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The case for not supporting Obama
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Czarjorge

Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:09 am Post subject:

ytuque wrote:

So on the 4 factors:
McCain gets a slightly higher score than Obama on EXPERIENCE

McCain has slightly more experience than Obama?

As far as governing, yes. If you're talking executive experience they're nearly even. McCain wasn't in a position of authority in the military. He has less executive experience in the Senate than Biden, but more than Obama. He lets his rich wife manage his finances. Where's the experience beyond that of a legislator with a focus on military issues?

They are tied on COURAGE and CHARACTER.

McCain's 5-1/2 years in a N. Vietnamese prison camp is comparable to anything Obama has been through?

Well, I think a lot of people would say that being black in the US, or perhaps even worse half black in the US, is a pretty harrowing experience. Being a kid that was nearly thuggish and a drug user then progressing to being a US Senator is a pretty big acknowledgement of character.

As far as McCain's experience as a POW, simply being a POW doesn't show character. The character was demonstrated when he refused to be released early. That is admirable courage and character. Bucking his party in the late 90's also showed courage and character. Now, what happened to that John McCain? He's fallen into party line which he formerly said he aggressively disagreed with, doesn't that show a lack of courage and character? The constant trumpeting of 'I was a POW' is also lessening his character, as it cheapens the experience of all POWs when McCain uses it as an excuse for any mistake.

Obama wins by a mile on projected POLICIES.

According to whom?

Well, most Americans. There is universal support for the Dems healthcare plan, it should have been done fifteen years ago when Hillary first tried to get it done. He wins right there. The issue of the potential of a Supreme court that is entirely conservative is also a problem for McCain, as most people don't want conservative social ideal foisted on them, and that's exactly what would happen.

Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 11:43 am Post subject: ...

Aw, c'mon Don't start putting your responses inside the quotes. That form of commuication is reserved for lazy Canadian Bush-lovers.

ytuque

Joined: 29 Jan 2008
Location: I drink therefore I am!

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject:

Quote:

As far as governing, yes. If you're talking executive experience they're nearly even. McCain wasn't in a position of authority in the military. He has less executive experience in the Senate than Biden, but more than Obama. He lets his rich wife manage his finances. Where's the experience beyond that of a legislator with a focus on military issues?

Do you honestly think McCain and Obama have equivalent executive experience? McCain has been a senator as long as I can remember, and Obama only had a bit over 2 years when he announced his candidacy.

True Biden has more experience than McCain, but he is at the bottom of the ticket and not the top. Biden has publicly stated that he didn't think Obama was qualified to be president.

I don't even know what to say to someone who equates being black/half-black in America to being a prisoner of war. I think that you have lost perspective.

BTW, Obama has been on the cover of Time magazine 7 times while McCain has been on twice. So, the most widely read news magazine in America favors Obama by 3-1/2 to 1 in exposure. Obama is out in front of McCain by 6:1 in raising money from people in the movie, tv, and music industry.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26405800

Personally, I would have prefered Ron Paul or Denis Kucinich over Obama and McCain.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:29 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Do you honestly think McCain and Obama have equivalent executive experience?

You seem to have a weak grasp of the concept of executive, rather than legislative, experience. They are quite different things. Has McCain ever been chairman of one of the key Senatorial committees (a somewhat similar thing to an executive position in the legislative branch)?

TheUrbanMyth

Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 4:58 pm Post subject: Re: ...

Nowhere Man wrote:

Aw, c'mon

Don't start putting your responses inside the quotes.

That form of commuication is reserved for lazy Canadian Bush-lovers.

Or intelligent Canadian Bush-lovers...no suprise you'd mistake intelligence for lazy though.

ytuque

Joined: 29 Jan 2008
Location: I drink therefore I am!

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 7:20 pm Post subject:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

Quote:

Do you honestly think McCain and Obama have equivalent executive experience?

Yeah weak grasp! Name a significant piece of legislation that Obama has sponsored. BTW, senators receive committe chairs for seniority and not bucking the system. If a senators are for change from the status quo in Washington, they aren't rewarded with committee chairs.

McCain has sponsored a number of significant bills from immigration to campaign finance reform.

Biden is the ultimate insider and is not someone who will bring about change.

The Bobster

Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject:

ytuque wrote:

You've almost verbatim-quoted Obama's stated reasons for wishing to leave the Senate and take a shot at the Executive, to wit, that the Senate is not the place to try and make meaningful changes in the world. People seem to want change, by the looks of things ...

As for Biden, I suspect Obama's looking for a VP who will advise him in areas where he's weak (foreign relations, especially) rather than an activist veep like the Cheneyator has been. That would make Biden not only the expected choice, but the logical and best one.

(By the way, other candidates for would have chosen someone from a key state where support was going to be needed, but Obama has all that already among northeastern liberals - obviously he was chosen for ability rather than getting electoral votes.)

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:55 pm Post subject:

ytuque wrote:

Ya-ta Boy wrote:

Quote:

Do you honestly think McCain and Obama have equivalent executive experience?

Yeah weak grasp! Name a significant piece of legislation that Obama has sponsored.

Coburn-Obama act of 2006.

A good illustration of bi-partisanship. Coburn, one of the more conservative Senators, creating a bill with Obama. Looks like Obama can also work on bills with members of the opposition.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I see you are agreeing that McCain doesn't have much executive experience but are quick to explain WHY he doesn't. We already knew that. You are right that seniority plays a big part in getting chairmanships, but not as much as it used to. But the bottom line is, neither McCain nor Obama have much executive experience. Thank you for agreeing.

aka Dave

Joined: 02 May 2008
Location: Down by the river

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:18 am Post subject:

I haven't read any comments, and won't bother to becasue the premise is ludicrous, but William Kristol? He's a hack, first, and second he's been wrong about everything fo r the last 8 years. Please.What a joke.

Czarjorge

Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:18 pm Post subject:

ytuque wrote:

Is your face puckered shut with all them sour grapes? Calling Biden an insider is pretty ridiculous. Biden has worked within the system, but has also done a great job of holding himself aloof from the usual Washington BS. He's simply a solid legislator, and is a good choice as a foil against McCain. It makes sense because Obama uses his VP to counter the value of McCain, and then can hold himself up as still a change candidate.

And pulling out McCain's legislative record is pretty dangerous considering he's backpedalled over most of his best legislative accomplishments. McCain stands for less now than he ever has, he really has become a hollow version of the Bush-Cheney administration.

Dave, yeah, you're right about Kristol, but debating this stuff with the true believers is fun.

Bobster wrote:

As for Biden, I suspect Obama's looking for a VP who will advise him in areas where he's weak (foreign relations, especially) rather than an activist veep like the Cheneyator has been. That would make Biden not only the expected choice, but the logical and best one.

(By the way, other candidates for would have chosen someone from a key state where support was going to be needed, but Obama has all that already among northeastern liberals - obviously he was chosen for ability rather than getting electoral votes.)

Biden actually works both ways. Biden gives Obama Pennsylvania, a state that was in play. The only way McCain can counter is picking Ridge, which would end the election for him.

Biden is also great at doing the everyman campaigning that Obama has struggled with. Expect Biden to spend the next two months in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and the other Rust Belt states. It looks like the Dems are going to carve up the country and let proxy's bring in the votes.

W.T.Carl

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:55 pm Post subject:

Biden is going to give Penna to Obama? You'd better lay off the soju. The only thing Biden is going to give Obama is three electors he would have gotten anyway. There was no "bounce" in the polls after he was picked. Like I said, lay off the soju. It rots your brain.

Czarjorge

Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:09 pm Post subject:

Delaware is essentially an extension of the political machine of Pennsylvania. Delawarians (?) work en masse in Pennsylvania. Have you ever driven through Delaware? It's a commuter state, much in the same way that Conneticut is an extension of NYC politically.

TexasPete

Joined: 24 May 2006
Location: Koreatown

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject:

William Kristol says:

Quote:

What's more, they'll realize that the Democratic party will control Congress for the next two years. There's no chance (unfortunately) that a conservative domestic agenda will be much advanced, no matter who's president. So moderates and independents wary of Republican governance or conservative enthusiasms will have little to fear from a McCain presidency. They may conclude they have quite a bit to fear from the team of Obama-Pelosi-Reid governing unchecked.

So, apparently we should vote for McCain because he won't be able to get any of his policies through for the first two years he's in office? Rolling Eyes

William Kristol says:

Quote:

Has he shown great courage in his political career? Has he shunned the easy path or broken with the conventional liberal pieties of those around him? Has he taken on his own party on a major issue? Nope.

So, in other words, if he was more republican, he'd be A-OK. Didn't the right wing say this was a huge flaw for McCain when he was in the primaries? Didn't this put Limbaugh's viagara in a bunch when McCain was about to get the nomination? So McCain's old "weakness" is now a strength and something Obama needs to show more of?

William Kristol says:

Quote:

And we're at war. We're electing a commander in chief. It's not so much that Obama would, like the Democrats of his youth, blame America first. It's that he would wish away the dangers to America--and react too little and too late to threats to ourselves and our allies.

Yes, we should elect someone who glibly sings, "Bomb Iran" in repsonse to a foreign policy question. My question is with what troops are we going to fight Iran? I suppose Kristol's idea of bold, smart leadership is to blindly charge and attack people who are no threat to us.

Furthermore, the last line is alluding to Georgia where we made promises we couldn't keep to the Georgians and as a result all we can do is sabre rattle while the Russians laugh, knowing there's nothing the US CAN do and nothing NATO WILL do over this situation. Oh sure, McCain can send Lieberman and Graham there but they have as much authority as I do in the matter.

TexasPete

Joined: 24 May 2006
Location: Koreatown

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject:

ytuque wrote:

mithridates wrote:

Ah, good ol' Oftenwrong Kristol.

You can attack Kristol's credibility but can you refute anything in his editorial?

Well if Kristol lacks credibility and the NYT editorial board must repeatedly print corrections on his "articles", then don't you think that calls into question anything he actually does have to say?

Aside from that though, experience isn't everything. Bush's first term cabinet had seemingly over a century's worth of experience between a few people and we all see how terrifically douchey they all turned out to be.

McCain, on the other hand, does have quite a hefty resume', i'll admit. BUT, at this point in his political career, how can anyone know what the man truly stands for when in 2000, he calls peepz like Fallwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance" and in 2008 goes out of his way to court these religious snake-oil salesmen. He was against tax cuts in a time of war and now he for them. He's a "maverick" who voted with bush over 95% of the time in the past 3 years. He was against a time table for withdrawal, but now he's for a "time horizon" and nevermind the fact that it's a moot point for BOTH candidates as the Iraqi government has just signed a deal with the US to get the troops out of there in a year and a half.

The veteran McCain who touts his POW experience as much or more than Guliani said 9/11 in repsonse to everything didn't even bother to show up and vote for the expansion of the new GI Bill and actually is quoted numerous times as being against it. Who knows, maybe he's for it now that it will sound good and he didn't even vote on it.

McCain claims that Obama's the elitist because he went to an Ivy League uni and like arugula (i guess the Republicans would be happier with him if they saw him at an Applebees buffet piling his plate with a stack of fried chicken and watermelon, right?). I guess anyone wanting a good education or healthy foods is an "elitist" to them (apparently there's nothing elitist about a Texas oil man who is the son of an Ex-Pres running for office) . But if your born in Panama, the son of an Admiral who was also the son of an Admiral and have every dime of your education and health care paid for by the taxpayer, you're just an average, working class Joe America, right? Nothing elitist about that...or the hundreds of millions of dollars he has or the houses and properties he has which are too numerous for him to recall offhand.

And let's talk about being a POW for a moment. I greatly admire and respect everything he did and sacrificed for his country during that period, but i must say that being a POW in and of itself is not a qualification for the presidency. If it were, there's a few thousand other Americans just as qualified. Even beyond this point though is that being a POW is not an appropriate response for EVERY criticism or question that's asked of him. And when he goes to my city (Pittsburgh) and tells the local media that to fool the POW guard's he gave the names of the Steeler's starting lineup as his squadron mates a full four or five years before the Steelers had actually done anything to earn infamy on the gridiron (his own book says he said Packers starting lineup), it cheapens the POW story and show's what a panderer he is. To take his most defining moment as a man and change it's facts to suit his audience, is a bunch of baloney IMO.

Obama grew up on foodstamps and worked his way to the top the old fashioned way. He's a self-made man (as is his wife a self made woman). They earned everything they've gotten as they worked their way to the top and should be respected for their endeavors, not belittled for having succeeded so thoroughly in everything they've done.

McCain has flip flopped so many times, who can know what the man really believes at this point. To me, McCain is not "The Maverick"--he's more like Gollum and the presidency is his "precious", the thing he will do or say anything to get his hands on.

We are living in an era of unprecedented change, where we need leaders focused on the future so we can build the energy and infrastructure of future. We need to focus on green and not offshore drilling (by the way, if offshore drilling is so safe and clean nowadays with right wing pundits claiming barely a drop spilled in Rita or Katrina, why do i see headlines that read: "Oil prices up on Gulf tropical storm warnings"?). Also, if you want to check out satellite images of oil spills in the gulf in the aftermath of Katrina, check here: http://skytruth.mediatools.org/gallery/432. Furthermore the effects at the pump won't be felt by drilling for up to TEN years so it's no short term solution whatsoever which is what right wing blowhards keep saying and spinning: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=178663&title=Indecision-2008---To-Drill-or-Not-to-Drill .

Can someone who attended the Naval Academy when my parents were in diapers (1954) really meet the challenges and needs of a future that by all indications will be much more dynamic than the past? I'm sure there are some out there, but it's certainly not someone who never even bothered to learn what to do with a computer and admits glibly that his wife handles all the computer stuff.

This is too long already, but to me, the clear choice is Obama.

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