News What are the Key Factors for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election?

[LowlyPion]

McCain is appearing in Pennsylvania with Palin as his warm-up dolly.

All they are saying is the same tired stump phrases. Now though they apparently have Republican operatives that yell out "Liar!" from the crowd when McCain says Obama misrepresents.

"Traitor!" the other day in Florida. And the other day someone was caught on tape at a McCain rally saying "Kill him!" The Secret Service was apparently investigating that report.

Editere is the video of the "Kill him" comment 12 seconds in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvXf9AUHTqM

 

[Amp1]

I agree; I think if he wasn't such a class act, he would have given Bush, Cheney, and Rummy a 'what for' and down home 'cussin out on record!

BTW, I was angry for him. As I said, he dignified and mature. He possibly saw if he opened up some it would worsen what I think he may have figured would happen doing what he taught against as the lead General on the JCS. Which was "be well prepared, if not over prepared when charting your course and having a well defined mission.

 

[Gokul43201]

Editere is the video of the "Kill him" comment 12 seconds in.

That sounds like "terrorist", not kill him. But whatever it is, even McCain heard that - check out the expression on his face after the comment.

Here it is:

 

[Coin]

Politics and science briefly overlap...

Last night at the debate John McCain, as part of his endless crusade against the less than 1% of the federal budget taken up by "earmarks", linked Barack Obama to one particularly nasty-sounding budget earmark:

He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?

$3 million for an overhead projector? Wow. Could that be right?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/8/111343/511/549/623891 From associate professor Andrey Kravtsov at the University of Chicago:

The way Sen. McCain has phrased it suggests that Sen. Obama approved spending $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment (overhead projector). The 3 million is actually for an upgrade of the http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/exhibits/skytheater.shtml - a full dome projection system, which is probably the main attraction of the Adler Planetarium and is quite sophisticated and impressive piece of equipment.

I find it appalling that Sen. McCain would call a science education tool for public (largely children) for a historic planetarium with millions of visitors a year a wasteful earmark. The planetarium's focus, as stated on their website (http://adlerplanetarium.org) is "on inspiring young people, particularly women and minorities, to pursue careers in science." Is an investment in such public facility at the time when US competitiveness in math and sciences is a constant source of alarm a waste?

Hoping here that this was just a failure to read clearly and not an actual attempt by Sen. McCain to deride what is, according to Wikipedia, the oldest planetarium in the western hemisphere as "a $3 million overhead projector"... :/

 

[Amp1]

Don't forget; McCain doesn't or haven't learned much about PCs, Laptops, tablets, ect. So, he was probably referring to something familiar to him when he went to school.

 

[LowlyPion]

Don't forget; McCain doesn't or haven't learned much about PCs, Laptops, tablets, ect. So, he was probably referring to something familiar to him when he went to school.

You mean those purple ink mimeo transparencies on a light table projector?

 

[Astronuc]

As I recall Powell was pretty furious, though the good soldier he never expressed it publicly. But I think this is why he left.

Well - it was that as well as what was happening in Baghdad after the invasion and beginning of the occupation. Cheney and Rumsfeld were doing their thing behind president Bush's back, and there was conflict with Rice (National Security Advisor) as well. Powell and State Department should have had the lead on the CPA - not the Defense department. NSA, CIA and DOD were not sharing information with Powell at State, and thus he was undermined.

There is also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell#Secretary_of_State

After Saddam Hussein had been deposed, Powell's new role was to once again establish a working international coalition, this time to assist in the rebuilding of post-war Iraq. On September 13, 2004, Powell testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee,[20] acknowledging that the sources who provided much of the information in his February 2003 UN presentation were "wrong" and that it was "unlikely" that any stockpiles of WMDs would be found. Claiming that he was unaware that some intelligence officials questioned the information prior to his presentation, Powell pushed for reform in the intelligence community, including the creation of a national intelligence director who would assure that "what one person knew, everyone else knew".

Colin Powell announced his resignation as Secretary of State on Monday, November 15, 2004. According to the Washington Post, he had been asked to resign by the president's chief of staff, Andrew Card.*

*Falling on His Sword
Colin Powell's most significant moment turned out to be his lowest
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106.html

Citing UN Security Council Resolution 1483 (2003), and the laws of war, the CPA vested itself with executive, legislative, and judicial authority over the Iraqi government from the period of the CPA's inception on April 21, 2003, until its dissolution on June 28, 2004.
. . . .
The CPA was created and funded as a division of the United States Department of Defense, and as Administrator, Bremer reported directly to the Secretary of Defense. Although troops from several of the coalition countries were present in Iraq at this time, the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) was the primary military apparatus charged with providing direct combat support to the CPA to enforce its authority during the occupation of Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_Provisional_Authority#Structure_of_the_CPA

 

[Amp1]

LP:

You mean those purple ink mimeo transparencies on a light table projector?

Yes but he probably can't operate it.

BTW, Astronuc, I don't think Powell fell on his sword so to speak rather its more in the way of honoring his post and trying not to cause undo embarrassment for the US and loss of face in the world arena.

 

[Astronuc]

LP:

Yes but he probably can't operate it.

BTW, Astronuc, I don't think Powell fell on his sword so to speak rather its more in the way of honoring his post and trying not to cause undo embarrassment for the US and loss of face in the world arena.

That wouldn't have been my choice of words. I just copied the title of the article from the Washington Post. For all I know it's somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If you're saying Obama will be the greatest president in your life, you are just accepting the fact that future presidents will be worse and just don't care. I don't understand that mentality. I don't know how old you are, but it's like you're just giving up.

I see Obama as a once in a lifetime leader; in any lifetime. But more importantly, he is the right man for this time. When was the last time that you saw 200,000 Germans waiving the American flag?

Keep in mind also that he is trying to get elected in the same country that elected Bush. He has to be a politician, as do they all. And there is no doubt in my mind that if Obama was white, there would have been no race at all. The fundamentals - the economy, etc - would normally demand a change of party; esp given such a talented candidate.

Here is your Zen moment: It is almost as if we had to suffer Bush and the calamity that follows, in order to get Obama.

I think you are scratching for pebbles when a boulder is under your nose. Don't allow discontent to blind you to greatness - or at least the potential for greatness.

I am 50ish. How old are you?

 

[mathwonk]

i am watching michelle obama with larry king, and recently i watched sarah palin.have you seen and listened to both?i rest my case.(i do not even ask you to compare the articulate and sympathetic ms. obama to sarah palin's spouse, or to john mccain's spouse.)

ok i will say it: the obamas are inspiring, and the mccain/palins are at best embarrassing.

the United States is on camera: will we choose from fear and ignorance via lies and innuendo, or will we choose competence, intelligence, and openness, for a change?

I am 66. I was for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. My dad thought joe mc carthy and j. edgar hoover were heroes.

 

[WhoWee]

Obama is no puppet.

If they could have dictated to Obama, they already would have Hilary as the Nominee.

Did you see what Nancy Pelosi announced today (the night after the 10/7 debate)?

If Obama wins...SHE will push for a NEW ($150,000,000,000) economic stimulus package...$1,200 per person...her games are starting...watch out!

http://news.google.com/news?q=nancy...1&hl=en&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=1&ct=title

 

[LowlyPion]

Did you see what Nancy Pelosi announced today (the night after the 10/7 debate)?

If Obama wins...SHE will push for a NEW ($150,000,000,000) economic stimulus package...$1,200 per person...her games are starting...watch out!

Bush will veto it.

Obama will be in and the new Totally Filibuster Proof Democratic Congress will be dancing to Obama's tune.

 

[WhoWee]

Bush will veto it.

Obama will be in and the new Totally Filibuster Proof Democratic Congress will be dancing to Obama's tune.

I think Nancy P just struck up the band...made her first move...we'll see how Obama responds.

 

[Astronuc]

Interesting caption on Yahoo/AFP) - US Republican presidential canidate John McCain (R) and running-mate Sarah Palin (C). I wonder what the C stands for. Usually it means Conservative, but in her case it could mean Christian or Crazy.

Anyway - McCain is changing his (actually Paulson's) proposal mentioned the other night during the second presidential debate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081009/pl_politico/14414

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an overnight change in the homeowner bailout he proposed at Tuesday’s presidential debate, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers.

McCain's staff says it was always meant that way.

When McCain sprung his surprise idea at the start of the debate in Nashville, his campaign posted details online of his American Homeownership Resurgence Plan, which would direct the government to buy up bad home mortgages, allowing strapped people to keep their property.

The document posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.”

So the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper.

But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives.

That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave for opposing the plan.

A McCain campaign official explained the change: “That language was mistakenly included in the initial draft and it’s been corrected. It doesn’t reflect the intentions of the initiative, which necessitated the correction and the removal of the sentence. A simple mistake.”
. . . .

So McCain is letting the financial institutions off the hook and sticking it to the taxpayers.

Estimated cost of McCain's revised plan - $300 billion. He's trying to outdo Pelosi's $150 billion stimulus package.

 

[lisab]

...the obamas are inspiring, and the mccain/palins are at best embarrassing.

Very true, mathwonk. Several weeks ago, the Obama family did a http://www.accesshollywood.com/preview-access-exclusive-barack-obama-and-family-chat-with-maria-menounos_article_10226". The girls appeared to be uncoached and the family was simply charming.

 

[Astronuc]

U.S. Study Is Said to Warn of Crisis in Afghanistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/world/asia/09afghan.html

Mr. Obama has accused the White House of paying too little attention to Afghanistan as it poured the vast bulk of American military resources into the war in Iraq, while Mr. McCain has defended the administration’s decision, saying that Iraq remains the more important front in the battle against terrorism.

So, McCain is aligned with the Bush administration - or so it appears.

 

[Astronuc]

Dem strategists see landslide in the making
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081009/pl_politico/14413

Maybe the GOP can take a time out and fix itself.

 

[Gokul43201]

The McCain campaign is now on an ALL NEGATIVE spree, according to University of Wisconsin - Madison.

During the week of September 28-October 4, nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign’s advertisements were negative. During the same period, 34 percent of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative.

http://wiscadproject.wisc.edu/

 

[Amp1]

Thats how I figured it when Palin had her first couple of interviews. And I think the more negative, (and distorted) McCain goes the further south his chances of winning goes.

 

[LowlyPion]

Looking ahead I have to wonder what the First Obama Term will be like.

When Kennedy was elected, he had Lyndon Johnson the Majority Leader of the Senate become his Vice President. This gave him some amount of leverage on Capitol Hill. And if anyone was more of an insider than Lyndon it was only his mentor Sam Rayburn. Between the 2 of them they had great sway legislatively.

In this regard Biden is no Johnson. And Pelosi could barely muster half the party on the bailout. While I think Harry Reid is fairly adept, and the Democrats will stand to make substantial gains over the Republicans, I have some concerns about how successful compromises may be reached and how the changes that need to be made will be made.

While I think Obama may face challenges legislatively, I believe a McCain Presidency would be even more disastrous. Forget Palin being useful for anything but pep rallies. In congress her "mavericky" shtick will go absolutely nowhere. Leaving McCain and his sidekick Lieberman - neither of whom are respected by either party - without any base to do anything. Unfortunately these are times that demand action. And McCain's apparent impotence to affect much of anything looks paralyzing and deadly.

 

[Amp1]

An article looking a little deeper than the obvious racial undertones of McCains blurb/slip/gaffe in the second debate. Although, that slip gives us some insight into McCain's actual personality and subsurface intolerance. This articles examins right-wingers/neo-cons overall in that line of inquiry.

It is however from a dissident site:

http://counterpunch.com/dimaggio10092008.html

 

[mathwonk]

i believe integrity and honesty mean a lot. i think a persons whole life of behavior matter more in predicting how they will act in office than what they say in a short period of time in a campaign.

However what they are willing to say and do reflects their degree of integrity. I have been very puzzled by mc cain's behavior in this campaign, beginning with his visit to liberty university to cater to jerry falwell, someone he accurately described earlier as an agent of intolerance, and someone i have found disgusting for years. (I have been a Methodist my whole life.)

Then when he changed his opposition to torture, my disappointment deepened. then choosing sarah palin and going almost entirely negative in this campaign, has changed my view of him as someone of integrity to someone almost scurrilous, or at least desperately ambitious entering possibly his dotage.

I am even beginning to wonder if it is possible for a person to change his level so integrity so much, that I am questioning the accuracy of my earlier impression of him. He is making me wonder if he ever had much integrity. Certainly his behavior in the Keating scandal reflects little of that quality.

Has he crafted a false resume of integrity all these years, or is he just someone who declines to adhere to his principles when it is costly to do so? His willingness to kiss up the the worst elements of his party for short term gain make the label "maverick" entirely inappropriate for him i think, almost ludicrous.

 

[Amp1]

Mathwonk

I am even beginning to wonder if it is possible for a person to change his level so integrity so much, that I am questioning the accuracy of my earlier impression of him. He is making me wonder if he ever had much integrity. Certainly his behavior in the Keating scandal reflects little of that quality.

Has he crafted a false resume of integrity all these years, or is he just someone who declines to adhere to his principles when it is costly to do so?

Yes, from my reading of that Rolling Stone article someone was kind enough to link, I have come to that conclusion. I'm getting the feeling that he may be a closet racist, unlike Palin who is more overt.

His wife adopting an african child now seems like a masterful deception to cover his hidden intolerance.

 

[turbo]

He is making me wonder if he ever had much integrity.

He married a beautiful model, and when he got home from Vietnam, he found that his wife was disfigured from going through a windshield in a car crash. To save her legs, the surgeons had to remove a lot of bone, leaving her short, ill-proportioned, and with an awkward gait. McCain found a wealthy beauty queen to woo and took out a marriage license before his divorce from his first wife was final. I think McCain's shortage of personal integrity has been evident for a long time.

Of the Keating Five, McCain was the only Senator to have close personal ties to Keating, and his wife and father-in-law had business dealings with Keating. McCain flew at Keating's expense a number of times, several times on Keating's private jet, but never reimbursed Keating for the trips until years later, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over the collapse of the Lincoln S&L. So much for professional/political integrity.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1989-11-29/news/mccain-the-most-reprehensible-of-the-keating-five/1

 

[turbo]

His wife adopting an african child now seems like a masterful deception to cover his hidden intolerance.

The daughter is Indian, not African.

 

[Astronuc]

'Rednecks for Obama' want to bridge yawning culture gap
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081009/pl_afp/usvoteobamarednecks

Well - Obama's appeal is widening.

SAINT LOUIS, Missouri (AFP) - When Barack Obama's campaign bus made a swing through Missouri in July, the unlikeliest of supporters were waiting for him -- or rather two of them, holding the banner: "Rednecks for Obama."

In backing the first African-American nominee of a major party for the US presidency, the pair are on a grassroots mission to bridge a cultural gap in the United States and help usher their preferred candidate into the White House.

Tony Viessman, 74, and Les Spencer, 60, got politically active last year when it occurred to them there must be other lower income, rural, beer-drinking, gun-loving, NASCAR race enthusiasts fed up with business as usual in Washington.

Viessman had a red, white and blue "Rednecks for Obama" banner made, and began causing a stir in Missouri, which has emerged as a key battleground in the run-up to the November 4 presidential election.

"I didn't expect it would get as much steam and attention as it's gotten," Spencer told AFP on the campus of Washington University in Saint Louis, the state's biggest city and site of last week's vice-presidential debate.

"We believe in him. He's the best person for the job," Viessman, a former state trooper from Rolla, said of Obama, who met the pair briefly on that July day in Union, Missouri.

The candidate bounded off his bus and jogged back towards a roadside crowd to shake hands with the men holding the banner.

"He said 'This is incredible'," Spencer recalled.

It's been an unexpectedly gratifying run, Viessman said.

Rednecks4obama.com claims more than 800,000 online visits. In Denver, Colorado, Viessman and Spencer drew crowds at the Democratic convention, and at Washington University last Thursday they were two of the most popular senior citizens on campus.
. . .

There is hope for this country.

 

[Astronuc]

Garrison Keillor: One bomb after another
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/09/opinion/edkeillor.php

In Philly, a woman earns $10.30 per hour to care for a man brought down by cystic fibrosis. She bathes and dresses him in the morning, brings him meals, puts him to bed at night. It's hard work lifting him and she has suffered a painful hernia that, because she can't afford health insurance, she can't get fixed, but she still goes to work because he'd be helpless without her.

. . . .

Meanwhile, stunning acts of heroism stand out, such as the fidelity of military lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantánamo Bay - uniformed officers faithful to their lawyerly duty to offer a vigorous defense even though it means exposing the injustice of military justice that is rigged for conviction and the mendacity of a commander in chief who commits war crimes.

If your law school is looking for a name for its new library, instead of selling the honor to a fat cat alumnus, you should consider the names of Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Bridges, Colonel Steven David, Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Shaffer, Lieutenant Commander Philip Sundel and Major Michael Mori.

To me, these people exhibit the real American character.

 

[LowlyPion]

The daughter is Indian, not African.

Bangladeshi I think. From a Mother Theresa orphanage he frequently points out.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Mathwonk

Yes, from my reading of that Rolling Stone article someone was kind enough to link, I have come to that conclusion. I'm getting the feeling that he may be a closet racist, unlike Palin who is more overt.

His wife adopting an african child now seems like a masterful deception to cover his hidden intolerance.

mathwonk listed McCains support of religious extremists, his reversal on tortore, the Keating Five scandal, and integrity in general. You brought up racism as a diversion.