acts against African-Americans during Jim Crow? No. But we do know that their hateful words, and willingness to uphold laws that were absolutely anti-American, did not represent the best of this nation.

Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948 with a platform of maintaining segregation. Based on Helms' policies, he didn't see blacks as full Americans.

Bombing the Pentagon is horrible and indefensible. But declaring yourself a patriot while you speak such hateful and venomous words against your own countrymen, who just happen to be black, and then trying to oppress them, is just as indefensible.

So, did McCain work with them? Did he not speak with them? Should McCain have declared that he would not work alongside these men because of their past? Should the self-described maverick who believes in integrity and character have taken the honorable stance of resigning from the Senate to protest these hateful characters serving in the U.S. Senate?

No. And this is why this association argument is so weak and impotent.

For goodness' sakes, Byrd was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a domestic terrorist organization!

This man is my new favorite commentator.

Edited October 8, 200817 yr by Greg's GL

Damn. This [!@#$%^&*] is fucked up.

New poll: Floridians poised to pass constitutional gay-marriage ban

Aaron Deslatte | Tallahassee Bureau

12:00 PM EDT, October 8, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Floridians look poised to pass a constitutional gay-marriage ban next month, but are less enthralled with the raft of other ballot questions they'll face, from offering tax breaks for public marinas to raising them for community colleges.

Of the six constitutional changes headed to voters Nov.4, only the Amendment 2 enshrining Florida's ban on same-sex marriage has close to the 60 percent threshold needed to pass, an Orlando Sentinel poll shows.

Of the 625 registered voters surveyed, 55 percent supported the gay-marriage amendment, while 34 percent were against it.

That's largely unchanged from the 57 percent support in late August. The poll had a 4 percent margin for error.

"There just seems to be the trend where the undecided voters just sort of fall down on the anti-gay side," said Coker.

Ugh. <sigh>

I watched The View for their discussion of the debate and I feel sorry for anyone who is getting their information on the candidates from this show.

I don't know how Elizabeth Hasselback can see straight with all that contempt for the Obamas. Maybe she's teaching her children how to hate like that. She said that she hopes Obama doesn't drive like he debates because he ignored the red lights and Whoopi decided to point out to her that McCain wasn't any better with the lights.

It takes some special kind of people to have that much venom in them for one man who hasn't done anything to them at all.

I came across this commentary by Roland Martin on the McCain/Palin use of Ayers. This man makes a good point.

Why Ayers case is risky for McCain/Palin

This excerpt is [!@#$%^&*] brilliant, IMO.

This man is my new favorite commentator.

I read this article earlier this morning and I agree wholeheartedly with it. Roland Martin is an admirable no bull, no bias reporter in my mind. He is spot on and I hope his argument proves true. It is clearly a smokescreen to distract voters away from the real issues of this campaign. McCain aides are clear in their strategy to take this debate away from the issues, because on the issues they know they lose, and lose badly. After the debate last night CNN had alot of poll numbers, one being on the issue of the economy. 60% view it as the top issues. 59% favour Obama on the issue, 37% McCain.

One senior CNN analyst John King on those numbers stopped short of declaring the campaign over. The economic issue won't go away, despite McCain and Palin's staunch attempts to slide it under the rug. This is the man you want as president? Sweeping the top issue under the rug in favor of stuff no one losing their job, home, and savings gives one damn about?

Here's another reason why McCain makes himself look stupid....he's questioning Obama's judgment about Ayers when he has questionable ties himself but check this out:

McCain Trumpets Endorsement From Figure Of Foundation That Established Ayers Board

Seth Colter Walls

On Wednesday morning, John McCain's campaign released a list of 100 former ambassadors endorsing the GOP presidential nominee.

Second on the list, though her name is misspelled, is Leonore Annenberg, currently the president and chairman of the Annenberg Foundation and widow of ambassador and philanthropist Walter Annenberg. Ms. Annenberg was herself the "chief of protocol" at the State Department under President Reagan.

If the last name sounds familiar, it's because it also graces the name of the Chicago education board where Barack Obama and William Ayers sat in the room six times together.

In recent days, the McCain-Palin ticket (and particularly Palin) has faulted Obama for having served on that board with Ayers, who was a founding member of the radical 60's Weather Underground group when Obama was in grade school.

Since then, however, Ayers has been rehabilitated in Chicago society, carving out a niche in education circles. As a former Republican representative in Illinois told NPR on Monday, smearing Obama for his board association with Ayers is "nonsensical."

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier ... It's ridiculous," Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said. "There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

Separate calls to the Pennsylvania and California offices of the Annenberg Foundation were not immediately returned Wednesday morning.

UPDATE: An Annenberg official called the Huffington Post back on Wednesday afternoon. "You wanted to speak to Ms. Annenberg? She's very elderly; she doesn't do press interviews."

I read this article earlier this morning and I agree wholeheartedly with it. Roland Martin is an admirable no bull, no bias reporter in my mind. He is spot on and I hope his argument proves true. It is clearly a smokescreen to distract voters away from the real issues of this campaign. McCain aides are clear in their strategy to take this debate away from the issues, because on the issues they know they lose, and lose badly. After the debate last night CNN had alot of poll numbers, one being on the issue of the economy. 60% view it as the top issues. 59% favour Obama on the issue, 37% McCain.

One senior CNN analyst John King on those numbers stopped short of declaring the campaign over. The economic issue won't go away, despite McCain and Palin's staunch attempts to slide it under the rug. This is the man you want as president? Sweeping the top issue under the rug in favor of stuff no one losing their job, home, and savings gives one damn about?

It also bears noting that independents get turned off by all the negative crap. I watched CNN for the lines and they went way down when negative comments were made. Also independents in LA interviewed this morning expressed the desire to hear about issues.

Most pundits on CNN think the negative aspects of both campaigns could backfire. I was impressed wtih David Gergan's comments on this

Actually I was impressed with CNN's coverage. It was very balanced.