Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

[jim]

I know many will disagree with me and much of it is subjective, but after hearing her and digging into her record more I think this pick was just downright irresponsible. McCain put votes before the well being of the country.

[tenniseleven]

it looks like its gonna be another classic Presidential race...

the bad part is that the company that makes the electronic voters has already reported that votes get lost...

that happened before the electronic voting too, and will probably continue to happen in the future, it's just sad to hear that you may cast a vote and it won't even be counted...


then again, if you have millions of dollars you can basically cast millions of votes (just ask the swift-boat kings)....

[Richie Allen]

I know many will disagree with me and much of it is subjective, but after hearing her and digging into her record more I think this pick was just downright irresponsible. McCain put votes before the well being of the country.

I don't disagree with you at all and that's the exact word I would use as well. As I heard said yesterday, although it certainly doesn't fit the model we're used to, it's just more Washington politics as usual.

[tenniseleven]

I found this comment made by Karl Rove on face the nation, the comment was made a couple weeks ago:


"I think he's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice," Rove said. "He's going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he's going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president."


Karl Rove, the REALLY mad genius...man he's a snake...means-to-an-end kind of guy...
he was pretty spot on, but he should be considering a prodigy of his is running McCains campaign...

[GatewaySnayke]

I agree Jim.

On the Hillary issue, I think it's almost laughable that there is a line of thinking out there that Barrack has to somehow heal the wounds over what happened to Hillary. Sure, he'll need their votes in November, I'm not suggesting he won't. But someone please tell me what he did to cause 18,000,000 Hillary supports to detest him, other than beat her.

She was the one with the continual questionably unethical attacks on him. She's the one that compared him unfavorably to their Republican opponent, something you never do. She's the one that stubbornly acted ignorant when it was obvious that their platforms were very similar but she had to find a way to differentiate herself because if it came down to personality, she was the loser. She was the pushy, overbearing hateful candidate who one minute interrupted and showed how forceful she was and the next minute thought it was "curious why she always went first," insinuating that everyone was picking on the woman. Barrack was quite graceful throughout, despite her continual attempts to bait him. "Shame on you Barrack Obama." That line was going to be used whether he ever played dirty or not. It was the most shameful campaign I've ever witnessed and I would have loved it if Obama and McCain stood together and said neither of us are interested in winning over the Hillary supporters (I know that would never happen) rather than both of them continually pandering to them.

This post was a winner.

[cards2468]

At what point do we get to stop the love affair with the idea of a black president? I really don't care about the color of my president, but I do care about his decisions he makes in office.

I don't know of a single person who is voting for Obama because he is black. Really sucks that this question is still coming up.

Although it's not high on my list of priorities for picking a candidate, I think it would be absolutely wonderful if a black man were chosen to lead this country.

I think the more reasonable question to ask is "at what point do we get to stop the love affair with the idea that only white men can be president?"

Oh, and yes, it is horribly insulting to assume that Obama is only leading this race because of his color. Both to Obama and the people supporting him.

I have no problem with a black man being president, if a black man were in the form of what I want in a president, then I would vote for him, but racism will never be gone if we keep going around and treating black people any differently than white people. For the first time in history, a black man was elected to be the presidential nomination for a major party. Awesome, congratulations, let's move on. I know plenty of people that are supporting Obama because he is black, and that is just as lame of a reason for voting as would be to vote for McCain because he's white. It's racism no matter how you cut it. My question was meant to ask when will people completely ignore color and gender when it comes to the presidential election? I know it will never go away, but this election is bringing out the worst in a lot of people and I've lost a lot of respect for people I am close to (nobody here, just people I know in person)

[tenniseleven]

people have all kinds of lame reasons for voting one way or another....
and unfortunately all of these candidates involved represent quite a few of them...

[sighyoung]

My question was meant to ask when will people completely ignore color and gender when it comes to the presidential election? I know it will never go away, but this election is bringing out the worst in a lot of people and I've lost a lot of respect for people I am close to (nobody here, just people I know in person)

I understand what you're saying, and largely agree. Yet no candidate should just provide a one-size-fits-all platform, and assume that it will benefit everyone. (And I'm not saying you're entirely suggesting this, by the way.) Color and gender come into play not just because of prejudice, but because of real differences in housing patterns, health, educational quality, public safety, past and present life experiences (discrimination, pregnancy and childbirth), economic opportunities, cultural practices, and philosophical differences about how (or whether) governments and markets can or should address certain issues. In a society more segregated residentially than before Brown vs. Board of Education, communities differ dramatically.

Or, put differently, I want candidates to listen and understand my needs and perspectives, and also understand the historical and cultural bases for those perspectives. I don't want him or her to ignore my needs, or willfully misunderstand me. In many broad instances, color and gender wouldn't matter, especially in the consumption of public goods (access to public parks, clean water, and so on). In many others, color and gender matter tremendously.

[PujolJunkie]

Please don't take this as dragging the issue on or anything, but just more information as it comes out about Sarah Palin. Sorry if this is considered egging anyone on or trying to viciously turn anyone against the woman, but this is just what I read:

In fact, as Palin's cultural views become better known -- she oppose abortion in all cases and opposes the use of birth control pills and condoms even among married couples -- she will undoubtedly scare the hell out of the soccer moms and 98% of Hillary voters.

EDIT:

Before she was running against him, Sarah Palin—the governor of Alaska and now the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States—thought it was pretty neat that Barack Obama was edging ahead of John McCain in her usually solidly red state. After all, she said, Obama’s campaign was using the same sort of language that she had in her gubernatorial race. “The theme of our campaign was ‘new energy,’ ” she said recently. “It was no more status quo, no more politics as usual, it was all about change. So then to see that Obama—literally, part of his campaign uses those themes, even, new energy, change, all that, I think, O.K., well, we were a little bit ahead on that.” She also noted, “Something’s kind of changing here in Alaska, too, for being such a red state on the Presidential level. Obama’s doing just fine in polls up here, which is kind of wigging people out, because they’re saying, ‘This hasn’t happened for decades that in polls the D’ ”—the Democratic candidate—“ ‘is doing just fine.’ To me, that’s indicative, too. It’s the no-more-status-quo, it’s change.”

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/09/0 ... gourevitch

[Radbird]

This thread was on page 60 when the Palin announcement was made. Wow. Quite a 24 hours.

jim and I had this exchange in the Presidential Poll thread. I think it's relevant here, because of how electing Obama to the presidency is viewed by the world.

I like the message that electing Obama will send to the world. It might be harder to hate us without some sabre-rattling old white dude sitting at the controls.

I also hope and think he will be a good president, but I thought that about Jimmy Carter too. And the message will be sent regardless of how he actually performs once he's in there.

I was over in Switzerland/France this summer working and it's literally like 100% support for Obama from what I could tell. I was at a guys house for dinner and he tiptoed around the topic until I told him I supported Obama, and then he started going into why he hoped Obama would win. And some of that was just what you are pointing out.