Sorry for the slight hijack - and please don’t take this as critical as I’m just trying to get clarification and understand the situation better - but why would you go to the emergency room for a non-emergency situation? Are there no medical centers or clinics, such as Primacare in Chicago? Did you try to call your physician’s office for advice (even though it was a Sunday morning)? What was the eventual diagnosis and treatment for your $3000?
I ask all this partially because I just had a trip to the emergency room also which ran about $3000, but I had x-ray, CT scan, IV, blood workup, and an ambulance ride. Your bill sure seems high.
There are 3 in my household of six voters. To abuse statistics, my research shows 50% of voters are undecided !1!! (I’m only kidding of course).
There are Republicans here (in my area of the world) who are tired of the ‘same old same old’, and who are peeved at having been embarrased by Bush & Co. So, to answer your question, apparently some of them are hiding in Central Miss.
Fair enough. It’s got to be somewhat of a demographic thing. The disillusioned Republicans I know (who are talking) decided long ago that they were voting for anybody but a Republican in this election. I found it interesting that they were waiting to find out if they were voting for Obama or Hillary rather than having any passionate attitude towards anyone of either party.
I like Obama a lot more and I think he’s going to be a better president, but I think McCain did a little better in the debate (and definitely better than I expected); he made some very simple and clear statements about what he was going to do (most of which I disagreed with), pushed himself as a strong military man, differing from the current administration, tried to portray Obama as being naive - and Obama was thoughtful, polite, intelligent and more complicated. The only part of the debate where Obama came off much better were the questions about the economy - freeze spending except on military and vets? WTF? If McCain stays on that line he’s going to get into trouble.
In my view, Obama could have been a little more “aggressive” - it seemed like he was holding back. He probably did take away some doubts about him being “not ready” for the presidency - he came across as a competent - but he’s going to have to put his ideas and his objections to McCains plans in stronger words, otherwise he’d have to hope for McCain to mess up next time - and the chances of that happening seem to be slim based on this debate.
I don’t like McCain and wasn’t going to vote for him in any case. But I have to admit he acquitted himself pretty well in the debate, considering how exhausted he must have been from trying to save the American economy. Hah! A little joke.
Be that as it may, it was interesting to watch (on CNN) the realtime response graph at the bottom of the screen–showing Republican, Democrat, and independent approval ratings based on what was being said at any given moment. It doesn’t look as if the Republicans are terribly excited about McCain. I didn’t see that red line go up very much when McCain was speaking. But when Obama spoke, the Democrats’ blue line went up markedly. Although I really appreciated hearing some of Obama’s leftist rhetoric–which is much more so than we’ve heard from the Dems in a long time–such rhetoric may tend to scare away some of the wavering Repubs, and conservative independents, who might now side with McCain.
Obama answered the two most pressing criticisms against him.
Can he be specific? Absolutely he can, and he was. He was on point, several times itemizing his specific plans for action.
Can he be a capable Commander-in-Chief? Obama showed a far more in-depth understanding on foreign policy, in this debate, and was far more well spoken about his plans and policies regarding foreign affairs.
That Obama made McCain look bad on foreign affairs, and people think McCain won the debate, is shocking to me. This is the same lemming groupthink meme nonsense that led people to believe Palin gave a great speech at the RNC.
Near the end of the debate the thought occurred to me that some of the comments McCain made were so designed to distance himself from the Bush policies that if I was Obama I would have said, “John, some of the things you put forth are very well reasoned and would go a long way to correct the failed policies of the current administration. I don’t know why you continue to be a member of the Republican Party and you would be welcome to work in my administration to help clean up this mess.”
Because I would say something like that is why I could never survive in the political snake pit.
I think the reason most people thought McCain was going to make a huge blunder was because of the terrible week he had. But that doesn’t mean the man can’t debate. McCain is a good man, a decent debater and frankly not too shabby when it comes to playing attack dog.
That being said, I don’t think there is much in the debates in terms of winning and losing that either candidate can do, unless of course McCain has a heart attack or stroke or something on live tv. But in the end, I believe Obama will be the one to come out on top. He appeals to a wider base than McCain, and most of the people watching the debates and scrutinizing them like we do here are mostly ready to vote for one over the other.
I’ll make the prediction that McCain does not surpass Obama in the polls again in this election. I see Obama holding a small but substancial lead and then taking the turkey in the oval office on Guy Fawkes Day.
Obama came across as a better thinker about foreign politics. That does not mean that McCain’s claims of “I know when people are evil and when we should ignore/fight/whatever them”, was a worse strategy. It’s simple, but it’s effective. Simple sticks.
Even though I’ve peripherally followed McCain since 2000, and especially since 2003 when he became my senator, I honestly didn’t know he was that intelligent and world-aware. The way he talked about the Baltic and the Middle East and other regions with what seemed like a deep understanding really impressed me. And I don’t think you can fake that. And having done some world travelling, spending time in a place absolutely does give you an understanding of it that you cannot get out of a book, or a briefing, or the CIA world factbook or whatever. I found both candidates smart and likable. I don’t see where people are coming from saying they agree with nothing McCain said but all or most of what Obama said; if you break it down they agreed on nearly as much or more than they disagreed on, and I don’t think many or any of their positions were opposites. If anything I’m more comfortable with the idea of a McCain presidency now, but I’m still voting for Obama. If McCain was 10 years younger and picked a better running mate I would almost certainly vote for him, but I just don’t trust that he is going to make it 4 years in office, much less 8, and I cannot stomach the thought of a Palin presidency. The woman is not fit to lead.
So did it change my mind? Yes. Did it change my vote? No. FTR I thought it was roughly a tie.
McCain made a big deal about having gone to Iraq and Obama’s naivety. But look at this, McCain’s visit to Iraq where he told us how safe it was while he was wearing bullet proof vest and had Blackhawk helicopters protecting him.
Then the Palin ‘uncomfortableness’ of the past week combined with McCain’s back-and-forth to D.C. made me sigh and go WTF?.
And a good friend of mine made a convincing argument that smaller government voices usually get more airplay, and traction, when they are in the minority and perceived as being in the David-and-Goliath role.
So I thought, Hmmmmm. That sounds interesting. Plus, I live in a state where my vote for President won’t make a rats-ass worth of difference either way.
I was expecting my guy, Obama, to stomp McCain good. I was disappointed that McCain more than held his own. Not that I should really be surprised, he’s been at this since the Civil War or thereabouts, so he’s learned a thing or two.
Didn’t change my vote though.
My real fear is that Palin is some kind of evil genius that’s been putting on a “dumb” act to lull Biden into complacency.
My back-of-my-mind fear also. As I eluded to in another thread, when Palin was picked, everybody thought “WTF?” until her RNC speech, and then blammo! So who’s to say this “bubble” hasn’t been preparation for “RNC Part Deux”? I wouldn’t put it past Rove & Co.
Um, so when you said McCain didn’t grok how much your health insurance costs, you literally meant you. The fact that he didn’t consider your costs in the debate? Okee-dokee.
Did you miss the point of that cite on purpose? $5K in health care costs does NOT equal higher death rates. It’s the national average for every level of income. And you conveniently ignored the very next sentence:
Here’s some more to chew on:
I realize it’s easier to step up on a soapbox and make a speech about your commitment to saving lives, though. That’s a much better sound bite.
He managed to slip in there that Obama was planning on raising taxes on people who made more than 42,000 a year. I have no idea where he got that, but it seems to contradict everything I’ve heard about Obama’s tax plan.
As was stated previously, I don’t really give a crap what the national “average” is, when the individual policy I have to write the checks for the premiums for my boss amount to $1,900 every two months. That’s $11,400 per year, plus deductibles. And people who can’t afford that, even with that measley $5,000 credit, won’t buy insurance, so they go uninsured anyway and suffer from less care and higher death rates.
But what do you care, you’ve got yours. Tell those fat fucks to just eat better.
Obama once voted for a bill that would raise taxes on single people who made more than 42k per year, but it’s not part of his proposed tax plan. According to Factcheck.org.
