McCain/Obama Debate III: 10/15/2008

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]Tyler23 wrote:
RebornTN wrote:

So if he correctly critizes Obama, you think this is a bad thing? This having the meaning that even if Obama is wrong on a topic, and McCain calls him out, you think it will still be bad for McCain?

Did I say that? It was an observation. I said “Right or wrong…”. It wasn’t commentary on whether it was called for or not.

I just don’t think the electorate is going to like it. Could be wrong. We’ll see… [/quote]

Didn’t mean to sound like such an attack. I was honestly curious as to whether you thought either way McCain will be hurting himself by attacking Obama.

42

[quote]RebornTN wrote:
Tyler23 wrote:
RebornTN wrote:

So if he correctly critizes Obama, you think this is a bad thing? This having the meaning that even if Obama is wrong on a topic, and McCain calls him out, you think it will still be bad for McCain?

Did I say that? It was an observation. I said “Right or wrong…”. It wasn’t commentary on whether it was called for or not.

I just don’t think the electorate is going to like it. Could be wrong. We’ll see…

Didn’t mean to sound like such an attack. I was honestly curious as to whether you thought either way McCain will be hurting himself by attacking Obama.[/quote]

That’s the thing, I think several of his points were valid, but, from what I’ve seen, the negatives don’t play well with the independents… which is really what this election is about. Maybe he brought up a few points that will stick and work in his favor. Overall, McCain did much better than he has to date.

43

Under the worst possible circumstances, do you really this person The President of the United States?

44

If you want a laugh check this out…

Click around on just about anything and everything.

45

[quote]Sloth wrote:
In 2003,
Obama stated, “I happen to be a proponent of
a single-payer, universal health care plan.” At a
town hall meeting in August 2008, Obama
responded to a question about the single-payer
concept, “If I were designing a system from
scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-
payer system.” He then hinted that, once
implemented, his reform plan could take Krugman
and like-minded supporters where they
ultimately want to go: “my attitude is let’s build
up the system we got . . . [and] we may . . . over
time . . . decide that there are other ways for us
to provide care more effectively”
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp108.pdf [/quote]

That was almost as bad as his flat out lies about the born alive infant act.

We find that, as the NRLC said in a recent statement, Obama voted in committee against the 2003 state bill that was nearly identical to the federal act he says he would have supported. Both contained identical clauses saying that nothing in the bills could be construed to affect legal rights of an unborn fetus, according to an undisputed summary written immediately after the committee’s 2003 mark-up session.

From his own Newsweek and factcheck:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/155560/output/print

46

[quote]RoadWarrior wrote:
Under the worst possible circumstances, do you really this person The President of the United States?

Witch-Hunter "Lays hands" on Sarah Palin- annoted version - YouTube [/quote]

You’re retarded. How many times are you going to post this? Just so we all know.

47

[quote]dhickey wrote:
RoadWarrior wrote:
Under the worst possible circumstances, do you really this person The President of the United States?

You’re retarded. How many times are you going to post this? Just so we all know.[/quote]

That was my answer to McCain’s argument that Sarah Palin would make a great president, Obama should had the balls to bring that up when McCain started his muslim terrorist denial. That was pure bullshit.McCain should have gone with Romney or even Lieberman than the “cheap shot”. That’s going to cost him this election.

Tonight’s results:

MSNBC: 85.5 Obama 11.6 McCain
CNN: 58.6 Obama 31 McCain
CBS: 53 Obama 22 McCain

48

Man this sucks, cuz I dont like either one really.

49

McCain and Obama did what they had to do; and McCain (I think) had the harder task before him.

My Observations

  1. A lot of people “on the stump”, on the Internet (this Forum is actually a good example) and within the party wanted McCain to bring up Ayers, Acorn, Chavez, etc. And he did.

The problem is that people are much more concerned about Healthcare (and I didn’t appreciate just how much); the cost of living/their homes; education and the ballooning deficit. The discussions on Ayers et.al probably played more to the party faithful than to uncommitted Voters.

Again. McCain had to do it, and he did.

  1. SCOTUS AND ABORTION

I said “wow”…because these two topics DEFINITELY are not “softball” topics.

I think that they both made their points; didn’t change a LOT of minds (which these two topics NEVER do); and both men came out of the discussion without any teeth missing.

  1. On the qualifications of both their VP’s, again this was a wash. I think that Obama and the DEMS knew from the beginning that Palin assaults would backfire. So Obama said (in terms of Palin’s ability to be President) “Let the American people decide”).

  2. AT LEAST FOR ME, dubbing one Party as “tax-and-spend” and one as more “lower taxes/spend less” simply doesn’t play with me, and hasn’t for a while. As I said in an earlier thread, BOTH parties spend like Sailors on shore leave. And both parties tax.

  3. I thought that McCains “If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago…” was a great line…but as good debaters often do, Obama deflected it, and as he did most of the night, brought it back to having similar policies.

  4. The VOUCHERS/CHARTER school issue in many ways SEEMS like a local issue to me (you guys can correct me if I’m wrong). I (and I would imagine a LOT of voters) simply don’t see it as a “Presidential” issue.

Is that incorrect?

So…

I think McCain had Obama “on the ropes” this time…but he didn’t go down with all the shots McCain threw his way.

Obama had to spend a lot of time on the Defense, but seemed to hold his own.

Probably a great Debate for those who wanted McCain to “take it to Obama”…but it’s doubtful that his Debate changed many minds.

We’ll see over the next few days.

Mufasa

50

I do hereby formally predict that if Mccain pulls this out Joe the Plumber will be a key player. I’m serious.

EDIT: I do hereby further predict that if that happens 20 years ago the talking TV heads will be referring to the “Joe the Plumber” effect or a “Joe the Plumber” event. Kinda like they use “October Surprise” now.

51

Mufasa I think you bring up alot of points, but in the grand scheme of things I dont think anything changed. McCain needed a Hail Mary pass, and got a 10 yard completion. He did better and was more assertive, but I think its too little too late. McCain is fighting guilt by association. What I mean is, being a Republican nominee is like painting a bulls eye on you no matter who you are. People are pissed about the past 8 yrs, which were controlled by Bush. I think McCain needed to show separation from Bush much more. Let people know how he is different from Bush. But I think he failed at that.

I think people are so pissed that they dont care much about Acorn, Ayers, etc. None of that relates to the average person sitting in his/her living room. People want to see gas prices, food prices, taxes, and everyday things become more comfortable for people.

The bullshit bailout just wasted more of American taxpayer money, because the initial reason for the shady lending has not been solved by the bailout. Housing prices have increased much more than people’s earnings. So unless home values drop to meet what is affordable, nothing will change other than foolish people getting bailed out by our money. With all due respect to people who fell for the ARM loan, be your own fucking accountant and do the math yourself.

52

Palin AND Joe can be interesting!

One surprise.

While I by NO means feel that the GOP has a “lock” on issues of personal and parental responsibility, it sure was “different”? to hear a prominent DEM speak of the individual responsibility that parents have for their childs education/upbringing. (No “child being raised by the Village” stuff…)

It was also interesting to learn of parental responsibility for educating their kids being made an official plank of the Democratic platform.

I just thought that was interesting.

Mufasa

53

[quote]Tyler23 wrote:
RebornTN wrote:
Tyler23 wrote:
RebornTN wrote:

So if he correctly critizes Obama, you think this is a bad thing? This having the meaning that even if Obama is wrong on a topic, and McCain calls him out, you think it will still be bad for McCain?

Did I say that? It was an observation. I said “Right or wrong…”. It wasn’t commentary on whether it was called for or not.

I just don’t think the electorate is going to like it. Could be wrong. We’ll see…

Didn’t mean to sound like such an attack. I was honestly curious as to whether you thought either way McCain will be hurting himself by attacking Obama.

That’s the thing, I think several of his points were valid, but, from what I’ve seen, the negatives don’t play well with the independents… which is really what this election is about. Maybe he brought up a few points that will stick and work in his favor. Overall, McCain did much better than he has to date.
[/quote]

McCain’s problem wasn’t that he was attacking, it was that he seemed to be trying too hard at times to bring things back to his attacks. In that sense he played into Obama’s hands on several occasions, giving some credence to Obama’s line that he wanted to talk more about attacks and less about policy.

While I agree that McCain had his best performance yet in many respects, I think this was still a definate win for Obama in that he did more of what he had to do than McCain did. Given that Obama’s single biggest weakness in the middle coming into the generals was his inexperience and questions over his readiness to handle the presidency, it seems he has really milked these debates for all they were worth. Issues aside, he looked competent and mature. Given the combination of the climate and McCain’s shortcomings in both campaign personality, conveying passable maturity has been all Obama has really had to do.

It’s interesting to imagine where this race would be with some of the other possible candidate matchups. Romney vs Obama or Hillary would’ve made for an interesting October.

54

SCRANTON - The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

The Scranton Times-Tribune first reported the alleged incident on its Web site Tuesday and then again in its print edition Wednesday. The first story, written by reporter David Singleton, appeared with allegations that while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd and mentioned Oabama’s name a man in the audience shouted “kill him.”

News organizations including ABC, The Associated Press, The Washington Monthly and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann reported the claim, with most attributing the allegations to the Times-Tribune story.

Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.

“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.

He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.

Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”

“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”

Hackett said he did not hear the remark.

Slavoski said Singleton was interviewed Wednesday and stood by his story but couldn’t give a description of the man because he didn’t see him he only heard him.

When contacted Wednesday afternoon, Singleton referred questions to Times-Tribune Metro Editor Jeff Sonderman. Sonderman said, “We stand by the story. The facts reported are true and that’s really all there is.”

Slavoski said the agents take such threats or comments seriously and immediately opened an investigation but after due diligence “as far as we’re concerned it’s closed unless someone comes forward.” He urged anyone with knowledge of the alleged incident to call him at 346-5781. “We’ll run at all leads,” he said.

55

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
6) The VOUCHERS/CHARTER school issue in many ways SEEMS like a local issue to me (you guys can correct me if I’m wrong). I (and I would imagine a LOT of voters) simply don’t see it as a “Presidential” issue.

Is that incorrect?
[/quote]

It SHOULD be a local issue, but with the Department of Education holding the purse strings, most states and municipalities don’t have the available funds to make it a reality. The issue at the executive level should be about dismantling the ED, using that extra money to help lower the federal budget deficit, and giving states and local governments the same control they had over education before Carter was President.

The state can then determine the most appropriate uses of their own funds for education. If that means raising state and local taxes then so be it, but with more control will come more efficiency, and hopefully better education for the dollar.

56

[quote]dhickey wrote:

Joe Cool .vs the agitated old man.[/quote]

Well said, this was the impression that I saw as well.

57

[quote]Sloth wrote:
<<< Slavoski said the agents take such threats or comments seriously and immediately opened an investigation but after due diligence “as far as we’re concerned it’s closed unless someone comes forward.” He urged anyone with knowledge of the alleged incident to call him at 346-5781. “We’ll run at all leads,” he said.

[/quote]

I never did buy that bullshit. There is no way that people could be yelling taunts of violence at the rallies of any of these 4 without it being immediately shouted down by the respective campaigns.

You’re gonna tell me that Palin, who heard a guy in the crowd protest the war and responded graciously is not going to respond in some way to somebody calling for the beheading or general death of Barack Obama?

No contemporary candidate is going to let that go on either side.

58

[quote]tedro wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
6) The VOUCHERS/CHARTER school issue in many ways SEEMS like a local issue to me (you guys can correct me if I’m wrong). I (and I would imagine a LOT of voters) simply don’t see it as a “Presidential” issue.

Is that incorrect?

It SHOULD be a local issue, but with the Department of Education holding the purse strings, most states and municipalities don’t have the available funds to make it a reality. The issue at the executive level should be about dismantling the ED, using that extra money to help lower the federal budget deficit, and giving states and local governments the same control they had over education before Carter was President.

The state can then determine the most appropriate uses of their own funds for education. If that means raising state and local taxes then so be it, but with more control will come more efficiency, and hopefully better education for the dollar. [/quote]

The budget for most schools comes primarily from state and local taxes. The federal funds going to Ed is about 10% of the total budget with the other 90% coming from state/local taxes.

59

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:

The budget for most schools comes primarily from state and local taxes. The federal funds going to Ed is about 10% of the total budget with the other 90% coming from state/local taxes.

[/quote]

Depends on the school. The worst schools get the most money yet still fail. Hmmm…sounds familiar.

60

Anyone know “Hail to the Chief” in Arabic?