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gorgon wrote:The Dems have no one to blame but themselves (not hanging chads, etc.) for losing the last two elections. The GOP can look in the mirror for their loss in this one. It has nothing to do with bizarre stories spread by paid rumor-mongers.

This is very true. Gore's campaign was bad. Kerry's campaign was bad. Gore should have been able to ride on the back of the success of the Clinton presidency, but failed. Kerry should have been able to ride on the growing dissatisfaction with the Bush admin, but failed remarkably.

McCain could have been able to run a campaign as the stable hand needed in these troubled times, opposed to the charismatic but untested and risky Obama. But he's swung all over the place, and run a campaign with so many changes in focus it's starting to annoy the ADD kids. Meanwhile Obama has maintained a steady hand, played the long game even when his numbers were dropping. Obama is now seen as the more reliable, stable candidate by a majority of voters.

It was always going to be hard for McCain to keep and enthuse traditional Republican values voters, while maintaining his own centre right image, and keeping himself seperated from Bush. It would have taken a good campaign to win. But he didn't come close, it's been a shambles. And media coverage has nothing to do with that. If anything, the media was remarkably kind to him, especially in the first half of the campaign.

sebster wrote:

gorgon wrote:The Dems have no one to blame but themselves (not hanging chads, etc.) for losing the last two elections. The GOP can look in the mirror for their loss in this one. It has nothing to do with bizarre stories spread by paid rumor-mongers.

This is very true. Gore's campaign was bad. Kerry's campaign was bad. Gore should have been able to ride on the back of the success of the Clinton presidency, but failed. Kerry should have been able to ride on the growing dissatisfaction with the Bush admin, but failed remarkably.

McCain could have been able to run a campaign as the stable hand needed in these troubled times, opposed to the charismatic but untested and risky Obama. But he's swung all over the place, and run a campaign with so many changes in focus it's starting to annoy the ADD kids. Meanwhile Obama has maintained a steady hand, played the long game even when his numbers were dropping. Obama is now seen as the more reliable, stable candidate by a majority of voters.

It was always going to be hard for McCain to keep and enthuse traditional Republican values voters, while maintaining his own centre right image, and keeping himself seperated from Bush. It would have taken a good campaign to win. But he didn't come close, it's been a shambles. And media coverage has nothing to do with that. If anything, the media was remarkably kind to him, especially in the first half of the campaign.

I think it goes deeper than that. Here is how I view the two parties;

Reps: Purity, Sacred, Tradition as priorities, fairness/authority secondary
Dems: Change, acceptance, fair as priorities, tradition secondary

Now each election cycle the two parties attempt to enthuse their base while grabbing each others secondary. If you think in these terms, it is not hard to see why Bush was successful and why McCain chose Palin. Palin appeals to tradition, purity and the sacred while McCain appeals to nationalism/fairness (Hence his mortage policy proposals). Bush/Rove played this as well, with many states have referendums on homosexual marriage on election night. Republicans will vote tradition/purity, threaten that and it's your peril.

On the other hand, Obama is running on change with 'fair' tax cuts. Again, enthusing his base while trying to grab the Rep. secondary. In addition, during the VP debates....who lost? Homosexuals. Both camps stated they would not allow marriage (while Biden did make mention of civil unions)...but neither would dare go after tradition/purity.

Although I hate to say it, I believe the Democrat party is most successful only when the country is in poor shape (like now!). This lessens peoples fear of change and encourages more open minds. In addition, add the economy (The rich CEOs) and you can also play off the fairness angle. This is not to discount McCains campaign, as it has without doubt been with message and looks to be a disaster....but util more of the country becomes better educated however and dogma is challenged more publicly...I wouldn't hold my breath that this is a new mandate.

Cheers.

/Youtube Jonathan Haidt if you want your hair blown back on this subject. He's a moral/evolutionary psychologist and his TED talk is fascinating.

sebster wrote:

gorgon wrote:The Dems have no one to blame but themselves (not hanging chads, etc.) for losing the last two elections. The GOP can look in the mirror for their loss in this one. It has nothing to do with bizarre stories spread by paid rumor-mongers.

This is very true. Gore's campaign was bad. Kerry's campaign was bad. Gore should have been able to ride on the back of the success of the Clinton presidency, but failed. Kerry should have been able to ride on the growing dissatisfaction with the Bush admin, but failed remarkably.

McCain could have been able to run a campaign as the stable hand needed in these troubled times, opposed to the charismatic but untested and risky Obama. But he's swung all over the place, and run a campaign with so many changes in focus it's starting to annoy the ADD kids. Meanwhile Obama has maintained a steady hand, played the long game even when his numbers were dropping. Obama is now seen as the more reliable, stable candidate by a majority of voters.

It was always going to be hard for McCain to keep and enthuse traditional Republican values voters, while maintaining his own centre right image, and keeping himself seperated from Bush. It would have taken a good campaign to win. But he didn't come close, it's been a shambles. And media coverage has nothing to do with that. If anything, the media was remarkably kind to him, especially in the first half of the campaign.

If you ask me, Bush is still surprised he won in 2000.

I agree that you have to give Obama credit...he kept his eye on the ball. McCain probably had a fine line to walk, but his campaign has been dreadful. Going negative about things that happened (or didn't happen) years ago is poor strategy when voters are faced with so many "now" problems.

McCain's veep choice is a whole 'nuther ball of wax...or should I have said "vial of nitroglycerin"? IMO, if you're making a veep choice, follow the same rules that doctors do..."do no harm." Palin is photogenic, no doubt. But IMO she stole too much of the spotlight from McCain at a time when he should have been honing his message. Meanwhile, her unfavorability rating has climbed the more we've seen her, and I have to think she's really cost McCain among moderates, which was his strength at one time. Although I guess no one could have completely foreseen that she'd be such a polarizing figure.

There's actually talk that the Dems could get 60 Senate seats, which would mean the GOP would be unable to filibuster. Amazing stuff.

Thursday night I was in a focus group for a marketing research company. Ten males between 30 and 50, all NH registered voters. We were mostly judging Senate ads- Sununu vs. Shaheen, but there was also some discussion of national politics.

I perceived most of the guys in the room to be more conservative than me (I believe it was a mix of Dem, Repub, and Independents), but the general discussion in the room was more favorable towards Obama and more negative towards McCain than I expected.

Based on that small sample, the ads we saw, and the commentary on them, it seems like Sununu's seat might be vulnerable.

My idea of the President's required skills are:

To form a government of all the talents, organise them so they work effectively and lead them so they work towards the same goals.

To formulate a coherent vision and strategy for what he is going to do, and communicate this to the people, and persuade them to come with him.

I think any specific area of experience -- economic, military, foreign policy etc -- will have its experts and the President does not need to be one of them, he needs to know how to harness them.

(I am not an American.)

I know some pretty disillusioned moderate Republicans. I think they thought McCain was their guy, but he's given them reasons to think otherwise.

This election could break really big for the Dems. If they govern wisely and don't screw things up (easier said than done), they could have a long run. Demographics are much more favorable for them than the GOP in the coming years.

Whatever happens, I hope we're past the high water mark of the culture wars.

Edited by Mod for profanity.

djones520 wrote:

Typeline wrote:Military experience doesn't carry over to leadership experience. From what I've read the only thing McCain has even done in the military is crashed a ton of their planes and got captured. I don't see how that makes you a more viable leader for the United States.

Start actually reading stuff then. McCain served as the commander of the largest fighter squadron at the time in the Navy. Take it from someone who has dealt in the Operations area of the Air Force. They don't make idiots aviation squadron commanders. People who make that rank that can't hack command positions are shuffled off to harmless jobs till they retire. Being put in charge of 50 fighter jets, the pilots, and all the staff required to run that is a huge deal, and does equate to leadership experience.

As commanding officer, McCain relied upon a relatively unorthodox leadership style based upon the force of his personality.[188] He removed personnel he thought ineffective, and sought to improve morale and productivity by establishing an informal rapport with enlisted men.[186][63][188] Dealing with limited post-Vietnam defense budgets and parts shortages,[186][63] He was forceful in demanding that respect be given the female officers just beginning to arrive into the unit.[188] McCain's leadership abilities were credited with improving the unit's aircraft readiness; for the first time, all fifty of its aircraft were able to fly.[186][63] Although some operational metrics declined during the period,[185][188] the pilot safety metrics improved to the point of having zero accidents.[186][185] The squadron was awarded its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation,[184] while McCain received a Meritorious Service Medal.[91] McCain later stated that being commanding officer of VA-174 was the most rewarding assignment of his naval career.[189] When his stint ended in July 1977,[184] the change of command ceremony was attended by his father and the rest of his family, as well as some of his fellow POWs; speaker Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr. said that John had joined Jack and Slew McCain in a place of honor in Navy tradition, a tribute that deeply moved McCain.

If I could find that from Wiki alone, then it out to be easy to find even more information. That is if you care to learn something other then the usual trash fed by KOS and the DemocraticUnderground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_military_career_of_John_McCain#Commanding_officer

Get ready to be shouted down.

I would do it. But Wesley Clark can do it better. McCain is certainly no idiot, but he hardly went through the crucible of combat command either. Also, the wiki article is wrong. McCain was never of sufficient rank to disqualify him from commanding a smaller squadron.

I dunno, I'm sure McCain gained plenty of leadership experience from his stint in the military. Seems kinda petty and pointless to start picking apart his service record like that.

But I don't think military experience is especially relevant to anything other than being in the military. It doesn't necessarily make you a better patriot, leader or man. There are plenty of great leaders that never served, just as there are those that served but are crappy leaders.

djones520 wrote: That is if you care to learn something other then the usual trash fed by KOS and the DemocraticUnderground.

Lol

The only thing McCain has leadership experience in is leading people off to more wars to get our young men and women killed in. Unpopular wars, here at home and abroad. I'm sure he has just the right kind of leadership experience to destroy this country out right. At least there will be a softer landing with Obama instead of a massive explosion.

so Virginia might go for Obama then ?


To clarify : Obama hasn't claimed he'll cutback/affect the military as far as I know, so why the fear ?

reds8n wrote:so Virginia might go for Obama then ?


To clarify : Obama hasn't claimed he'll cutback/affect the military as far as I know, so why the fear ?

He wants to pull out of Iraq and focus more on terrorist hunting I guess. The main thing is Iraq. At first he was saying he'd pull all of our boys back but now he doesn't want to leave Afghanistan in the dust... so to speak.

So why is that viewed as a bad thing then ? Surely not getting shot at would be viewed as a bonus by most service personnel ?

meanwhile I read this in the NYT website

McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.

No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.

palin really use that quote.. and the media haven't nailed her over it ? The "liberal dominated" media.

Every Democratic candidate goes to the KOS convention with inpugnity, but the NYT tries to make McCain responsible for everything said by everyone. Excellent. How about the Congressman who compared McCain to Wallace this weekend. Where's the rebuke from Obama? Where's the media outrage? Oh I forgot he was a Democrat.

Oh wait I promised myself I wouldn't post on these threads any more. Oh well...

Bit of a difference between what "someone"/random democrat said and your hand picked running mate said at an election rally though surely ?

and 1 google search later : Obama backs lewis condemnation

And from here

In response, the Obama campaign said in a statement, "Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies." But the campaign added that Lewis was right to condemn some of the "hateful rhetoric" at McCain's rallies

Sems fairly clear there.

EDITED by Frazzled



Time for old school:

Vote the out.

Bring back Teddy! Bull Moose Party in 2008!

Frazzled wrote:Thats speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Oh never mind. The one sideness of the media has gotten to me of late and I can't stand either of them at this point. Time for old school:

Vote the out.

Bring back Teddy! Bull Moose Party in 2008!

lol, no doubt. Universal health insurance, government intervention in environmentalism, breaking up big business and more regulation in the economy. If only one of the candidates supported Teddys positions!

The media will only get more one-sided. They smell blood. Though in all honesty I think a lot of this has to do with the absence of major issues to report on Obama. There are plenty of minor 'bleeder' type of stories. All Presidential candidates have those in abundance. But there are no moments of the level of Palin's mumbling, 'The fundamentals of the economy are strong', or 'I will suspend my campaign'. Things of that level of questionability will only attract more sharks to the frenzy, exacerbating issues that are otherwise insignificant.

Also, part of me thinks that this is payback for the way Bush liked to abuse the press.

Yet McCain was loved by the press while he was sticking a thumb in the eye of the Republicans. Now that he's the real candidate, he's not. Interesting that.

Actually the ACORN thing is a major issue, but it is not being discussed. Ballot box stuffing is a time honored Chicago machine tradition, but now it has big money behind it. Again its irrelevant though and comes down to which incumbent party is in power.

I think you're confusing "loves a juicy story" with "bias."

McCain was good press about 7 or 8 years ago when he was antagonizing Bush because that's good theater. There's nothing juicy about a senior Senator toeing the party line, which is what he did after he decided he wanted the 2008 nomination. That's boring to readers and reporters.

The press (eventually) killed Bush on Iraq because it became a soul-sapping, morale-draining, decade-long money pit. And that makes a good story. It's not because the press was out to get Bush.

Really, if the media was so biased, they would have swept Monica Lewinsky under the rug or found a way to bring that story to a close. But it's all we heard about for what, a year? That's because it was a good story with so many National Inquirer-like angles.

The media is in love with one thing, and that's money -- which comes from readership or ratings in that business.

ACORN is far from the only group to engage i voter registration drives, and their statistics are roughly consistent with the standard deviation inherent in any census.

In any case, the press loved McCain during the primaries because he wasn't prone to the type of gaffe strewn rants the other candidates were. Like Romney saying we should double Gitmo, or Giuliani chanting 'They hate us!'. He won the nomination by simply letting the others take themselves out of the race. Obama is winning with a similar tactic in the current environment.

You have to admit though, you haven't heard of another group recently being investigated in ten separate states however. Thats, er twitchy. These allegations, and any against other groups, should be fully investigated and prosecuted with exuberance. I'm tired of the jerrymandering banarepublicing of the US electoral process. Once again Bull Moose in 2008!

I have to agree that incumbent parties normally get kicked out after 2-3 terms, especially if the economy goes down the tubes.

The US setup allows for more frequent elections than the UK, which probably alleviates the boredom/protest vote, however there is less to choose between the two parties.

(Though arguably there is very little to choose now between Labour and Conservative.)

A few things,

The reason some people in America don't want to pull out of Iraq: they are stupid red-necks, and view it as "losing" a war. Or, more rarely, they view Iraq as a pretty good nation to harbor terrorism and want to keep troops there to monitor terrorist activities. The problem there is that instead of doing what we're supposed to, like usual, we want to be the big bad ass hero and try to quell the two major factions in the nation from ripping each others throats out. They've been at it for longer than we have existed as a country we need to give up that fight. They are doing fine aswell. They have the money they can handle themselves.

The ACORN thing: Yeah people are only freaking out because they don't know the meaning of voter fraud. It is to illegally cast ballot in an election. CAST. They have to actually get counted and be found out afterward to be recorded as illegal, it can't be discounted before the election to even get started. To be honest I don't know a lot about this one. But I do know that ACORN was calling attention to the matter before even Mr. Hannity was. I'm not clearing ACORN of being full of evil SOBs. They strong armed many inner city banks into giving out trashy loans in the first place. F them.

Two party system: Is starting to dissolve into a same candidate different policies thing. We are all so bitterly torn between Dem and Rep that we honestly can't really see how similar these candidates are. They are telling us what we want to hear and how they will do it slightly differently than the other. When in all honestly they are just full of it and will raise taxes to pay for the countries deficit, not be able to end the war, not be able to continue the war as our economy falls into the... well... latrine or lou or whatever. The economy, and I know this seems like a stretch for most, is not really effected by the administration. It may have ups and downs based on what said administration does but it isn't that dependent on it. If it goes down now, it's Bush's fault. If it went down in Clinton's time it'd be his fault. It just so happens that we seem to boom under the Dems and suffer under the Reps. Well... I take it back... maybe there is something to that whole economy thing from the pres.

To wrap this up in an edit I'd like to note I hate both of these candidates. One is a crazy old man who wants to blow up the world like his predecessor. The reason? To keep it safe. The second is a hippy liberal douche who wants to take care of every tiny little person that gets left in the dust in a free market economy. The world isn't a safe place to live in, anywhere ever. And no matter how hard you try some people just don't want to be happy or even continue to cater to their basic needs to sustain their lives.

dogma wrote:I would do it. But Wesley Clark can do it better. McCain is certainly no idiot, but he hardly went through the crucible of combat command either. Also, the wiki article is wrong. McCain was never of sufficient rank to disqualify him from commanding a smaller squadron.

I served in the Kosovo Air campaign were Wesley Clark was the the CC. It was a complete shambles. He was a political appointee during the Clinton years. Those eight years were some of the hardest years of my nearly 20 years of service. If you were a "wartime" leader you got the shaft but if you were a sycophantic ass kiss political type you got promoted. It was brutal. To compare Clark to McCain is really doing the Maverick an injustice. Clark got fired! His folks hated him becuase it was never his fault (always someone elses usually a subordinate) and he was an incompetant leader. His own CFACC (Commander of the Air Forces in theater) said that he couldn't or wouldn't make a decision to use military forces at his disposal effectively. This caused his subordinates to lose faith with his definite lack of leadership.

There are times that an O-4 (Lt Commander) can commnad a squadron usually because no one of higher rank is sufficiently qualified to lead the squadron or higher command has deemed that you are ready to command at a junior rank.

Take it from this Texan, McCain may have his issues (age, cancer) but he is the steady hand that we need right now. His campaign managers are pissing me off because they and their candidate aren't always on the same sheet of music. Plus the MSM isn't helping matters especially when a large percentage of "journalists" are in the tank for Obama. But give the man credit he knows Washington and he does put country first.

Iraq/Afghanistan - Having been to both I have to say that what you are not seeing on the ground (ie not being reported because we are doing well) is what is important. I'm not some stupid "red-neck" Typeline, I'm a person who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and the United States. 15 generations of my family have done it and God willing some of my kids will as well.

In Iraq we are definitely carrying the lion's share of the work. But are slowly giving more and more of the work to the Iraqis. The government has passed 15 of the 18 benchmarks set for them. The also just recently began to start taking investments into their own oil infrastructure for exploration. Money for them means less money of ours going to stabilize their country.

Is Iraq perfect far from it but...what my friends and I have fought for and helped to build is why we are there. Now it is the front-line in the global war on terror. Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qeada's No 2, even said so. The Iranian Quds forces are supplying training and personnel to Shiite special groups to undermine the Coalition and Government. An Iraq in the Iranian image is something the Arab Gulf States and the World does not want.

Afghanistan is a NATO run mission. Getting a coalition of 38+ countriess to do anything is almost impossible. Are we making gains...yes we are. Are the Taliban and Al-Qeada learning and adapting yes they are. Is the fact that they pretty much get carte-blanche in western Pakistan frustrating yes it is. It makes rebuilding a country and engaging anit-government fighters difficult. But we are commited to that engaement as well. Once the government can effectively influence/control the majority of the country most of the US troops will likely come home.

The general consensus in the military is that Iraq/Afghanistan will become like post WWII Germany (been there), Japan (grew up and stationed there as well) or South Korea (yep been there too). Those three countries are some of our staunchest allies across the globe. Do we always see eye to eye, nope, but we always make the effort to mutally support one another.

Is it frustrating, yes. Will I have to go back for another tour, yes most likely in a few months to either Iraq or Afghanistan. But I do it so folks without the personal fortitude or willingness to commit don't have to. The fact that I can have a "discussion" with folks of opposing views means I've been doing my job. That is why I do what I do. That is why McCain does what he does. A lifetime of service to his country is what McCain brings to the table.

AoS

I just think that going into Iraq was a mistake in the beginning.

Once in, there was a moral imperative to see the job through. However a better way could have been found to defuse Saddam and normalise the country, which would have cost less blood and treasure, and not created a focus of anti-western Islamic extremism.

We need to acknowledge and examine the initial mistake in order to avoid repeating it.

Frazzled wrote:You have to admit though, you haven't heard of another group recently being investigated in ten separate states however. Thats, er twitchy. These allegations, and any against other groups, should be fully investigated and prosecuted with exuberance. I'm tired of the jerrymandering banarepublicing of the US electoral process. Once again Bull Moose in 2008!

No, what there is is a lot of noise from the same old right wing pundits, the same old slip shod coverage from the media, and a handful of politicised investigations that are yet to call into doubt a single vote. There's certainly no evidence of anything close to widespread vote fraud. Well, unless you count the traditional Republican efforts to suppress the vote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/13/election-acorn-voter-fraud

Typeline wrote:To wrap this up in an edit I'd like to note I hate both of these candidates. One is a crazy old man who wants to blow up the world like his predecessor. The reason? To keep it safe. The second is a hippy liberal douche who wants to take care of every tiny little person that gets left in the dust in a free market economy. The world isn't a safe place to live in, anywhere ever. And no matter how hard you try some people just don't want to be happy or even continue to cater to their basic needs to sustain their lives.

Except he isn't a hippie. By world standards he's a centrist, maybe even centre right. Australia's no socialist utopia, but Obama is to the right of the leaders of both our left and right wing major parties.

It's good to be engaged and interested, but you really need to back it up with reading.

Go ahead, vote for McCain. He is likely to die in the next 2 years.

And then you will get a crazy woman who believes in creation instead of evolution. Who believes in the rapture.

Sure, give her the power to destroy the world a couple of times over :-)