If it had been me, I would have had a hard time not waving my arms and calling out, “John! John! I’m right over HERE!”
To be fair, that was a cheap question. Of course, neither is going to commit to dropping a specific part of his program now–certainly not before a bailout even passes. Each will propose what he was going to propose & see which parts Congress agrees to–& we don’t even know what Congress will look like next year. Could be a new Speaker of the House, new majority leaders, etc.
Rapid blinking means one of two things: Either his eyes are dry (a common malady for older folk) or he’s lying out his ass (watch some of Bush’s old speeches). What annoyed me (other than Obama’s lack of vigor) was McCain’s cranky old fart body language and his propensity to do that dramatic (and weird) voice that he does when he’s trying to make a strong point. That death rictus grin is fairly creepy, also. I thought the content on both sides was fairly uninspiring, with a few exceptions.
Or just under stress/nervous.
JFK cheated to get into office. And he wasn’t a Muslim.
…or a Manchurian Candidate.
Not trying to be argumentative here, but I was only four when this happened, and I’ve never heard anything more than Nixon won the popular vote, which while sucky for him, does not actually constitute cheating.
Is there some other way that Kennedy cheated that I don’t know about, and can you provide a reputable cite? Because I’d never heard that before.
I can’t dig up anything online at the moment except the Wikipedia article about the 1960 Presidential election, but I remember that there were allegations of vote fraud in several states, notably Illinois where the Chicago vote results were withheld until all the downstate results were in. The Chicago results gave Kennedy just enough votes to carry the state; Illinois was one of the pivotal states which gave Kennedy enough electoral votes to win.
I think it’s something along the lines of Richard J. Daley somehow “delivered” Illinois for Kennedy. If it were simply a Chicago vote, I could see it. But the whole state? Downstate IL is pretty Rep in nature. So, I’ve always been a bit :dubious: about that story. Anyone with better info is welcome to correct me.
Fuck it, I’m convinced!
I dunno if you’re being sarcastic or not (my Sarcasm-O-Meter’s in the shop at the moment), but I’ve heard of the “Daley rigged the election” meme before. There’s a science fiction anthology, damned if I can remember which one at the moment (I’ve been hitting the whiskey this evening) about alternative histories, and one of the stories in it is by Barry N. Malzberg, which has JFK losing the '60 election, and it makes reference to Daley rigging the election (it not being enough to tilt the vote in JFK’s favor, of course). Malzberg, for whatever reason, has a bit of an obsession with JFK and his assassination, and tends to blend it into an awful lot of his works. My point being that Malzberg makes such an insunation about Daley screwing with things that its pretty clear that Malzberg didn’t make it up. (I’m sure I’ve read about this someplace else, don’t ask me where, damnit, it was too long ago, and frankly, the matter’s too fucking pointless to bother with the effort. I shouldn’t even being doing this much, in all honesty.)
Mind you, I’m not saying that Daley did rig the vote, only that speculation about him doing so is not somthing that some wanker on a messageboard made up. Whomever that wanker was, he was jerkin’ himself about such an idea long before the net was around.
Yes, Tuckerfan, I was being sarcastic (BTW, I hope you took your Sarcasm-O-Meter to a reputable mechanic). [For disclosures sake, I have been drinking as well (Vodka)]. My original point being (that even though this is The Pit, and not GQ) LurkMeister’s assertion that his “memory that there were assertions” is not good ‘Fighting Ignorance’. I’ve never heard of the JFK allegations - not that they aren’t true. But your statement “Malzberg makes such an* insunation* about Daley screwing with things that its pretty clear that Malzberg didn’t make it up” doesn’t make it much more true to me. Then this, “I’m sure I’ve read about this someplace else, don’t ask me where”… forgive me if I’m not swayed.
I’d like to point out that nowhere in my post did I express an opinion as to the truth of those allegations, or that I expected anyone to take the Wikipedia article as anything more than evidence that such allegations existed. I was merely responding to Oy!'s request for information as to why Gatopescado would say that JFK cheated to get into office, since as far as he remembered the only unusual thing about the election was that Nixon won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote.
Also, I remember hearing later that during the campaign JFK’s father, Joe Kennedy, was quoted as jokingly telling him “not to buy any more votes than he needed to, because he was damned if he was going to pay for a landslide”. Again, this is not presented as proof that the election was rigged but as a data point to the notion that the concept of rigged elections was far from unusual. Chicago politics, especially during the Richard J Daley era, was particularly prone to such accusations, where the unofficial motto of the Democratic party was “vote early, vote often” and it was sometimes said that it was possible for you to continue voting for years after you died.
eta - I was going to amend this as I hadn’t seen don’t fight the hypothetical’s post until after I hit submit, but I think I pretty much addressed his points anyway.
Nixon did not win the popular vote. At least as it was counted. 
Kennedy won that by ~112,000 votes.
Really? Consider some ignorance fought! Thank you.
And frankly, I wouldn’t find it in the least surprising if Richard Daley did do some voter fraud in Chicago. That was very much the man’s style at the time. We Democrats have cleaned up our act quite a bit since then, or so I’d like to think. but that was around the waning of the big Democratic machine politics era.
Well, what difference does it make if its true and you’re not swayed? Not like its going to come up as an election issue.
Well, withheld, and there were reports that several of the ballot boxes were unlocked or broken open when they were finally found, a couple days later.
Downstate Illinois does lean Republican, but when was the last presidential election where the state’s electoral votes didn’t go to the Democrat?
As for the debate, I didn’t watch all of it, but I thought Obama’s repeated, near constant, use of McCain’s first name was patronizing and condescending. These men are not friends, they’re barely colleagues. And it seems to go against standard practice for any of this kind of interaction. It can’t be that he’s used to calling him by first name and just didn’t think about it. It made me cringe every time he did it; it seemed to be an attempt to put McCain on a lower level. Either that, or to make himself look more like just one of the guys. Struck me as cheap, either way.
He was instructed by the moderator to address his opponent directly. I guess he could have called him Senator McCain, but it’s a first name world out there, certainly at Obama’s age group. I think he meant it in a friendly way, not a condescending way. That’s Obama’s style. McCain personalizes fights, demonizes his enemies, and that works for him. Obama looks for a way to find common ground and work with his enemies and that works for him. Each has a different approach. It’s a mistake to ascribe the motives of one to the other.
None I guess. Following the trail back I was clarifying the Obama/Kennedy…
Nevermind. You’re right, in a clear head it’s not that important.
I agree, although I don’t think Obama meant it that way, to me it came across as improper. I can’t remember any other Presidential debate where either candidate referred to another by his first name. Any takers?