I am also a youngster, then, by this standard. This sounds like it could be referring to the entire country rather than just to this board. Do you think that the fact that the entire country has become so polarized caused a similar polarization of the board? And what do you attribute the polarization of the country to?
Luckily this is exactly what makes this country great, you can stand on your side of the street with McCain and condemn Obama, and I can stand on my side with Obama and condemn McCain. No need for guns or nukes, we can shout…then on Novemeber 5th, we can decide we actually like each others company or that we don’t. It’s a free country remember. I fully support people voting, and I don’t really care who they vote for as long as they vote. This time around it looks like the guy I chose early on to support, and to learn as much as I could about is going to win. However, I like John McCain as a human being, but as a president he will be too close to Bush and everything Bush stood for. Looking at them spherically, McCain does not show me anything that would entice me to vote for him because I value many of the things he does not. Palin simply scares the shit out of me. If the unthinkable happens and McCain makes it in, then croaks…the last laugh will be on the Americans who put them in office. Luckily for what looks like the majority of Americans, we won’t have to worry about that happening.
Equally Lucky it appears we will get pictures of the Obamas on the White House lawn with a new puppy for the kids. I hope they get a lab.
Like I said: a repeat of Neville Chamberlain’s mistakes.
Nevermind
Im wondering if the national level political parties actually like to keep the sheeple polarised.
This way, each party has a “core” constituency of a reliable percentage of voters/votes.
Then, when elections come around, the parties only have to compete with each other for the very center, the “independent” and “undecided”.
The last two presidential elections were relatively close (within 5% of each other, IIRC.)
It might be easier to market to campaign contributors that way (“Look at the last election! We got 43% of the popular vote. With just a little push, we can swing 5 percentage points over to our side. And with your help, I think we can do it!”).
It’s also easier to formualte campaign strategy and spending plans to target that small of a segment of a population.
It’s not quite a sure thing yet, as there are still a lot of variables not in the control of the national level campaigns.
That’s the way elections often are, you pick the guy who pisses you off less. This year will mark the 4th election I’ve been old enough to vote in. I voted for a candidate once, and against candidates twice. In one election I liked what the candidate stood for, and wanted him elected. In the other two I hated what the opposing candidates stood for and despite not really liking the other guy either time voted for the lesser of two evils. I haven’t decided yet which way my vote will be qualified this election.
So what would a suitable precondition to talks consist of? Or do you think that Obama would forget to read the fine print about “unilateral American disarmament”?
-Joe
Yes, it was naive of us to despair for the future of the country at the time of the election and re-election of George W. Bush. Reality sure proved how wrong we were!
Rather than being naive, it appears that those who despaired were prescient.
As to the OP, it’s helpful to remember that around 23% of the country still think Bush has done a good job as president, and 9% still think we are on the right track as a country. I just don’t think there’s much point at all in trying to figure out why such people think or vote the way that they do.
Actually, 'Immediately upon taking office, I am going to start pulling divisions out of Iraq" is essentially saying the same thing as ‘Obama will pull the troops out right away’.
But you are sort of doing my job for me. It’s rather similar to the previous flapdoodle about 'Obama didn’t say he supports universal health care; he supports health care for all Americans." It’s rather a distinction without a difference. But I am assuming that Obama is really different in some way from other politicians such that people support him rather than someone else.
Maybe you don’t believe that. As I said, you don’t have to believe in Obama to empathize with his support. But empathy is different from buying it.
We seem to have drifted from “how can you possibly vote for McCain” to “how come you don’t think Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread?” Just because I don’t spin things hard enough to Obama is not a symptom that I lack empathy. It means I don’t intend to vote for him.
If I bought the spin wholesale, sure, I would vote for him. But I don’t. You don’t find that sufficiently empathic? Bully for you. My tastes don’t run that strongly towards Flavor-aid.
Sure, that can be a reason. Like I said, I seem to remember some mention that ‘it’‘s about time America elected someone besides a white male’. I don’t think I will bother with a cite, so you will just have to take my word for it.
Heavens, yes. All politicians make nice-sounding but unrealistic speeches.
But come on, now. One candidate in this election has described himself as “as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripe project their own views”. That sounds a great deal like voting for someone out of a belief that he agrees with you, without being quite sure if it is true or not.
Is that unreasonable? Tough call - everyone does it to some extent. Obama is only in his first term of national office, so it is probably easier to do this with him than it might be for an establishment politician like McCain. Whether picking a President based on this kind of thing is a good idea or not, I don’t know, but you can’t deny the appeal.
Yes, actually it is.
Your standard seems to be “unless you post things that are 100% positive, then you lack political empathy and that’s a bad thing.” Which is fine, but don’t expect to get in a quick dig at McCain at the end of a mostly positive post and not get called on it.
Regards,
Shodan
Which, to me, is telling. I think when people are voting AGAINST someone, they are less likely to make an effort to vote, are less likely to get involved, less likely to make telephone calls, or even less likely to talk up a candidate. All those things, to me, indicate that it is much better to be voting for a person, rather than voting against his opponent.
A slow, orderly withdrawal of troops is not the same as immediate withdrawal in US political discourse. There are actually politicians who advocate immediate withdrawal, meaning pull them all out as quickly as logistically possible. That is not Obama’s position.
I’m not saying that at all. I’m very clearly saying that the point here was to identify reasons to vote for the other side’s candidate that you think are legitimately held by reasonable people.
I would be very surprised to learn that you think reasonable people can legitimately vote for Obama because he is black, or because they feel he has new ideas without knowing the content of those ideas.
You badly misunderstand my point. I hope I’ve sufficiently re-explained it above.
Damn. You beat me to that.
Actually, it didn’t take that long. The thread in question is from 2002. AFAIK, Bush was neither elected nor re-elected in that year.
So let’s see - Kerry was a POW, and Bush was re-elected in 2002. What’s next, “I’m voting for Obama because I want a Muslim in the White House!”
Well, apart from saying so as clearly as I might, I am not sure how otherwise to convince you, so I guess I will have to leave it at that.
It may, or may not, be the case that you will understand how political empathy can include not telling the other side, “No, you don’t think that”.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, as an Obama supporter, you better hope that this isn’t true, because from what I’ve seen, there is a small but significant minority of Obama voters who are voting against Bush (which is silly as Bush isn’t running) instead of for Obama. The Obama camp must consider them important, because these are exactly the people they target with every one of their adds that harps on the “McSame” theme.
I agree - American nuclear power plants have always been extraordinarily safe. When our very worst nuclear accident, Three Mile Island, took place decades ago and killed no one, you know we’re doing something right. I’d have no qualms about living next to a nuclear power plant. Living next to a coal or oil plant, on the other hand, would worry me deeply. John McCain is right to advocate nuclear power - but he’s wrong on so very, very many other things that this isn’t enough to make me want to vote for him. Besides, Obama isn’t that strongly anti-nuke.
Since you have previously posted that you think it is unreasonable and racist to vote in that way, I don’t think I was lacking political empathy in assuming you continued to feel that way. I’d be curious to hear why you changed your mind on the issue some time, though perhaps not in this thread.
And it’s things like this that make my mind reel. Setting aside the abominable clusterfuck that was the Iraqi invasion and occupation (and ignoring its role in our current economic crisis), this was an administration that used the Unitary Executive theory to ignore just about any Congressional resolution it wanted to (1100 signing statements and counting). The administration that explicitly and implicitly condoned the use of torture on enemy combatants. The administration that politicized the Justice Department, performed legal run-arounds to spy on American citizens, and abandoned habeus corpus when it suited its purpose. The administration whose commitment to cronyism rendered it impotent when the near-destruction of an American city was underway. And the administration that would suggest that I was unpatriotic if I actually wanted to have our institutions of government held accountable for any of these policies.
I cannot remotely relate to a mindset that can itemize this litany of horrors and embarrassments and suggest it hasn’t been that bad. But you’re right–Bush didn’t do it alone. He did have a Republican congress complicit in instituting or approving almost all of it.
So for me, while I do find the OP a bit disingenuous (since there are obviously plenty of policy reasons for which people might prefer McCain), in a more macro sense, I have to concur. Voting a Republican into the Oval Office is to essentially, IMHO, give a free pass to all the objectionable things this administration has done in the past 8 years. For all practical purposes (IMHO), the Republicans have relinquished any right to dictate the direction of the country because of their abuse of power and the Constitution, and for all his talk of being an instrument of “change”, McCain was hand-in-hand with the administration for virtually all of it.
Would Obama institute a number of policies (foreign, domestic and economic) that might be damaging, ineffective, or counterproductive? Reasonable minds can disagree on that. Would McCain be a better president than Bush? Maybe, and maybe not.
But elections should be a measure of accountability, not just for a person, but for a party. And the sheer volume of offenses perpetrated by the current administration is something that McCain supporters seem all too eager to ignore. “He’s a maverick!” “Let’s turn the page!” “Quit living in the past!” You might not agree with everything Obama represents or plans to do, but if his campaign has demonstrated anything, it’s that he’s not a creature of impulse and his actions are measured, methodical, and informed. Only the most radical alarmist would buy into the rabid fear-mongering being assailed against him and what he might “do” to this country.
And that’s why, for me, any credible defense of McCain has to factor in the Republican legacy that he would be inheriting (and let’s be honest, unlikely to change). Ignoring the laughable choice of Palin, McCain’s campaign has already proven itself to be mismanaged, unorganized, and non-transparent. And I’m supposed to trust them, after everything else the GOP has wrought?
So I’m also tempted to echo Stoid’s question, though in a more rhetorical sense. There will always be single-issue voters and party apologists, so I suppose I can see them voting for McCain, but as for everyone else (the 80% who disapprove of Bush and the 90% who believe the country’s on the “wrong track”), I still honestlly don’t “get” it.
I accept that there are many people voting against the Republicans and not necessarily FOR Obama. But it seems to me that there are millions more voting AGAINST Obama than AGAINST McCain or the Republicans. Maybe it’s just my filter, but the lukewarm receptions McCain had gotten from “Conservatives” and the rabid hatred of some on the right indicates to me that there are far more people voting AGAINST Obama than there are voting AGAINST McCain.
Well the campaign would have to be run by complete idiots NOT to take advantage of Bush’s catastrophically low ratings.
Here’s a good reason to vote for McCain instead of Obama - to hinder the ascendancy of New Age Loons.
Palin’s witch doctor could visit Washington frequently to help ward off the onslaught of Woo.
Allow me to clarify what i thought was clear: my issue is not policies, ofo course I understand that people differ when it comes to policy.
My issue, what i find astonishing, is that anyone could feel comfortable with him based on his behavior. He is erratic, inconsistent, dishonest, confused.
Whatever one’s particular preference regarding policies, the president is ultimately about leadership. To my eyes (which did not start with an inherent hostility against McCain. And contrary to the tiresome assertions of some of my fellow long timers, I am not and never have been a knee-jerk right-hater, and I do not automatically dismiss and deride any Republican politician. I think that George W. Bush is a genuinely vile, craven, useless excuse for humanity, and he’s a freaking saint compared to human filth tha is Dick Cheney. I think that there are genuinely dispicable human beings in this government. I do not believe that is true of any and all people of a rightward bent) he is nothing close to being a leader. I franly believe that he is suffering from some early stage demnetia and I think he has no control over anything. This does not inspire confidence under the best of circumstances. Under the current one’s it’s terrifying.
And there are quite a few conservatives in the media who seem to feel the same way, which is why I asked the question. When Christopher Hitchens is slamming McCain and Palin and endorsing Obama and William Buckley’s kid is resigning rom the National Review because he endorses Obama…well, it confirms my own opinion that the guy is goddamn scary as hell. Which leads me to ask: what’s up with the people who are voting for him?