McCain v. Obama
Paul in Cannon Beach
4,703 Posts
So its official. McCain versus Obama. I listened to both speak tonight. McCain sounds like a tough and wise grandfatherly figure. His speaking ability is just average though. His lines sound canned.
Obama on the other hand was pretty amazing. The crowd was rocking. You could tell it was an electric moment.
I think there are alot of people out there who will want a President that can speak with conviction and power. Alot of people would like a President that doesnt stumble over his words and say emberassing things.
I have no idea if Obama has the maturity and wisdom to lead the greatest nation on earth (there is evidence to the contrary) but he certainly is DIFFERENT from what we have had the past 8 years.
His forceful ability to communicate and grasp of an attractive populist message could be enough to win. I never really thought so until tonight. I must admit I am impressed. I'm still voting McCain but I dont know if he will have the energy and vision to respond to Obama's Kennedyesque persona.
Obama on the other hand was pretty amazing. The crowd was rocking. You could tell it was an electric moment.
I think there are alot of people out there who will want a President that can speak with conviction and power. Alot of people would like a President that doesnt stumble over his words and say emberassing things.
I have no idea if Obama has the maturity and wisdom to lead the greatest nation on earth (there is evidence to the contrary) but he certainly is DIFFERENT from what we have had the past 8 years.
His forceful ability to communicate and grasp of an attractive populist message could be enough to win. I never really thought so until tonight. I must admit I am impressed. I'm still voting McCain but I dont know if he will have the energy and vision to respond to Obama's Kennedyesque persona.
Comments
Obama is an outstanding speaker with noble sounding ideas. He seems to be a man of principle, which is critical at this juncture. The question is, what will be the substance behind those noble ideas? The Democratic party has a great divide as a result of this primary, if he is to unite the country, his first test will be to unite his own party.
Still, Obama is young, smart, well spoken, charming, and he has a good sense of what people are feeling. He will be a formidable opponent for McCain.
His first chance to screw up will be in picking a Veep. I agree that Hillary would be a bad choice. Too much baggage. Plus, Bill is such a wild card. There are rumors that he has been raking in millions of dollars internationally in a manner that would be difficult to 'splain.
Maybe we could have 2 presidents. Bama and Cain. Young and old. Novice and pro. Philosophical and realistic.
Probably still would not get anything done. Ho Hum. Politics as usual.
I was not & am not a McCain fan, but I will vote for him for two major reasons: 1. He is much better prepared to handle our nation's security (and the world's) especially against international terrorism, which I believe to be the number one threat to the world, and 2. Mr Obama is one of the most anti-business individuals to ever run for President. I can't believe that anyone in the business world and especially in the HR community could ever support such an individual. The country in general and particulary all of us in HR need to worry about businesses being forced to close due to Mr Obama's anti-business beliefs. He is the sponsor of or strongly supports every anti-business piece of legislation that exists. For you doubters, check his voting record or stated positions on: The Employee Free Choice Act, The Workers' Freedom Act, The Minority Union Act, etc. I didn't even mention his numerous plans to tax the business community and stock holders to pay for his political agenda.
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"I think there are a lot of people out there who will want a President that can
>speak with conviction and power. A lot of people would like a President that
>doesnt stumble over his words and say embarassing things. "
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A short list of some of Barack Obama's verbal stumbles & embarassing statements;
* Last May, he claimed that Kansas tornadoes killed 10,000 people: “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.†The actual death toll: 12.
*Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.â€
*Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, South Dakota audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you Sioux City…I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.â€
*Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.†On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?
*Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, he claimed his parents united as a direct result of that event in 1965:
“There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.â€
Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole.â€
*Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by honing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.†The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them†in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.
*Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multi-billion-dollar, massive Hanford nuclear waste clean-up, which has been extensively covered by the media, :
“Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.â€
I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he has voted on authorization bills that addressed the “costs, schedules, and technical issues†dealing with the nation’s most contaminated nuclear waste site. The staffer probably also mentioned that this was (and continues to be) a major news story, extensively reported throughout the country and especially in Oregon where Mr Obama was speaking.
*Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a false (yet life-changing) autobiographical detail in Obama’s “Dreams from My Father:â€
“Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.â€
*Last month while speaking to a primarily Jewish audience, Mr Obama told them how moved he was at a very young age when he heard his uncle tell stories of being one of the first Americans to enter & liberate Auschwits at the end of WW II. The problem was that the US Army had no record of his uncle or his uncle's unit ever being in that part of Germany. Mr Obama later said it must have been one of the other camps.
* And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama recently told a Portland crowd that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to usâ€â€“cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries†with small defense budgets can’t do us harm.
How many passes does Sen Obama get?
If it is we are in deep deep do do
Many a person has gone down from a slick talker - I'd rather have a patriot - I don't much care for all of McCain's policies, votes whatever, but believe beyond a doubt in his patriotism - and if he walks stiiffly and speaks with hesitation, I say thanks John for the extreme torture you bore and with which you live - because you love our country---I do to.
And I don't feel McCain only wants to sell me down the river....so to speak.
But dont mistake my original point. We live in an age of image and packaging. Obama is well packaged and he has managed to create a youthful, exciting vibe. That will be enough for many voters.
On the other hand, dont you think Obama's honeymoon with the media will end now that he is the candidate? He will have to deal with scrutiny of his voting record and statements.
> Yes (I have to admit) Sen Obama is an eloquent speaker. The media has told
>me what a great orator he is and I have also heard him speak and admit, he is
>very eloquent. He just has a problem with factual information. I'm sure Sen
>McCain has made some verbal gaffes (as we all have), but the only gaffe of
>note that I can think of was his using the term "Shia" when he meant to say
>"Shite". The media was all over this for weeks. Could you imagine the media
>storm if McCain said he had been to all 57 States' or forgot what year he was
>born in, or forgot what state he was speaking in, or saw no difference
>between 10,000 people being killed vs 12, or publicy stated that Iran poses no
>threat to our country????
Some would argue that the reason the Shia/Shiite gaffe is the only one you can remember is because of the corporate media's affinity for Mr. McCain. If you're looking for some others, a simple google search will find them for you. Here's a site with a video that compiles some of them:
[url]http://darrylwolkpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/05/record-fo-mccains-gaffes.html[/url]
As for the media giving Obama a free ride - I don't think that's a valid complaint. Let's not forget how often and for how long we had to hear Rev. Wright's sermons on every major news station. Meanwhile, although the media did not ignore McCain's endorsers Rev. Hagee and Rev. Parsley, we didn't hear the constant replay of Hagee's or Parsley's inflammatory remarks, which were at least as bad as Rev. Wright's or get the weeks-long analysis of what McCain's associations with those individuals says about McCain.
Also, you may have seen the video of the media partying it up at McCain's ranch:
[url]http://prospectparkproject.blogspot.com/2008/03/liberal-media-at-mccain-ranch.html[/url]
I think the blogger is correct when he says that certain right wingers would have a fit if the media were consorting with Obama in this kind of setting.
And what about the comments about the "fist bump" between Barack and Michelle Obama? I couldn't believe it when I heard Fox News' E.D. Hill say, "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently." Wha? What kind of responsible journalist even hints that a common celebratory gesture might have been a terrorist action?
In any event, I think a lot of this stuff unfortunately is just politics/media as usual. And we're going to see a lot of it, on both sides, from now until November. Yipee!
As much as the business community is encouraged and to some degree threatened to become "inclusive" (one step above diverse), our media insists on making issues of Obama being black and Hillary female; the sensitivity was hyper whenever race or gender was mentioned, and terms were considered "offensive" or "degrading" when there was even a hint of racial or sexual connotations.
We are apparently a country of racialists and chauvinists who can't judge people by their character and their actions. Our media will not allow us to move beyond that condition.
Two cents.
>proposed that Rita could even remotely say anything in support of Obama.
I was referring to ritamcguire, who was the poster of the "Obama gaffes" message to which I'd responded. And I was using "rita" as short for "ritamcguire," so capitalization was not appropriate, since the moniker isn't capitalized in its full form.
Hope that helps!
pbbbbt.
[url]http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/image001-300x167.jpg[/url]
>Hillary's or Obama's qualifications because one is a woman and one is black,
>that would be discriminatory and subject us to vituperation and having a giant
>letter D branded on our foreheads. But, people will not blink when McCain is
>questioned due to his age. That is an acceptable form of discrimination. A
>liberal friend responded to that recently by saying that older people tend to
>lose some of their faculities so that makes it OK to question their viability.
I think you're right that McCain's age is given way too much scrutiny, though I wouldn't exactly say no one blinks when that happens. There's already been a fair amount of discussion about ageism as it relates to McCain. Unfortunately, a lot of these types of attitudes, whether they be ageist, sexist, racist, "religionist" (Mitt Romney was subjected to ridiculous amounts of scrutiny because of his Mormon faith, for example), are alive and well in America, and even in the media.
For example:
(re: Hillary) "I have often said, when she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs." Tucker Carlson, MSNBC
(re Hillary) "[She] looked like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court." Mike Barnacle, MSNBC
(re Hillary) "She's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean? She's that stereotypical nagging...after four years, don't you think every man in America will go insane?" Glenn Beck, CNN
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Fox News runs this tagline on screen: "Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama's baby mama."
(re: Obama) "the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody." Chris Matthews, MSNBC
I'm looking for an example of someone in the media calling McCain too old or making derogatory comments about him because of his age, but I haven't been able to find one. Maybe someone else can help? Of course there's been media stories like "Is McCain too old for the presidency?" but I consider those similar to the stories we saw like, "Will America vote for a woman president?" "Is Obama black enough?", which, while they all are annoying examples of the media harping way too much on race, age, and sex, are really more reports about what the American public has to say on those issues as opposed to opinions expressed by members of the media themselves.
Incidentally, I thought John McCain was hilarious on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago.
From Obama's website:
Create a Living Wage: Obama will raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs such as food, transportation, and housing.
My first thought is that a job at McDonalds will never allow someone to raise a family. That expectation is unrealistic. Minimum wage jobs are starter jobs, low skill jobs, entry level, etc. Its a starting point, not an ending point.
Creating an artificial index connected to inflation sounds reasonable. A cost of living raise, right?
Except that todays minimum wage workers SHOULD not be next years minium wage workers. If you stay at a job you will (almost always) get a raise. So an artificial raise wont help. It will simply make the cost of running a business more expensive to an employer who will in turn pass on these costs to customers, reduce staff, etc.
I know Frank doesnt agree with this theory. I think Obama is pandering.