Should we even bother to have the election November 4? If Nancy Pelosi is right, Barack Obama’s chances of winning are “100 percent.” Why don’t we skip the election and move directly to the coronation–er, I mean, the inauguration–ball? Every month, it seems, Obama smashes his record of the previous month for the amount of month his campaign has raised. Last month it was an eye-popping $150 million. (Where’s all that the dough coming from? Ask Mr. Good Will or Ms. Doodad Pro.) Acorn–the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now–will help assure that Obama gets the needed votes in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. (In Lake County, Indiana, for example, 2,100 of 5,000 registrations that Acorn submitted right before the deadline were fraudulent. “All the signatures looked exactly the same,” said a county election board official: imagine that!) Meanwhile, the ducks keep lining up in a very neat row. Yesterday, Gen. Colin Powell, former Republican Secretary of State, waddled forth on Meet the Press to criticize his former boss and announce his support for Obama. The election of Obama, said Gen. Powell, would “electrify the world.”
I agree with Gen. Powell that Obama would be a “transformational figure.” But what sort of transformation are we talking about? The United States is the richest, freest, most powerful nation in history. What would it look like after Obama, abetted by a Pelosi-Reid Congress, got done with their transformation?
Yes, that’s right, Virginia, it would be poorer, markedly less free, and less powerful.
How exactly?
In a recent editorial, The Wall Street Journal toted up some of the ways the country would be likely to change were Obama elected with the expected left-wing filibuster-proof super-majority. Caveat emptor: this election is no ordinary choice-among-basically-similar political moderates. It is a choice between a liberal, idiosyncratic Republican and an activist left-wing crusader. As the Journal noted,
“this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven’t since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s.”
Some particulars:
* On health care: you could look forward to HillaryCare with a vengeance. Think socialized medicine. Worse care for a higher price. Think Canada: 6 months to schedule an operation, more bureaucracy, worse nursing, more incompetent doctors.
* On the economy: Say hello to more, and more onerous, regulation. “The danger,” the Journal noted, “is that Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries.”
* Unions: Look for a big resurgence in economy-blighting unions.
* Taxes. Say hello to taxes, taxes, and more taxes. “Taxes,” according to the Journal, “will rise substantially, the only question being how high.” We know for starters that Obama wants to raise:
–The top income tax rate
–Dividend taxes
–Capital gains taxesAnd he wants to abolish the cap on the money the government takes from you for Medicare and Social Security
All of this would not only drastically increase the cost of new business initiatives in the United States, it would also put a huge burden on millions of ordinary taxpayers.
* Free speech. Remember that? We’ve already had a taste of how Obama deals with speech he doesn’t like: he tries to shut it down. When Stanley Kurtz went on Milt Rosenberg’s Extension 720 radio show in Chicago, Obama’s minions followed Obama’s order to “get in [the] face” of opponents and flooded the phone lines with protests.
There have been a lot of disgusting things about this campaign. The hysterical attack on Sarah Palin and her family was a new low. But for my money the very worst episode (so far) has been the attack on Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. Joe asked Obama an embarrassing question. More to the point, he elicited a momentary lapse into candor from Obama, a moment, moreover, that was caught on tape, broadcast and rebroadcast, and that John McCain seized (or at least maneuvered with rhetorical paws) in his last debate with Obama: It’s not that I want to punish you for your success, Obama said, it’s just that I want to spread the wealth around. Joe the Plumber assumed that the money he made was his money. That was hist first mistake. Obama-Pelosi-Reid do not like private property (except their own): they think the government should take more and more of it and spread it around.
Poor Joe. Talk about “the politics of personal destruction”! Turns out the Clintons were rank amateurs at that game. The roof fell in on Joe. The Obama smear machine went to work. Did you know that when he lived in Arizona in 2000, his driver’s license was suspended? Did you know that he isn’t a licensed plumber? (What? He works for a licensed plumber and doesn’t need a license for the sort of residential work he does? Don’t confuse the story!) Did you know that he owes back taxes (OK, it’s a pittance, but, hey, we’re trying to assassinate someone’s character here). Joe isn’t running for anything. He is an ordinary working stiff. He was throwing a football around in his yard with his son when Obama walked by and he took the opportunity to ask a sharp question. The candidate gave an answer that was just a little too candid. Result: Joe must be publicly pilloried and the focus must be moved firmly from Obama’s answer to Joe’s alleged misdemeanors. A few days ago, Joe spoke to Mike Huckabee on Fox TV. “I asked a question. When you can’t ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me.” As well it should. It should bother you, Dear Reader, too.
* Voting Rights. See Acorn. Think same-day, ID-free voter registration. “Can you make an X? Terrific: here’s a ballot.” In essence, an Obama administration would do for voter registration what Barney Frank and Fannie Mae did for the housing market. Gall alert: if there were a geiger counter for chutzpah, Obama’s reading would be off the chart. There has been a lot of damaging news about Acorn’s activities recently–damaging, I mean, to Obama, since the organization is essentially a shill for the left-flank of the Democratic party. Obama’s response? Ask that a special prosecutor investigate the McCain campaign and the Bush administration to discovery where these “smears” are coming from! Andrew McCarthy has the whole sorry story here.
All of this should make me unhappy, and it does. But I have not yet despaired. For one thing, as James Piereson put it in the current Weekly Standard, “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over.” If you trust the celebrity buzz, Michelle should be over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue right now measuring the curtains and talking to the chef about stocking up on lobster and caviar. But the President of the United States is not–not yet–appointed by acclamation. Even now, he is elected by (more or less) democratic franchise. And therein glows the proverbial silver lining. As Piereson points out, while the buzz is Obama-philic, the polls tells a different story, and so does history. Yes, Obama is ahead in the polls–but modestly so: 4-7 points. Piereson reminds us of how Humphrey and Ford fought against much larger leads in 1968 and 1976 and came within an ace of winning the White House. And even more telling was the 1948 election in which Thomas Dewey was the sure thing and Harry S Truman came from behind and cinched the race.
Will McCain pull off a Truman surprise? I hope so. As I say, I think Colin Powell was right to call Obama a “transformational figure.” He, together with a large left-wing majority in Congress, would transform America from the land of the free and the home of the brave into another socialist swamp: the land of the taxed and the home of regulated.
To the extent that they are really understood, I believe, Obama’s announced policies would frighten most Americans. They are just the sort of thing that the unrepentant bomber William Ayers looks forward to. They are fine and dandy with Rev. Jeremiah “God damn America” Wright, Obama’s pastor for twenty years. They are exactly the sort of socialist polices that organizations like Acorn applaud. But what about the rest of us?
Obama represents the union of two distinct radicalisms: the old-style socialist radicalism of the 1930s and the cultural-radicalism of the 1960s. One emphasizes increased government control of business, increased government intrusion into family life, health care, education, higher taxes more regulation. The other emphasizes the agenda of multiculturalism and political correctness and the politics of redress. Obamas’s greatest triumph has been to amalgamate these different radicalisms into a smiling rhetorical mantra called “Change.”
Will it sell? In an earlier post, I said that “Whatever else it is, this election is a referendum on two very different visions of America. Obama’s vision is of country crippled by sin; McCain and Palin’s vision is of a country fired by high ideals and expansive opportunity.” Which has more traction? To a large extent, it depends on how successful the left’s “long march through the institutions” has been. In my book The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America, I wrote that
The Age of Aquarius did not end when the last electric guitar was unplugged at Woodstock. It lives on in our values and habits, in our tastes, pleasures, and aspirations. It lives on especially in our educational and cultural institutions, and in the degraded pop culture that permeates our lives like a corrosive fog. . . . .
The question is how far outside the precincts of elite opinion that fog has penetrated. I suspect most Americans side with John McCain and Sarah Palin and Joe the plumber against the socialist mandarins who have plotted out a socialist future for America, and one that is inflected, moreover, by the antinomianism of class warriors like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. If I am right, you should not be surprised to wake up on November 5 and find that John McCain has been elected the forty-fourth president of the United States.
From the point of view of the world, Obama will be a weak leader: weak because he leads a divided nation, weak because the half that supports him is of the metrosexual kind; weak because he wants America to be like Europe (ie, weak); he wants to sit down with Iran without preconditions (hello, Israel, Vienna, what’s coming over the horizon there?); his close buddy Colin Powell is about as isolationist as is Buchanan…
The world’s policeman will no longer be American. So, just to begin the litany, whither Japan? Poland?
On the other hand, a country is decadent and divided for internal reasons, and the American people, Left and Right, are tired, I think, of the responsibilities of being a World Power. And they take for granted the advantages of being Top Guy.
Obama and his allies just want to be ‘liked.’ Becoming powerless will ensure this happy outcome, of course.*
(*sarcasm!!)
The question is how far outside the precincts of elite opinion that fog has penetrated. I suspect most Americans side with John McCain and Sarah Palin and Joe the plumber against the socialist mandarins who have plotted out a socialist future for America, and one that is inflected, moreover, by the antinomianism of class warriors like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. If I am right, you should not be surprised to wake up on November 5 and find that John McCain has been elected the forty-fourth president of the United States.
Perhaps, Roger…perhaps. I’m not so sure, though.
The fog of which you write is made more dense and thick and is magnified by the fiery breath of class and racial war strategists combined with the chill wind of totalitarian thought police.
When the mists of deceit by our media are burned off, when the improved visibility of their vacuous protestations of “fairness” gives rise to risibility of their protestations of “objectivity”…then, and only then, will I believe that we have seen the light.
Confucious said that three things cannot long be hidden the sun, the moon, and the truth.
I hope we see the sun soon, Roger. Because I have witnessed our entrenched information stream in action for too long to believe that we will soon see the truth.
I still think there’s a very good chance that McCain wins. Here’s an interesting take on the 2008 Election Polls…
http://www.zombietime.com/lefts_big_blunder/
Roger, a long time ago (at least a week or so before the FM/FM market collapse) you were crowing about a McCain/Palin landslide. Now you seem to be hedging your bets on at least a victory. REALLY – what’s your gut? I think we will pull this out, certainly not by a landslide or even a clear mandate. But I don’t think it’s going to be a squeaker either.
About the left, it is amazing how when I was a kid back in the 60′s and heard older folks talk about “commie plots,” I laughed. But I am not laughing anymore. We fell asleep for 40 odd years and have awoken to have the pod people snatching our country from under us. G-d help us.
“I still think there’s a very good chance that McCain wins.”
The odds are in McCain’s favor. They always have been! The only thing really standing in his way—was his own politically correct inclinations. I am a firm adherent of the Feiler Faster thesis. Two weeks is a very long time in our era of instant communications.
Hope and change = I hope to God the polls change in the next 2 weeks.
I think that today’s Biden gaffe is key: not only is Obama not ready, but there’s folks who are ready to exploit that.
I’m not sure that the worst of them is the one whose eyes McCain looked into and saw the letters K, G, and B, but he’s one of the candidates.
I hope enough of the electorate comes to its senses. Just enough; more than that would be to ask for too much of a miracle.
I hope McCain will win. But I’ve told my wife to dump the pharmaceutical stock she inherited from her parents—not that she listens to me.
“Think Canada: 6 months to schedule an operation…”
That is a complete falsehood.
My mother in law has been waiting 18 months to be scheduled for surgery to correct an earlier hip replacement. Why does she need this surgery? Because the first hip joint implanted was a model then 5 years old and discontinued in the USA because it was no good. Old spare parts are good enough for the proletariat, right?
Only because misery loves company, I hope the unholy trinity of Reid – Obama – Pelosi, father son and holy ghost, succeed in destroying your health care system.
We can’t elect these absurd, over-excitable, anti-historical, totalitarians. We can’t. We just can’t. Can we?
As GOP chairman in a (still) very red county in rural Nevada, I would like to think otherwise, but the fog is starting to penetrate here too–and this is the last place I ever thought it would happen.
I find it quite interesting that Democrat/liberal activists in places like this are quite brazenly in your face and think that they have been sent almost as missionaries to impart their wisdom to the unwashed rednecks they find here. Imagine, on the other hand, what happens to conservatives in places such as Berkeley or the Bronx (where I grew up), most of whom maintain as low a profile as they can. A McCain/Palin sticker on a car in such a place is an open invitation to vandalism at the very least.
Obama is more than transformational. Think Lenin. This election is more like Russia, 1917 but without the outward violence. It’s a minority convincing the majority that “change” is needed. Once they realize what the real “change” is, it will be too late. With ACORN legitimitized, this will be the last free election in this country and mark the end of the two party system. Welcome to the “New Soviet Union”
Roger,suppose that a GOP candidate had shunned public financing and raised $150 million.What would the MSM be saying?”HE’S TRYING TO BUY THE ELECTION!”
Say hello to taxes, taxes, and more taxes.
While everyone’s fretting over higher income, payroll, capital gains, and “windfall profits” taxes they’re forgetting to mention that the Internet is in desperate need of higher taxes. I really don’t understand why I can read this tripe without sending a dime to my betters in Washington
I don’t doubt that the McCain-Palin vision has more resonance and would win if people understood the stakes. But the media has been complicit in Obama’s attempt to keep his vision hidden with the vaguest of generalities, so that even those who think of themselves as informed may be unaware of the radical nature of Obama’s agenda. If he wins, they’re going to be surprised when they find out what that agenda is.
Many independents, it seems, are socially liberal but economically conservative, while also believing in a strong defense. Anyone with that combination of views would be foolish to vote for Obama. But many will, because they have no idea that his vision not only contradicts but dramatically undermines two of the three.
Sure things will definitely transform. Nancy and Harry will have carte blanche to write whatever they feel like into law. Our Dear Leader will sign.
Taxes will go up — don’t be surprised when there is the January 21st speech, while everyone is still a bit hungover from the big bash the night before… “sorry folks, we’re going to have to raise all taxes” and that promised $250K number will be more like $100K income earners paying 50%.
Free speech will become less free — I will resist the temptation to invoke Godwin’s Law here about how the Brownshirts will go around ensuring compliance with Ministry of Propaganda (aka MSM and govt. utterances). You’ll need to buy a satellite radio and subscription to listen to any conservative radio shows.
“Fairness” is the code word for “we’re taking from you and giving to our constituency”, i.e. the people who suck off the system and don’t contribute to it. This goes for money, power and anything else they can get their hands on. Things will get a lot more “Fair”, rest assured.
Oh, and tell your kids their plans might get put on hold for a while — daughters, too. Those who are 18-30 will likely get an all expenses paid two year vacation to Community Serviceland or get some valuable combat experience in the war created through the inexperience of The One. As Joe Biden said, “Obama will be tested by international crisis within six months”.
When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.
— Lin Yutang
hattip: LGF
I’m no fan of Obama, but I wonder if he’s getting a bad rap in all this. Lately it seems that he’s being used. Used by the far left as a vehicle for imposing their socialist vision on America. Obama’s contribution has been to provide an African-American voodoo shield for the left that magically turns any critical Whitey into a racist.
Obama may actually want to try to be a good President (bear with me on this) and not impose a whole lot on anybody. Trouble is, he won’t be able to hold back the leftist tide. He owes far too much to far too many radical lefties, not to mention the MSM.
As Heather points out, he’ll be a weak President; far too weak to resist the demands of the Soros/MSM/ACORN/Kos..etc. crowd. They’ve supported, funded and covered for him. They’ve bought this Presidency so they will do the governing. Third World socialism, here we come….with all future elections suspended in favor of maintaining domestic “tranquillity”.
Also, goodbye to the Internet as a place for the free exchange of political ideas and information. The MSM, the UN, and the Obama Truth Squads will see that it’s tightly controlled and restricted to hobbyist venues…thereby granting the MSM & UN significant life extensions. An authoritarian govt. will need its Pravda and, in that, the MSM sees its future.
I agree with Roger, the future under Obama looks bleak indeed; but I’m not sure Obama himself will be the cause.
I finally got a friend at work to admit that he really doesn’t know anything about Obama He generally repeats all the talking Obama talking points and I finally made some headway today with the WaPo editorial on the mortgage crisis. He said he throwing the die. It couldn’t be worse the last eight years.
What it comes down to is that a majority of the electorate is disatisfied with the MSM painted picture of the Bush Adminstration. They are willing to throw dice on an unknown quantity. I think Obama is done deal. I recommend that when you encouter a voter like this make sure that he knows that you will not let him get away with the “I didn’t know” BS. Let him know that he knew all along what Obama is. Even Joe Biden seems to know.
As a Canadian Conservative, I’m always amazed at how some Americans see Canadian health care as evil socialism. While our system is far from perfect, we actually give a crap about the poor. I’m fine with my taxes going to pay so everyone has decent health care. Some Americans see McCarthyism everywhere.
I’m an independent voting for Obama. I’m not a fool, nor terminally naïve, nor a socialist in libertarian’s clothing. I’d like to suggest that some of the comments here are a bit hyperbolic. You sound, in terms of tone, like the idiots at MoveOn, etc, when they saw Hitler coming as Bush.
Those not distracted by the horse-race-daily-polls nature of this election & the media’s loss of objectivity, may still reflect on the peril of our times when voting & realize this is no time to experiment w/ an untested, obscure candidate like Obama. Yet, for those still lost in the fog of the brainwashed herd mentality of the One & who are clueless to the dangerous manner this “transformational” candidate will appeasingly deal w/ Islamic Jihad or w/ perverting our economy to socialism tinged w/ Chicago style corrupt thugocracy, perhaps will at least be swayed by a sense of fair play in competition. Americans are sportsmen who want to see the game won fairly. Some may resent Obama buying the election, stealing votes, litigating opposition & stacking the “media” against McCain…that’s playing ugly & very unAmerican.
Jim, might I suggest that perhaps you are a bit naive. Either that or you are in favor of much of what was in the article. Some may be hyperbolic, but a lot isn’t.
The left has been actively suppressing speech, using everything they can. Pelosi and others are on record as wanting to restore the fairness doctrine. As one who was a radio station engineer during the “fairness” time, I can tell you that radio stations will be terribly afraid to say more than about 1 minute a day (balanced by one minute for the opposition) that is “opinion.” Because that’s exactly how it used to be.
The left, including Obama, want to put in Supreme Court justices who believe that “social justice,” not timeless standards, be the interpretation of the constitution. This means handing the power to make our constitution mean anything the nine unelected judges of the supreme court choose.
To pay for Obama’s announced plans, taxes will have to rise a lot. Does anyone really believe he can fund everything with his redistributionist “tax cut for everyone except those earning over $250,000?”
Expect that hard left, with support from congressional dems, to apply the “fairness” doctrine to the internet.
His health care plan is, as he has said, just the first step towards centralizing control.
His plan to allow Americans to buy drugs at overseas prices will cause the drug companies (who spend huge amounts of money on drug research and recap that from Americans) to lose money and cut their research. The only benefit is that it will reduce the free-loading that the rest of the world has done off of America because of their government monopoly drug buying.
Do you expect the economy to do well with raised business taxes, as he proposes, when the US already is #2 out of the 37 developed countries in corporate taxes? And who do you think will pay those extra taxes on the oil companies? The shareholders? They are mostly ordinary folks through their pension funds. The customers? You bet. If it wasn’t for globalization, high corporate taxes would be a good economic idea, because it is really a consumption tax and hits all equally (unlike income taxes). But with globalization, it will just drive business overseas.
Are you aware of the dramatic economic growth in Ireland over the last few decades? One of the main drivers was reducing greatly their business taxes.
As for election corruption, Democrats have long been in favor of those very policies which maximize the possibility for corruption: motor voter laws, government money to get-out-the-vote groups like ACORN, and minimal ID requirements. This may be the last election where any significant voting standards are applied. After that, it’s vote, vote and vote again, if you are a Democrat.
So if you favor a massive transfer of power to the federal government, combined with an increase in difficulty of unelecting incumbents; if you want our constitution to be treated as a blank sheet of parchment; if you favor less economic growth; if you want our medical care quality to decline greatly (remember, in the US today, we HAVE universal health care, just not universal health INSURANCE)); if you want a system where the only people who can communicate about politics are the very one-sided mass media of today… well, vote Democrat this year.
Jim, I’m never sure, really, on any particular thing, that I’m “not a fool”. Maybe you share that with me.
As a Canadian, I have lived nearly all my life under a socialist federal government. The words Obama uses in his speeches and in his policy platform documents may sound new and refreshing to some Americans. But I’ve heard them countless times – they are the ‘code’ used by liberal socialist politicians in Canada.
Especially “fair share” which means ‘higher taxes for everyone’. The ‘wealthy’ people Obama likes to run against and demonize are smarter than he is. They will easily find ways to hide their money and avoid the penalizing taxes he tries to impose on them. And then, when the Obamadites realize their ‘taxes on the wealthy’ aren’t bringing in enough revenue to pay for their socialist programs, they will find new sources…by redefining ‘wealthy’ from 250K and up to 100K and up. They’ll nickel and dime you with new surcharges and fees and other things that aren’t technically called “taxes” but amount to taxes. Everyone will pay more and get less.
An Obama Presidency will take you down this road. And we have a saying in Canada that describes our economy: “There’s a place for you if you know your place.” Friends of the left are rewarded. The sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers automatically become doctors and lawyers. Our country believes in equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Merit-based compensation and “getting ahead” don’t exist. It’s impossible to earn your first million, because you’re deemed “too rich” and it’s taken away from you.
For those Americans want to live under socialist policies: move to Canada – we’ve got plenty of room, we let anyone in, and we could use the extra taxpayers. But don’t tear America asunder. Because those of us stuck in repugnant socialist democracies, who can’t easily immigrate to America, rely on the USA as a great beacon of hope for better, more prosperous lives.
Jim,
If you don’t mind sharing – what has made you decide upon Obama? I’ve not heard anyone supporting Obama say, other than ‘we don’t want four more years of Bush’. John McCain is NOT George Bush.
Canadian:
A friend of mine is a refugee from Canada. His father is a famous heart surgeon in Montreal. He once told me that the dirty secret among Canadian healthcare bureaucrats is that they fear the US may some day adopt a national healthcare system like Canada. At that point the Canadian system will collapse.
Many Canadians have suplimentary health issurance that allows them to go to the United States to get first rate healthcare without waiting. If the US system is closed off then the increased load on your system would cause it to collapse. We are talking about people dying because they wouldn’t get timely treatment. So you remember that when you brag about your healthcare system as you bash ours. A medicaid patient in the US will get his/her cornary bipass before all but the highest ranking members of your society.
Hey, nobody menioned guns! Because, as the TV ad has been telling us, Barack Obama is a strong supporter of certain aspects of the tradition of the second amendment.
Jim, we’ll be checking back with you on the hyperbolic thing. I remember the LBJ years really, really well.
socialist medical care is okay and i wait for months for an appointment with an expensive doctor or unaffordable elective surgery, anyway (like everyone else). i like a bit of socialism with my danish and coffee. if electing obama is the payback, however, i can’t do that. there’s something just not right about obama, and it isn’t socialism. for one thing, he’s still secret and opaque. it makes me uneasy that he seems to know nothing about anything, especially the facts of life, foreign or american, or economic (you’re going to tax on the edge of a depression – uh. why steal an idea from herbert hoover, guy?). now, he’s shown hugging on his white grandmother (the one he hated, if you recall). after surpassing the crazy racist metzger in matters of racial separation, for the next 2 weeks obama’s suddenly gone whitey. one way or another, obama is either the worst of richard nixon redux or a psychopath. at least the mad richard nixon had a brain and his failings were human. the obamatron, may be many things but scarily, i am worried human isn’t one of them.
Canadian Conservative( supposedly ), you need to pay more. We keep having to treat your citizens, at our hospitals, which are directly or indirectly subsidized by taxes.
Not being ‘subjects’ of anyone for a long long time, Americans have always been willing to trade material wealth for more liberty. Like, the Civil War for instance, an event I could never see the Canadian historical psyche ever doing. I could well go on, in this vein.
In order for the US to have socialist health care, it would more or less require us to turn some of our citizens to highly educated serfs, tied to a profession. Most Doctors didn’t sign up for this economic and liberty taking. If they wanted to work for the government they can, but most don’t. We’d have to legally f*ck them over.
I think most Americans know that doctors have earned their place, and save for Marxist, leftist lawyers and various political thieves, we would be uncomfortable in changing the social contract of one of our hardest working citizens.
If you are a conservative, you are a sorry, poorly educated one.
As a counterpoint, I consider it unlikely that Obama will be a transformational figure. There is virtually nothing in his resume that would indicate otherwise. Certainly his time in Chicago as an organizer offers little to suggest that, even he acknowledged his own lack of any long term successes there. In the Illinois legislature his major achievements seem to have been knowing how to get your name attached to legislation at the last possible moment before it was voted on and voting present far more frequently than the average legislator. And during his brief tenure in the US Senate there is little to suggest that he will be the foundation of any significant changes. Even the recent endorsement in the Chicago Tribune seems to reflect this view, given that much of it discusses their view that he is unlikely to actually pursue much of what he has spoken about on the campaign trail.
Mike – Thanks for that. I hope you’ll be able to come here some day and become a citizen. We need you.
Hubris, the Greeks believed, summoned nemesis. Obama is hubris personified. Nemesis may well turn out to have been a humble apprentice plumber….
God luvya, Mike.
I just don’t think many of the voters *get* what the socialism of Obama and Co. No big deal. It’s so … 1950s.
I so hope I am wrong … and maybe because of Joe the Plumber, (may God bless you and may your liens be paid).
It seems like the left has taken their vision of Bush and elected a candidate to fit the description.
The US has the potential to descend into socialist hell much faster than Canada. Why? The incredible diversity of the US leads to much less social trust. Each faction wants to get its cut of the action, its piece of the pie. If one combines an affirmative action president with a growing faction of welfare-minded citizens, one obtains a quickly sinking economy.
Some parts of the US would survive under an Obama presidency. The parts with less diversity. The more diverse parts are the most divided parts, the parts with very little trust between tribal groups. Those parts will inevitably have a falling out, as the most divisive politician in American history steps to center stage for his coronation. Unless some kind of miracle happens.
Electric guitar?Woodstock? Values, habits, tastes, and pleasures?
Degraded pop culture?
I agree with your central premise about Barack Obama, but I don’t see what my tastes in music or culture (which I’m assuming differ from yours) have to do with an abhorrence for socialism.
(But then, I’ve never understood the left’s rule that if you are a homosexual you have to be a socialist, either.)
Well Mike, all I can say is that I would trade the Canadian government any 200 Obama voters for one citizen such as yourself. What a bargain that would be.
6 months to schedule an operation in Canada? I should be so lucky! Try 8 months just to see the specialist and another 9 months to get a CAT scan. The operation will be another 8 to 12 month wait. Trust me, you do not want Canadian style health care.
I suppose you will all tell me that the Iraq War, the current economic situation, or AIG’s vacationing executives all just happened with no influence by the Republican Party and the current Republican administration. Our country is facing many awful situations and all you can do is spread fear. How about some suggestions or ideas that can make this country a better place. We can all sit back and say,”He’ll ruin our country” or “He has awful ideas.” So get off your ass and recommend some changes. Write emails, letters, write to your senator, house member, governor, whoever. Spouting this hateful and angry garbage on a blog accomplishes nothing but spreading hate. I guess I expect more of Americans than you do. So spread your hate and anger. Enjoy it!
Goodness, why on earth do you call us Dems “leftist elites”? It’s you narrow-minded, biased, angry ignorant Repubs that are the true “elites”. You want to keep everything to yourself, no sharing, you have no sense of patriotism or nationalism, no compunction to treat ALL Americans fairly and with dignity, and your corrosive phobia about anyone who isn’t a white neo-con will eventually make you all apoplectic and dyspeptic!
As I listen to you, I wish my fabulous 20 yr old son hadn’t pledged to serve his country with courage, prepared to give his own loving, generous life so that folks like you might live. In his US Marine unit, there are Asians, Hispanics, Muslims and Blacks..ALL Americans.
Obama/Biden 08
Has it ever occured to anyone that keeps mentioning that we are the only industrialized country with socialized healthcare that perhaps we are just too large at this point to make it work. The US has the third largest population on the planet. China with the largest tried a fully socialized and communist economy and society and it is finally trying to correct itself. India is an emerging economic power trying to bring itself to a middle class living standard.
Everyone points to Canada as a model, a country with less population than the State of California. A country that because of its sheer geographic size could not possibly defend itself so it doesn’t, it counts on the US to do it. Even with the reduced requirement to spend money in this way they are taxing their citizens as high as 50 and 60 % to accomplish their socialist programs. Now imagine what it is going to cost everyone in the US to pay to insure more people than the entire population of Canada?
“move to Canada – we’ve got plenty of room, we let anyone in…”
That depends, Mike–I am personally aware of some people who Canada did not let in. There were some Russian/Ukrainian sailors (non-military) who jumped ship in Newfoundland who wanted to emigrate. One (who I met personally) tried to go through the legitimate channels, even going so far as to marrying a Canadian woman in hopes they would let him stay, and arguing that if he were to be sent back to the Ukraine, they would put him in jail. The last I heard of him, the Canadian govt. had bought him a one-way plane ticket to the Ukraine. The other Russian men (who spoke no English) quietly slipped into the black-market underground and are probably still somewhere in Canada today.
But back on topic–it really appears that the change that most Obamatrons desire is anything that isn’t Bush-related. The problem is that Obama is chameleon-like–he seems to represent anything and everything not-Bush, and that is what most people I know who are voting for him like about him. They don’t seem to realize the transformation is not so much away from Bush, but towards something else.
If Obama is elected, I hope the checks and balances of our government can prevent too much transformation. There’s not much hope of that, unfortunately, with the way that all three branches of government seem to leaning in a single direction.
I found myself getting sucked up into the obama mania. Then I listened carefully to what he has said and have concluded:
expect loss of freedom (of speech and opportunity), expect Israel to disappear; expect economic stagnation; expect the media to paint black as white and white as black. Expect great election fraud. But eventually people will get it and the pendulum will swing back. Hopefully in our lifetime.
It’s great fun watching your heads explode. Tim (#14) may take the prize for pants-pissing hysteria, but you all deserve some recognition. Keep up the good work!
I find it hard to believe that anyone can believe the kind of crap put out here — that Obama will impoverish the nation more than the last eight years of Bush, or that Obama is going to do anything more socialist than pouring 1 trillion dollars into nationalizing the hollowed-out shells of the finance industry. Can you people really be that stupid, that deluded, that ignorant of what is really going on around you? I suppose it’s possible.
I am really hoping that I don’t have to update all of my maps in January to rename Washington D.C., “Obamagrad”.
What America is losing sight of was what was spoken about in 1776 by Tom Paine in Common Sense:
“Some writers have so confounded society with government,
as to leave little or no distinction between them;
whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;
the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections,
the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.
The first a patron, the last a punisher.”
When those seeking to institute of change of society via government may have very nice intentions, the route of using the punisher is an ill one – government serves as a holder of our negative liberties so as to protect us, and is not a patron, not succor, nor, indeed, something that promotes virtue. Our wants produce it to restrain us, as individuals, from hurting society. Which part of being a punisher and holder of negative liberties do you want to give government to enforce as a societal ‘good’?
The good of a Nation is in its society and citizens practicing positive liberties, not in enforcing a code of conduct and restricting them from thinking ill or doing ill. It punishes ill deeds that must be sharply defined, else the words are blurred and your positive liberties put in peril. Part of that compact called the Constitution restricts government’s ability to expand via Amendments IX and X, and yet no one wants to challenge the expansion of government on fundamentals. By seeking to ‘expand’ meanings of words and give government more to do, we remove those things from our private liberty to exercise as we may as individuals. Forcing people to ‘do good’ is an evil far worse than any other as it puts ‘good’ under the role of punisher, and when you are punished for not doing ‘good’ you create a visceral hatred of that ‘good’ that is being enforced by the removal of liberty.
I have problems with both candidates on these grounds, but one has sought to shut down debate, shut down essential freedoms and actually support attacks on the common working man and that is beyond any ‘good’ used to excuse it. That is authoritarianism at its most base as we hold the common man to be the basis of civil society and the exercise of liberty at that level to be the greatest good. Shutting down debates, attacking the common man to shut down and demean inquiries by citizens of those running for the highest office, and deploying ‘truth squads’ and outright thugs to attack those who question mere politicians is not heading towards a liberal society: it is what tyrants and despots have done for ages, and no matter how ‘nice’ the boot is, it is still a boot to one’s face and a threat to society. When our common agreement as a society to form a more perfect Union amongst ourselves decays, there is no government that can hold it together without repression. And such repression is a direct attack on personal liberty, which invalidates the underlying social compact by those in power. And that starts to sound a lot like 1776, with a fraction of the population on one side and an equal fraction on the other and the mass of the population just wanting to lead good lives without interference from government. Wound up with 10% of America dead and 15% fled to other regions.
And it will start, as it did then, over taxes.
relax, after 8 years, 2 wars (not paid for), wipe out of our 401′s, mortgage and bank meltdown, the country is still here and will be so after either obama or McCain, both of whom are essentially hack politicians who will say anything to win. Obama is your standard issue liberal democrat whose agenda, as stated, will for the most part not be enacted, even by this” liberal congress”. McCain is your standard Country club republican, who as far as I can see has never embraced fully the small government quasi libertarian agenda of the conservative gingrich scetion of the GOP.
Given McCain’s prior veiws on taxes, immigration, campaign finance, judges (gang of 14), the reality of his governing would I suspect be only marginally different than Obama’s.
Obama would be constrained by the financial realities and his wall street pals . The tab is now being presented for our debt laden lifestyle of the past 25 years, and payment is being demanded. either candidate has to figure a way to pony up, so no matter who wins, higher taxes are on the way. relax and enjoy
Sandy,
For the record, could you give a specific example of how freedom of speech will be effected if Obama is elected?
Also, please give a specific example of an opportunity that the average American citizen will loose if Obama becomes president.
Finally, what specifically has Obama said that indicates Israel will “disappear” if he beomes president?
Obama isn’t change but just another step further to the left than is Bush, our comprehensive immigration favoring, big spending, no child left behind, free drug scrips “compassionate” conservative. Obama wisely stutters to avoid spontaneously disclosing the radical anti-US instincts that he has picked up from those with whom he has long allied. Mostly, he is a man of intelligent who has gotten away with not exerted himself enough to acquire much knowledge… He clearly lacks understanding that markets are stronger than governments and punish socialists and capitalists alike who meddle with them… peace through US strength is anathema to Obama’s internationalism, and (unlike Biden) he is clueless that his posturing for peace will more likely bring him war.
Good post, johnathan k, tonally at least. But please do take a look at Michael Medved’s points re repairability of what’s apparently coming.
Look up the term “Transformational Leadership” you will be amazed how dead on Collin Powell is in discribing Obama. I have inserted only part of the Transformational Leadership below. This leadership style, added to the Black Theology movement is how leaders like Jeremiah Wright and other ministers of his ilk come about. While one can choose to walk into our out of a church, once elected to the presidency as citizens we can not walk out on this man. We have to be even more vigilant and hold congress and him accountable.
Assumptions
People will follow a person who inspires them.
A person with vision and passion can achieve great things.
The way to get things done is by injecting enthusiasm and energy.
Style
Working for a Transformational Leader can be a wonderful and uplifting experience. They put passion and energy into everything. They care about you and want you to succeed.
Developing the vision
Transformational Leadership starts with the development of a vision, a view of the future that will excite and convert potential followers. This vision may be developed by the leader, by the senior team or may emerge from a broad series of discussions. The important factor is the leader buys into it, hook, line and sinker.
Selling the vision
The next step, which in fact never stops, is to constantly sell the vision. This takes energy and commitment, as few people will immediately buy into a radical vision, and some will join the show much more slowly than others. The Transformational Leader thus takes every opportunity and will use whatever works to convince others to climb on board the bandwagon.
In order to create followers, the Transformational Leader has to be very careful in creating trust, and their personal integrity is a critical part of the package that they are selling. In effect, they are selling themselves as well as the vision.
mtraven, the answer to your question is “yes”.
(Yeah, it’s the same Mike from earlier.)
Dear “Questioner” (#43),
Here are some “suggestions or ideas that can make [your] country a better place”:
1. Don’t elect Obama.
2. Give McCain one term.
3. Stop the class warfare rhetoric.
4. Remember that Americans who get rich and find success in America are not America’s enemies. America’s enemies are militant Islamic extremists and people like William Ayers who remain unrepentant about bombing US interests.
5. In four years, if you want a bit of liberalism in your country, make Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee and elect her President. (I can’t understand for the life of me why you didn’t do this in the first place!)
6. Quit whining about George W. Bush. It’s over. He’s done. Move on! (…but not moveon.org)
Of what I understand of Obama is that he is a smart, ambitious narcissist who likes the job far more than he likes anything else. His job history shows that he is more effective at “getting ahead” than he is at actually accomplishing anything. Those who helped him get ahead because they thought he would be “something different” were disappointed because he ended up just like everyone else.
I do expect higher taxes under an Obama presidency with no appropriate checks or balances other than the current judiciary. Unfortunately those higher taxes will come at a bad time (like, now) but hopefully our economy is a little more resilient so it won’t go completely sour (“only” a “little more”). I expect groups like ACORN to become more entrenched, which is bad for trust in this country. I expect Obama not to veto a single law that Reid and Pelosi put forward, and I expect him to be fine with that. He will leave domestic issues to Reid/Pelosi unless he has to grandstand in some way (which he loves to do). He will spend his time jet setting around the world, conversing with world leaders and foreign populace who will be enamored with him. For Obama, “negotiation” with the world doesn’t mean “protecting America’s interests” as much as it will be maintaining the high of the Obama Love Fest.
Obama will probably accomplish little, but Reid and Pelosi will accomplish a lot. They will definitely raise taxes. They will definitely expand the size of our government. We will see defense spending lowered, but unfortunately we will not see the overall budget lower because 1) they are expanding government in other ways and 2) the higher taxes will NOT help the economy and in the long run will lower the overall cash inflow to the system. We will see Israel fending for itself more, with no political cover from Obama (that will not endear him to anyone, and the high of popularity is what he seeks). We will see a minimum health care umbrella for all Americans, which is not bad on the surface, but it will be a big hit on the economy as health insurance companies shrink or go under (fewer taxes) and the taxes needed to pay for it become felt across the board.
On the bright side, having universal health care may incent some companies to open here in America that would have otherwise opened up in Europe. On the bright side, the fact that Obama as a figure head is such a departure from America’s past may open up foreign negotiation strengths out of sheer shock value. On the bright side, the shill left-wing nuts of this country will finally have representation and may calm down a bit as they have their day and see for themselves the effects of their own actions. On the bright side, following the good looking Obama couple around gives the media yet another celebrity couple to occupy their time with (the National Enquirer will have a ball). On the bright side, the social impact of an Obama presidency may have some long-term positive aspects in terms of improving trust of the government amongst the US populace which can actually have a positive economic impact. On the bright side, the types of regulation that the Democrats may ACTUALLY be imposing on business may be informational–otherwise known as “increased transparency.” This, I feel, is a necessary adjustment to a newly emerging economic system. I don’t think that the regulation they mean is the damaging micromanagement form of regulation that existed from the command economy of WWII to the time of the Ford administration. (How many of you remember Nixonian price controls and the lame WIN campaign of the Ford years?)
There will be good, there will be bad. In the middle of it all Obama the Reid/Pelosi figure head will be enjoying the high generated by his celebrity status. He will be allowed to give great speeches, and he will be obviously enjoying himself. On the bright side, his positiveness may infect the rest of us.
This doesn’t mean I’m voting for the guy, however. Hell no.
Also remember that, in a two party system there may be many things that the “other” party supports that you personally may be fine with but is otherwise packaged into the larger product of the other party. Many “intelligent” laws and things that “make sense” don’t often get passed for this very reason.
Like when the Republicans had muscle, the result will be a mixed bag of nuts (reflecting the make up of our government elites).
I’m sure Obama is a nice guy –it’s the ideological advisors who scare me. Socialist do not seem to recognize ‘history’. Poverty-crushed and unfree populations in every worker’s paradise faze them not at all.
Look at ”card check” –item #1 on the next congressional agenda. Near and future bankruptees, Ford is at 2 buck a share, GM at 4, and Chrysler, well, it’s a subsidiary now. How did this happen? Don’t ask –just vote for ”card check”.
When the Dems finally get their Depression (which Fannie may’ve already delivered), they can finish off Capitalism with a new “New Deal”.
Bye bye dynamism and upward mobility and animal spirits and prosperity, hello gray drudge soviet america.
All ya need is laws mandating 51% receiving what amounts to “good behavior” stipends from the other 49%, and you’re there, the worker’s paradise, where misery is the official preference because being detestable it is so easily ‘evenly distributed” –a nation run forevermore by a new American nomenklatura.
We are so close to that, so close now, that it IS truly frightening –to anyone who can see it, and who loved America for what she was –even despite never fully living up to her ideals, at least for maintaining those ideals, and being forever determined to keep trying to live up to them.
Amity Schlaes (in new bestseller “The Forgotten Man”) –as well as a group of economists at UCLA –say that the New Deal probably prolonged the Depression as much as seven years. She says the main culprit was taxation –a top rate that went from 20% to 70% under New Deal. She observes that the fantastical amount of centralization and increase in gov’t power during the time may’ve diverted the attention of FDR’s Brain Trust from practicality toward ideology. She says that many, many small business owners just gave up and quit under the new taxes that kept coming at them. The ‘forgotten man’ in her book title is not the one in four unemployed (he is the ‘remembered’ man) but the three of four whose tax burden rose by three plus orders, in order to pay for the extension of the pain by which government was able to greatly grow itself.
Reminds of Ronald Reagan’s “The government can’t solve our problem, the government IS our problem.”
I’m sure he didn’t have Fannie specifically in mind at the time, but he would surely recognize the genesis of today’s calamity.
RE: Buddy et al read medved’s colum, he is too dire, the american system is a lot slower even with full democratic control. there are a lot of interests competing in DC not necessarily on the same train.
also, the socialism argument loses a lot of its force with Bush, Paulson and company essentially nationalizing the banks.
much of what I read on the net is the same type of hysterical chatter that the left told us would happen if Bush was reelected.
also if what you fear is obama style socialism, why McCain for the GOP.
he was never a small government libertarian member of gingrich (now cantor-ryan) wing of the party. other thana country club republican view that the rich know best, what does he bring to the table. Rommney had the brains, financial savy, and executive experience to be a leader in this new world financial enviornment.
neither candidate represents the best for the future of this country. Based on any review of the essential qualities needed for the 21st century, Richardson for the Dems and Rommney for the GOP are head and shoulders above the two hack politicians we have now.
All of the above said, the overriding need right now is to terminate ASAP the foolish and unnecessary, as well as unpaid for war of choice in IRaq. McCain isnot only unwilling to do this, but seems to be looking for more wars of choice i.e Iran.Whatever Obama’s failings as a candidate are, he has been consistent in his opposition to this foolish venture.
This country needsto rebuild itself and keep its powder dry. The right should relax and drop the Spenglarian gloom.
Why vote for Obama?
1.
He will advance the green/alternative fuel revolution faster than McCain and understands the urgency of this matter.
Face it, the green revolution is our country’s great challenge AND economic opportunity for the 21st century. What’s that? You believe global warming/climate change is a natural cycle? OK, suppose that was true. What disadvantages would arise from greater efficiency and less dependence on foreign oil? I argue none.
On a side note… We are currently importing 10% of our oil from Hugo Chavez. But yet you chastise Obama for stating he would have discussions with all leaders of the world? Laughable really… We are paying terrorists to fuel our jets, homes, vehicles. You and me.
2.
He is intelligent and has shown a level-headed, calm demeanor throughout the course of the campaign. A quality that helped him make the right decision regarding the deployment of troops to Iraq. Wait until your children and grandchildren are sent to die for an avoidable war.
3.
He has inspired the younger generation. Obama might be able to stir about a change whereby it’s “cool” to be intelligent, to give back to your country, and community. Call me a dreamer…
Those are some of my reasons.
johnathan k, alright, i guess we have a standoff –i too was a Romney man, and for the same reasons. Two points, tho –one, i don’t think McCain is AS likely to get us into another war –not a hunch, but for a complex of real reasons having to do with human nature on both sides, and two, i do think you are minimizing what can happen with a tripartite Dem supermajority deliberately executing a 100 days blitz early next year.
Phil, 0bamas is not winning the youth vote. McCain is. Any demographic that Liberals insist on herding people into is abandoning 0bamas in droves, no matter what they tell national polls.
Tell me, which of the following states did 0bamas win in Primary elections- New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, California. Answer, none. 0bamas claims to be doing well with the “unmarried single woman” vote. Oh, really? Well, anecdotal evidence on this thread says otherwise. Social Liberals, and I’m only gonna say this once, are not attracted to 0bamas. they find him creepy. His no longer human. 0bamas is not attractive to women.
I voted for Hillary in Texas primary because I saw through the media infatuation with 0bamas, I knew it wasn’t based on any 0bamamentum, and his campaign has been sputtering ever since February, even worse in March.
Hillary voters know now that his people, ACORN stuffed the boxes, and stole the primary nomination process in the Spring. He was awarded delegates in the two states (Michigan and Florida) he withdrew from, and won no votes in, based on “exit polls”. At the DNC meeting held in May- IN FLORIDA. Democrats are going to send him a message on this one way media street that this election cannot be bought or stole. George Soros be damned!
I got news for you Phil, 0bamas will probably win New Jersey. thats it. So spare me the bona fides. 0bamas will not get to re-stage the sentimentalized sixties, and get to re-cast himself as romanticized saviour, just to, hopefully fill the whole in his soul (terms you might use) where a backbone should be.
If he’s so intelligent, then he can run again after he’s all grown up. Really, the best (and, really, only) good thing (so far) that will ever have happened to 0bamas will come WHEN HE LOSES.
Then he might, just might, be capable of learning the humility he feigns so non-convincingly.
And you have got to wonder what a has-been he’s going to be when he loses a national election after so much money spent, not mention his “home” state. People of every political stripe there are fed up with the corruption.
Al Capone and Bugs Moran, not to mention Stracci and Stroger are so proud. Nothing has changed since they ruled the fiefdom. No reform has EVER taken place there, least of all from the bagman from Chicago.
(Unless the first rule of socialism is that the exalted term “Reform” is reduced to mean “More Government.” Trickle down permanent poverty from Senator Government himself.)
But the good news is that Al Capone and Bugs, and Stroger will all get to vota in this election. Stracci got deported I think, but there’s always hope for change!
If “green” technology is going to work, it will only do so without government “help”. Oh, I’m sorry, “reform”. Just look at corn and ethanol subsidies. Do you think Harken, oh, I’m sorry, the honorable Senator from Iowa Harken cares? I think not. He pocketed the money and paid off patrons.
In fact, any private enterprise that government touches is tainted, corrupted, perverted, and degenerate. You know it, I know it. History proves it. You just keep having hope, that’s all. I don’t.
for example, did Kandinsky get a government grant? Would his life or his art be “better” if he had? We don’t even have to speculate on that. How about Mondrian? Arthur Dove? Francis Picabia? Frantisek Kupka? No? Do you know how many paintings Kandinsky made without government help? All of them. And all the above broke through and created abstract painting, independent of each other, in the same year 1911-1912, without government help.
Do you know the profound meaning of Andres Serranos ‘Piss Christ? It means simply this- That this is what some people think of christianity, that it has been rationally and intellectually reduced to nothing more than a waste product that most liberals at least, think belongs in a toilet bowl. How sad. I’ll pray for you.
If you seek succour in art, I suggest ‘il Postino’, one of the three greatest movies of the twentieth century. It will help you count the cost.
You think that a vote for 0bamas will absolve you of the sin of being white. thats a secular intrusion into a theological concept. And the two are not compatible.
Go ahead, vote for 0bamas, maybe it will absolve you, but rid yourself of this romanticized narrative of the sixties re-staged, re-cast with 0bamas as saviour. this and leftism is an Idolatry. Heck, I voted for Mondale, I am not ashamed. somebody had to!
to Buddy et al first point, the sclerotic nature of present day american govt. almost guarantees no sharp or radical change, even of dems control congess and Pres. also Court is still in Repub. hands and any change is necessarily longer term. Note that it is still the Roberts Court.
point 2
It is hard for McCain/Palin to cry socialism when Bush partially nationalizes the big banks.
point 3
McCain claims 26 yrs political experience, yet cannot even organize a disciplined and coherent campaign against what was clearly the weakest opponent the dems could put up.
I was originally a Hillary supporter, i thought she was the best candidate of either party in terms of qualifications for the office.
I briefly considered McCain until he picked Palin. That showed such poor judgement, considering his age and prior health . Obasma is not the messiah, buth neither is he evil incarnate Like McCain, he is an above average professional politican. Much of his stated philosophy will have to go overboard given our present state of affairs.
Point four
I think the rightie bloggers should take a chill. McCain still has a fairly good chance to win. The polls are suspect this time, I do not think they reflect the true feelings of those polled, especially in PA, Ohio,
While there are a few points you made I don’t totally agree with, overall this was a very educational and I have added your feed to my google reader. Thank you for posting this