U.S. Presidential Election 2008

What part of “I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major-party ticket in modern history” do you not understand, yanksavage?

I think he is referring to Obama because she HAS executive experience and he has NONE

I think being editor and chief of the the most important publication at the top school in the nation has some clout with those that care about the language and the law. Or at least with me.

McCain's a senator too, by the way. Where is his executive experience? It's not like he owned a baseball team.

I doubt McCain would spend precious political capital doing what you claim here. He is pro-life, but it has never been one of his signature issues. I'd expect him to focus more on fiscal policy and government ethics issues, and of course, foreign and defense policy. Let's also not forget that there will almost certainly be significant Democratic majorities in Congress, which means a President McCain would be engaged on a lot of other issues. TBH, cinzia, this comes across to me as trying to scare people.

BTW, although Obama does have more experience than Palin, let's not forget he is a Presidential candidate and she a VP candidate; furthemore, he is much less experienced than his own VP candidate, so if one is going to make Palin's paucity of experience an issue they certainly cannot ignore Obama's. Editing one of the least undistinguished Harvard Law Review editions in the past two decades and being a candidate in a political campaign isn't relevant experience in governing where one has to make (often) critical executive decisions.

McCain's Voice Mail to Palin Leaked to Press (Listen)

Oh, and by the way... here's exactly why the press in the US sucks. What's the matter McCain, can't take a little heat? Infuriated About Tough CNN Interview, McCain Cancels Larry King Appearance

i think McCain was hoping no one would ask what important political decisions she ever had to make. the guy got really flustered and wasn't prepared at all for anything. looked like he just wanted to say, "people, she's a really hot milf! isn't that enough? huh? huh? "

which leads me to believe that Alaska is one of those states that kinda runs itself?

btw: i'm using that new google chrome browser... seems pretty good!

If by "executive" you mean executing moose, you're right.

BBC News reporting on the importance of the presidential candidates wives' hairdos for the american voting public


Obviously, an important factor for McCain choosing Palin as running mate was not just her hair, but the hair of her lovely three daughters.

Some nappy headed hoes..

Thursday night/Friday morning (local), Obama will appear on Fox with Bill O'Reilly's No Spin Zone just before McCain's speech at the convention. Video available on-line. Back to back candidate coverage.

Shit and spin and more spin! She is not even a big fish in a little pond. Her "executive experience" is like the top minnow in an aquarium.

In addition, experience does not necessarily equal competence.

But to say this hick lady from alaska has "more experience" than obama is disappointing. you're really seeing only what you want to see.

When Palin gets to Washington she is going to kick butts. I hope her daughter has a baby girl and they call her Monica - that will shut the cheese dick democrats up.
Did you hear Osama in Berlin. He said in his speech that Berlin is the place that the allies and Soviet forces met?? – it would be good if the paparazzi manage to get some pictures of Michelle thrashing the hell out of Osama after he loses the election.

It's the ticket. It's what may become the core of the new administration. Too much focus is placed on the individual. I'm not voting for a man or woman, I'm voting for what the administration might shape up to be. To me, these two opposing tickets seem to be in direct contrast to one another. One seems to be reaching for experience and guidance where it may have been missing, and the other has picked up a sidecar to reach fringe demographics.

Every president, even Bush, for better or worse, has had to rely heavily upon every advisor in their cabinet, starting with the VP. I can see Obama earnestly embracing advice from those around him. I just don't see McCain turning to Palin for advice.

Obama is not the superman many accuse him of being. He's human, or worse, a politician. But I see him bringing a degree of receptive level-headedness to office that has been missing. And I don't think it would exist in a McCain administration.

And while it's not exactly prep for being 'leader of the free world,' being an editor requires people management skills beyond the grasp of most, even if it was the crappiest Harvard Law Review ever.

Quite honestly, speaking as a Brit observing this all from a distance, surely nobody could be worse than Bush? Or Reagan - what was he apart from an actor who read his lines well (at the beginning anyway). I have always been amazed that with so many brilliant, clever, astute people in the US that these apologies could end up being voted in. With the two that I have mentioned, I have always imagined a sort of version of the British comedy series "Yes Prime Minister" where the advisors tie up the PM (with words not handcuffs!) and he does everything that they programme him to do. Surely even the political reporter on the TV news could do a better job than Bush?

Is this a case of who has the most money to pay for the campaign?

More pertinantly - the hair styling teams. Have you seen McCain's combover recently? Style over substance ever time.

There is a difference between life starting at conception and human consciousness starting at conception (which it does not). Tissue is alive, that doesn't make it yet human..only potentially human if it continues to develop in the necessary way.

For that matter female eggs and male sperm are "alive" and potentially human beings. Does that mean that wasting sperm by masturbation or using condoms is ending human life? Take the fundamentalist view to it's logical conclusion, that is what they are ultimately saying.

If abortion is the evil that they claim it is, why are they not doing all that they can to stop unwanted pregnancies in the first place? They're not because abortion doesn't bother them as much as sexual self-determination does. Hence their extreme anti-gay and anti- sex before marriage agenda. They're not interested logic or promoting a healthy society, only in controling men and women and expanding the political power of Evangelicals and Big Business.

I hate that the Republicans continue to take the vastness of American politics and reduce it to one political agenda (reproductive rights) that ultimately aims to side-track the general public from issues that really do matter. Foreign policy, the economy, the environment and civil rights. And here we all are, falling for it (myself included).

well said Bohemka

Bingo... women that walk into an abortion clinic destroy one "living" embryo... women that walk into a fertility clinic destroy about how many? 8 or so? Yet who do the Christians yell at, protest, and judge?

Here are some sources on McCain and his Big Oil money:

http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0014

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fec/specials/mccain/

So by this post you assert that Obama is missing experience and needs guidance? What happens if Biden isn't around or available or if they disagree? Why not just Biden for President then?

Your point is well taken, but to be fair you didn't mention the fact that in the McCain campaign that the experience is already there in the Presidential candidate and it's the Veep that would be lacking experience. It does seem to be an inverted comparison, but if zou do that zou should go all the way. If you really want a clear fair analysis, that is.

And lastly, before Cheney, the VP wasn't so important. I wonder if things will regress to a pre Bush relationship or whether the current importance of the VP office, which was only important in the last eight years because Cheney is very well connected and pushy, will continue. if it does, then this is important, but if it doesn't matter as much as it would seem.

When a Supreme Court judge retires or dies, it would be up to McCain (or even Palin, depending on events) to appoint a new one. The split is 5-4 on almost all decisions now, and McCain has said he will make conservative appointments to the SCOTUS.

Them's the facts. If you want to be scared about it, or not, is up to you.

QUOTE

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080902/pl_politico/13094[/b]

Just so that you know, most Christians appose this as well.

One more thing to add about this election and Roe v. Wade.

It's very interesting that second-wave feminists, some of whom have gone feline and many of whom have entered menopause or peri-menopause, have now decided that the Democrats are using the abortion issue as a club to scare them into voting Democrat.

Convenient, that. But it is a crucial election for reproductive freedom issues, nevertheless.

re: yanksavage and thefirelane's posts, infertile Christians where I live generally prefer adopting children from places like China and Russia, where they can rescue them from growing up away from God's grace, to infertility treatments. (Minnesota has the highest rate of overseas adoption in the country.)

the picture on top of this one was all i needed to see...

And it is also a fact that every SCOTUS nominee must be approved by the Senate, which will probably have at least 57 Democrats. So, no, I do not think you have anything to be worried about, cinzia. BTW, Justices Stevens, Kennedy, and Souter (all liberals) were appointed by Republican Presidents. That is three fifths of your five.

Did anyone read Slate today?

I thought this whole teen pregnancy thing would be a complete disaster for the campaign ... but it seems to have passed out of the news cycle already. I was completely wrong, and I admit it. I really wish I'd have had the time and resources to write this article analyzing my "if a tree falls in the forest ..." thoughts. Great piece of research.

Second, because I'm a white-collar guy living in Europe, I'm clearly of the wrong demographic to understand why Palin and her wacky family are such a hit. Until I read this. Now I get it to a degree I really didn't before. Wrong again.

So I'm clearly feeling a bit less certain that the Democrats have it locked than I did 48 hours ago. This Palin choice thing just might be crazy enough to work.

Conquistador, considering how effective the current Democrat-led Congress has been in pushing back against Administration priorities, that's not much of a consolation to me.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't encourage anyone to use this one issue as a litmus test for their choice. But I do think it deserves voter consideration.

Well, you wouldn't guess that since they only seem to find apportunities to express their apposition in front of abortion clinics, and only push for appressive laws concerning abortion.

Then again, considering the anti-science bent of modern American Christianity ("Man isn't descended from Opes!" according to them), I'm surprised they haven't tried to ban things as mundane as sleep opnea studies.

Expaticus, I wrote it Friday, and I'll write it again. I can't believe these four nominees are the best people we could have come up with to be the leaders of a nation of 300 million inhabitants, and largely, the world.

cinzia, in what way do you think they are worse than previous candidates? With the exception of Palin, I would have said they were of a very high calibre. McCainis held back by the divided nature of his own party and its present unpopularity but is arguably the strongest Republican candidate for the last 20 years. Obama stands good comparison with Gore, Clinton and even Kennedy and is head and shoulders above Kerry/Mondale/Dukakis. And Biden strikes me as the strongest vice presidential candidate since Al Gore.

I couldn't agree more. But I was wrong, wrong, about how this whole pregnancy stink would derail her nomination, or how her unbelievebly tacky family would lose her swaths of registered voters. The longer I'm away, the less qualified I am to opine on the Zeitgeist back home.


Someone probably wrote about this before, but I heard that Obama would only go on once he had a face-to-face with Rupert Murdoch where he told him to call off the hounds at Fox, especially when it came to his family. Good for him.

You should pay closer attention to what I post! One of the first things I said when it was announced was that McCain had thrown a major league curve ball with this pick.

BTC, those are obviously just your opinions. Obama is not anywhere near the quality of the other Democrats you mentioned, in my own opinion. McCain would have been strong 8 years ago, but the same cult of personality phenomenon we're seeing this year swept Bush in to the nomination, instead.

Anyway, I am lamenting that in general the United States hasn't been able to come up with better candidates this year in particular, with several major national crises at hand and the presidency turning over no matter what. It would be a lot of factors to consider, comparing previous candidates and their qualifications, vs. what challenges were at hand at the time, etc. That's more than I'm trying to express here. But be my guest.

Expaticus, there is no one Zeitgeist in the US, is the problem. My father-in-law (retired blue-collar, lifelong Iowan) won't shut up about how great Palin is, even though he hates McCain. He's obviously enamored of the opportunity to show how open-minded he is to vote for a woman, and he just can't understand why his PhD daughter isn't as excited as he is. He gets virtually all his national news from FOX, though, so who's surprised?

That's it in a nutshell. It's a virtual love fest for her on that channel. Sickening.

And you don't think that Obama voters aren't delighted to be able to lecture everyone about how open-minded they are because they are voting for a black man?

I'm talking about someone I know very well personally, JW. I'm not going to speculate on how a lot of anonymous "Obama supporters" feel.

cinzia, one enormous reason why a lot of quality people like Colin Powell never run is the politics of personal destruction that we have seen, e.g., against Palin.

Moctoj and others who continually whine about FOX- it is a real copout if you cannot address the arguments of others here on TT with something other than/in addition to (more likely than not, falsely) claiming that person gets their information from FOX. Rebut the argument with a counter-argument of your own, please, or one from someone else, even one from Glen Greenwald.

Freedom of the press can certainly be a dual-edged sword.

In what way do you think he is less good than say Bill Clinton was in 1992? As Clinton pointed out, he was slated then for a lack of experience etc etc

I would have said that Obama's rhetorical skills, a key attribute of a presidential head of state, are pretty much unequaled by any predecessor I can think of. He is obviously highly intelligent and has a stamp of high integrity that many candidates could only dream of.

What he lacks in homey-middle class man-of-the-peopleness is a frankly overrated presidential attribute (and the one Bush played on far too heavily) and his lack of experience is more than made up for in his choice of Biden as a running mate.

So Angela Merkel's going to need to find a new masseuse?

Did you not say just this week you don't get Fox? Well, if not, do you watch the live stream? You have to see it to believe it. Frankly, if you don't watch it, you don't know what you're talking about. It's a love fest for Palin.

Clinton came into the election with more than a decade's worth of experience as governor of the state of Arkansas.


He is undoubtedly a good orator, however he is not a good debater, which is one of the reasons why his campaign is keen on avoiding debates with McCain and/or anything which isn't meticulously scripted.


Obviously, however I don't see what makes him smarter than McCain.


You need to read up on his curiously fast rise to the top of the Chicago political scene before making statements like that.

So what if it was? Everywhere else is hate fest. Or is that "fair and balanced" to you?

BTC, Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas for 10 years. He may have been accused of lack of experience at the time he was running for President, but Obama and Palin are setting a new low-water mark.

EDIT: JW got there first, and more comprehensively.

As I said, I watch German TV. This is because I would like to be fluent in German one day and have found watching TV to be a great tool for language learning. The comment I made has nothing whatsoever to do with Palin. People who like her have their own reasons for doing so.

Obama is the primary candidate though! His lack of experience is a lot more worrying than Palin's, whose role is peripheral regardless.

Well, duh, If I'm watching Fox and I'm a liberal, I think I'm getting my own fair and balanced news on my own from them and on-line. I can see the hate and I can see the mockery and decide for myself. Fox only watchers don't get it. You're obviously one of them!?

You obviously do not know what news media I frequent. I think for myself and get information from lots of sources. FOX does not happen to be one of them. I suggest we get back on topic.

As for hate, I would say the hate some people have for Christians is evidenced by what is being directed at Palin.