I agree. And with the two choices we have now - the choice I would take even if I were a liberal republican - would be Obama. It’s an extra added bonus that I liked him through the primaries…Usually, the guy I like is eliminated quickly. And I end up voting the lesser of two evils. In this case, for those who don’t like Obama or McCain, I’ll postulate more will choose Obama because of what the OP mentions. Of course this won’t go for everyone, but it is the same thought process my father is using [69 yr/old retired military, engineer] He’s voted republican more often than not since the 60’s and he is casting his vote for Obama for much the same reason.
I don’t believe - from everything I know about the man - that an Obama administration will look anything like the Bush ones. I can’t see it, there is no way Obama could do worse. McCain – different story all together.
Heh…Obama grew to his current position in the rather harsh realities of Chicago politics. He is no Ivory Tower liberal with noble ideas and no clue of reality.
We have seen the results of what a blithering idiot has gotten us for the past eight years. I am not seeing McCain as being much of an improvement so far. Perhaps that will change but somehow I doubt it.
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I talked to my sister today. Whenever I mention voting for Obama she says ‘No way.’ She’s always been a Republican.
My sister is disabled, and so is her husband. They live off of the largesse of the State. She is in favour of Universal Health Care. She sees no reason gay people shouldn’t be able to get married. (She says her God is a loving god and wouldn’t deny entry into heaven people who express their love, regardless of gender.) She thinks we have no business in staying in Iraq. She believes science should be taught in schools, and religion in homes and churches. I told her to look at the Republican party and the Democratic Party. Which one is closer to her views? I may have gotten through to her this time. Or maybe not. But she might think about it.
(FWIW I have not belonged to a political party in a couple of decades. I’m a non-partisan Liberal – who will vote for Obama.)
Is she a single issue voter, WRT to abortion or something? Aside from something like that, I don’t understand how someone could think like this.
ETA: By “think like this”, I mean “hold several typically liberal viewpoints, but still vote conservative.” (Not, “be a liberal, but not vote for Obama.”)
I think the point of this thread, though, is that it is (or, if not the dominant consideration, a major one).
An elected official who continually falls in lock-step with their party without ever questioning why they do so, is ultimately an elected official that either does more harm than good, or simply does nothing useful.
An elected official who thinks critically about their choices, and is not afraid to deviate from their own party (when their party makes stupid or illogical decisions) is ultimately an elected official that actually accomplishes things.
Especially considering her living situation, it has always baffled me why she would vote Republican.
Given her socioeconomic status and hearing about the people she hangs out with, I gather the people she comes into contact with are often not well-behaved. And many of them are Black. She has one particular friend she spends much time with who’s married to a Black man. She says he has ‘Black Rage’. (She’s worried about that, as he gets out of jail in a month. She doesn’t like him and doesn’t want her friend to bring him over.) So she seems to have an issue with Obama’s ethnicity. I never thought of her as being prejudiced. As I’ve said before, race was a non-issue when I was growing up. When she told me this today I’m all like, ‘Erm… What? Anyway, so what?’
But I don’t think the race issue is really it. She didn’t vote for Clinton either. I think that she’s just lazy. She doesn’t think about how a political agenda may be beneficial to her personally or how well it jibes with her beliefs, all the while worrying that her doctor will no longer accept MediCal or whatever. Disconnection.
She isn’t dumb. But she’s always been lazy. Hippy in the '60s and '70s. I don’t agree with her lifestyle, and our mom was utterly appalled. If she had ambition she wouldn’t have spent her life living like a street person. (Were it not for our father, that’s just where she’d be.) And her disabilities don’t help. As with her life, so with her politics. She just never cared to reconnect the disconnection.
Another thing to like is simply the message of change. Change is happening from the top down, with Barack (supposedly). The change also happens from the bottom up. The way the campaign works in each city and neighborhood is to create a grassroots movement that endures after the campaign is over. It encourages people to get involved and become precinct delegates and to keep going after the presidential campaign is over.
Case in point is South (I believe) Carolina. There are about 6 people on the ballot that never got into politics before but they worked for the Obama campaign in some way (mostly volunteers called up in “random” calls). All over America, people are taking ownership on a local level and doing something.
Now, I’m not familiar with the workings of the McCain campaign, but I don’t think the same thing is happening there.
Not in substance, no, but if the discussion is about campaigning on style, “change”, leadership, being a different kind of politician / able to work across the aisle, etc., then perhaps you can explain the major differences, hmm?
We’ve been around this carousel more than a few times already in our history. It’s way past time to recognize that it keeps bringing us back to the same spot. LilShieste, that may be how things *should *“get done”, but one lesson Democrats should know from the last few years of working with Republicans, it’s more often how *their *things get done. Stating, up front, a willingness to compromise with them is, to them, stating a willingness to simply cave in. And they’ve been proven right almost every time, too.
Bricker, just curious, how did you feel about Obama’s “McCain wants 100 more years of war in Iraq” comments? That was, for me, the moment when the “he’s above typical politics” mantra was exposed as bullshit. Obama is a very bright guy, and I can’t believe the comment was anything other than an attempt to score a political point by deliberately misrepresenting his opponent’s position. Again, just curious.
I also agree that Obama is a charismatic, articulate speaker, and that I disagree with him on virtually everything he proposes to advance as president. I can’t fathom the position (which I hear all the time in my circles) that one may disagree with Obama, but his political skill will “get things done.” Um, yeah, get the things done I’d prefer not be part of the Feds’ agenda. Really, I can’t understand this thought process at all. Perhaps part of it is that I am not offended to the core by negative campaigning. Elections are about getting elected, I’m afraid, but more importantly, governing is about policy and effectiveness in installing said policy. I’ll vote for the fellow who best represents my views. Seems self-evident to me.
McCain did say he wanted to stay in Iraq for 100 years. His weaselling that he only meant it if there wasn’t any violence is too disingenuous to take seriously.
I wish I could disagree with you on that. The only response I can offer is: with a democratic president and a democratic majority in Congress, the shoe would be on the other foot.
Yeah, weaseling in the sense that he said it in the same exact breath, at the same exact moment, at the same exact town hall. It was quite a flip-flop. Are you serious?
Which he amplifies upon with the example of Korea. No doubt the pulse of the Iraqi people quickens happily at his vision for their future. It appears that Sen McCain has a strategy for creating a victory in Iraq: a stable US ally only too happy to lend whatever strategic advantage her new-found BFF should require. Picket fences and Starbucks. An insinkable aircraft carrier and permanent supply depot.
He speaks glowingly and pours praise over the “surge”, standing just close enough to let some splash on him. We are “winning” he says. Winning what? we are not advised, beyond such Pangloss politik as outlined above.
But its nonsense, no? By what means will he charm the Iraqi people into loving us so much? Has he considered what a boon that would be to our enemies, who have been slandering us for years with lies about our nourishing such imperial fantasies. About how we intended to stay as occupiers, how we intend to establish a military presence in the Middle East, how we intend to control their oil, that whole pack of lies.
And, of course, if the Maliki government agrees to such a vision, we will be allied with that regime, we will be its guarantors, much like in Korea. And any insurrection against Maliki will be an attack on us, wouldn’t it? Well, it would certainly be fair to expect them to pay their way? Favorable trade terms for, oh, whatever.
Perhaps someone can tell me how this differs from the original mad scheme that led us into the fever swamp to begin with. Does this wonder depend upon John McCain’s encylopedic and definitive expertise on Iraq and its people? To pull off this mirabile dickhead, he’s going to need some serious expertise at hand. (I understand Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith might be available.)
Perhaps it is because despite Bush being a conservative many conservatives are deeply unhappy with how he has managed things. McCain can and does seem to many like more of the same and that is a provably lousy road to continue on. Perhaps to them a change is needed even if it is a change that at first glance is not one they agree with.
This amazes me. I would think that it is proper to expect some kind of civility and meaningful discourse in a rational society. Particularly for something as weighty as choosing the President. Your notion of anything goes, hit below the belt, poke the eyes, whatever you need to do to win sounds perfectly awful to me. I’d much rather see candidates having honest debates than slipping cameras under a bathroom stall to get an unfavorable picture to win an election.
Can anyone explain to me exactly what criteria McCain (or Bush) does have for ‘victory’ in Iraq? Because I really don’t understand. I’m not trying to be snarky.
