Who Will Win the 2008 US Presidential Election?

[WarPhalange]

I got something in the mail yesterday that I just can not believe. It's a request for money for McCain's campaign...no surprise there; but since I've sent Obama money and was one of his delegates, I hope they didn't pay too much for a mailing list that listed me as a possible McCain supporter .

But what caught my eye: both on the envelope and across the top of the enclosed letter, in large, all-caps, bold letters:

EMERGENCY TELEGRAM

What percentage of people alive today has ever received a telegram?!? Do telegrams even exist anymore? Strikes me as pretty funny, coming from a candidate with an "age issue"!

Two things:

1) http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/

2) Bob Barr reminds me a lot of James Jameson from Spiderman.

 

[lisab]

Two things:

1) http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/

2) Bob Barr reminds me a lot of James Jameson from Spiderman.

From the thingsyoungerthanMcCain website: wow...4 of 9 Supreme Court Justices are older than McCain. If he wins, Roe v Wade is as good as gone...and all those conservative legislators will turn their creepy attention to my uterus, and every American woman's uterus.

'Scuse me, I got to go give Obama some $$$.

 

[WarPhalange]

my uterus, and every American woman's uterus.

Stop, you're getting me excited.

 

[lisab]

Stop, you're getting me excited.

 

[Astronuc]

Focus on Economy Poses Problems for Candidates
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/us/politics/07memo.html
By ADAM NAGOURNEY, NYTimes

WASHINGTON — Not since at least 1980, when the United States was reeling from the oil shocks, inflation and slow growth of the previous decade, has the economy been in worse shape heading into the heart of a presidential campaign. The crush of bad economic news — six consecutive months of job losses, rising rates of home foreclosures, gasoline prices seemingly headed toward $5 a gallon — is increasingly setting the contours of the race between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.

Both candidates plan to spend this week focusing almost entirely on the economy. But both face political problems with the issue.

Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, has been shadowed by his statements earlier in the campaign that he is not expert in the subject of the economy and by the likelihood that voters will associate him with the economic policies of the Bush administration. He has embraced President Bush’s stands on central issues like tax cuts and trade policy.

Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, has had difficulty connecting with working-class voters, and his more ambitious responses to economic problems like expanding access to health insurance would be paid for in part by tax increases, always a risky proposition.

The two campaigns are retooling strategies and preparing for what aides said would be months of economic speeches, town-hall-style meetings on the economy and economic proposals, both new and repackaged — testimony to how the campaigns view the electoral environment.

McCain wants to cut taxes, despite heavy deficits. Will he cut federal spending too! Obama wants to eliminate the Bush tax cuts.

Meanwhile the Senate is considering rescinding the 10.6% reduction in Medicare reimbursements (which also affects Vets). This is on top of 5.5% reduction in 2007. Meanwhile many Vets are not getting the services they need.

 

[OAQfirst]

Eh, quick question about campaigning. I hear Hillary owes about thirty million. Were she to make it to the White House, how would she have paid that off? Last I checked, a president's salary is around $400 grand. Do McCain and Obama also overspend or what?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think it's great! Now all of the Bushmen back in the Kalahari are going to be fuming! I have already tried to explain to them how their voting record is proof of their inability to choose a president. I have advised them to vote Obama. This will make my arguments even stronger. A republican vote is a vote for Carly!

Fiorina was on Meet the Press this morning. I can see why she is so hated: She has about three sides to her mouth.

 

[Astronuc]

Interesting discussion about Obama.

Obama And The Chicago Establishment
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92470268

Fresh Air from WHYY, July 14, 2008 · Though presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign has been extensively covered by the media, little has been said about his roots in Chicago politics. Ryan Lizza, Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, explores Obama's tenure as a local politician for Chicago's South Side in the magazine's latest issue.

Making It
How Chicago shaped Obama.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza
by Ryan Lizza

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Obama dazzled a crowd of 200,000 in Germany today.

His comments were cheered by a huge crowd, some wearing Obama badges, t-shirts with the campaign slogan "Yes We Can" and carrying American flags. A reggae band played and people gulped down beer under clear skies in a summertime party atmosphere.

The loudest applause came when Obama talked about the environment, multilateralism and human rights, but his audience fell silent when he raised Afghanistan.

"Relations between Germany and the United States will improve under Obama," said Dennis Buchner, 31. "But he has high expectations of Germans increasing their military engagement in Afghanistan. That will certainly spark debate in Germany."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080724/pl_nm/usa_obama_germany_dc

Meanwhile, McCain had bratwurst at Schmidt's Sausage Haus.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE2JCSH5p9r2GBkQWS9TWAMzmuvQD924GPNO0

 

[Gokul43201]

You didn't hear Rush ranting about Obama going "beyond the pale" putting down America on foreign soil, did you?

Here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25841310#25841310

Skip to 4:15.

PS: Oh, and meanwhile McCain has defined the surge to be something of a state of consciousness.

 

[turbo]

PS: Oh, and meanwhile McCain has defined the surge to be something of a state of consciousness.

McCain's surge is slippery. It started whenever he says that it did and it's responsible for every incremental improvement in Iraq. The reduction in violence had nothing to do the successful expulsion of Christians from Iraq, nor the consolidation and ethnic cleansing of Sunni and Shiite areas, nor al Sadr's militia's unilateral stand-down. Nope, it was that magical McCain surge. I would hate to see someone with that poor grasp of foreign affairs in the WH. It's bad enough that he's in the Senate, and on the campaign trail spouting this tripe. News-readers posing as "journalists" seem to have given McCain a "get foot out of mouth for free" card, though and never give him any serious flack about his irrational statements.

 

[WarPhalange]

I love how McCain keeps saying the media is out to get him, too.

 

[Gokul43201]

That's lame - McCain just shouldn't go there.

McCain, more than anyone else in politics in the US, has had the media on his side, and deservedly so. McCain gives the press virtually unfettered access to him - which I applaud - and in return, gets to command a soft corner among them. On the other hand, Obama is much more stingy with access to the press - which I think is just such a terrible idea, and it's not something I'm a fan of.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You didn't hear Rush ranting about Obama going "beyond the pale" putting down America on foreign soil, did you?

Here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25841310#25841310

Skip to 4:15.

Yes, one should never admit that America has made mistakes.

It seems that Obama can do more to engage our allies, and to begin to repair the damage done by Bush, by simply showing up, than McCain could accomplish through an entire career of cold-war diplomacy. And how dare Obama pull a crowd of that size when he's not even the President, yet! The nerve of that guy.

One German commentator noted that McCain seems like something from another century.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...News-readers posing as "journalists" seem to have given McCain a "get foot out of mouth for free" card, though and never give him any serious flack about his irrational statements.

I was quite struck by McCain's $300 million prize idea for an electric-car battery. A battery like he describes is already the holy grail of battery technology, as it has been since the 70s. Any company that can produce such a battery would own the electric car market since, by definition, it would make electric cars practical. There is already plenty of incentive. The challenges in making such a battery are fundamental - physical and economic - not psychological.

In fact, this apparent perception that real problems are only "psychological" seems to be emerging as a pattern in McCain's thinking; not to mention the thinking of his former chief economist.

 

[mathwonk]

this sounds like what is called "magical thinking" in psychology, typical of people out of touch with reality.

 

[Astronuc]

One German commentator noted that McCain seems like something from another century.

He is! The last one.

But McCain is pulling up in the polls in states like CO and MI.

McCain missed a trip to go to an oil rig in the Gulf. Why he needs to fly out to see an oil rig, I have no idea. It's a photo op like Dukakis in an Abrams tank.


Interesting contrast!

Obama Addresses U.S. Image Abroad - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92905080

McCain Focuses On Issues At Home - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92905083

 

[Gokul43201]

I love how McCain keeps saying the media is out to get him, too.

Yet another BS claim from the McCain slime machine:

LOS ANGELES, July 27 (UPI) -- U.S. broadcast networks had more negative coverage of Barack Obama than John McCain during the first weeks of the general election campaign, a study indicated.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University in Virginia, which has studied network news since the 1980s, analyzed content on ABC, CBS and NBC news shows and found that when reporters and anchors expressed opinions they were significantly more negative toward Obama and more positive toward McCain, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

The researchers found that most statements by anchors and reporters were neutral, but when opinions were expressed 28 percent of statements about Obama were positive while 72 percent were negative. The study indicated opinions about McCain were 43 percent positive and 57 percent negative.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/27/Study_Media_rougher_on_Obama/UPI-43191217211564/

Liberal media indeed! The McCain free ride continues...

 

[WarPhalange]

I'm waiting for him to say "The 'Media' isn't just network television, radio, and newspapers, it's an attitude, an ideal. When a random person on the street says 'I don't like John McCain', he is part of the vast media conspiracy."

Definitions are just no match for John McCain!
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/21/mccain-campaign-says-new-york-times-blocked-op-ed-response-to-obama/

What happened was they didn't publish his piece because he never defined "victory".