Palin as Republican VEEP

[Arkaron]

I'm pretty sure Lurker was pointing out the comment about Puerto Ricans being monkeys.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

His speech was better than I thought it would be, but nowhere near where I think it had to be for him to win. He scored a few points with me by being gracious to Obama, owning up to some of the GOP's mistakes, trying to show why he's the right guy for the job (other than being locked in a 6x9 cell - we get it), and coming across as genuine. But I think to be the next president he really needed to hit it out of the ballpark, and he didn't do it. Obama is going to hammer him in the debates, and Biden is going to hammer Palin in the debates. The dems are at the top of their game, while the GOP is looking defensive and reactive. Ddrak is right, they're more of the same. And like I said, it's a traditional conservative value to replace someone (or a party of someones) that isn't performing.

And my wife was on the fence until his speech tonight - now she's for Obama. For a while I was worried she'd cancel my vote out, which she'd have no problem with hehe, but she wanted to take her time deciding. She took his speech tonight to mean 4 more years of war, possibly new ones. And my thoughts on Iraq echo Ddrak's, except I'll add my own twist: If Bush had to have a stupidly unjustified war with a middle eastern country, at least he could've had the decency to invade Iran instead Iraq. It woudl've cost about the same amount of our hard earned dineros (and lives), but at least we'd in all likelyhood be a little better off.

Oh, and IMO the reason McCain had to look tough to Iran and Russia is that Bush weakened us. I've always believed in the words of Teddy Roosevelt: Speak softly and carry a big stick. What we're doing now is shouting loudly and flailing the stick indiscriminately. I'm all for swinging the stick, but I'd like to see a little more (ok a lot more) discretion. It's the better part of valor amirite?

Oh, and I wonder how many people caught this. If you noticed Palin's blouse looked like it was half unbuttoned - she almost looked like some naughty scool teacher - but the funny part is the camera on CNN caught the guy sitting next to her looking down her blouse lol.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Are you kidding me? Obama is gonna hammer McCain in the debates?..

Did you see the saddleback ranch "debate" at all, anything of it?

McCain is gonna wipe the floor with Obama. All Obama is is talk, he's said time and again that he'd debate with McCain "anywhere, anytime". But when McCain called on him to join in Town Hall meetings he turned out to be the sackless liar he is.

If we'd attacked Iran rather than Iraq gas prices would likely be a lot higher than they are now. Besides, Ahmadinejad is receiving some harsh criticism from Iranian clerics over the past few months.

[Harlowe]

Are YOU kidding me? Have you even bothered to follow all of the lies that are coming out of Palin & McCain's mouth or do you just not care about the truth when it's inconvenient?

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Lies are coming out of both parties mouths, this is a fact. I can't and won't get behind a socialized healthcare system that will cause me to pay more taxes.

Tax breaks are not going to happen from either party as long as there is a democratic congress, lets be fully honest. Liberals are defined as tax and spend for a reason.

[Harlowe]

You might want to go to places like Factcheck.org and see how both parties are measuring up in the factual dept.

[Ddrak]

If you noticed Palin's blouse looked like it was half unbuttoned - she almost looked like some naughty scool teacher

That's very deliberate. She's *supposed* to look like that. It takes the media spotlight off Obama. Sex sells better than a black guy.

Here's an interesting question though - would you prefer a "tax and spend" party or a "don't tax and still spend" party?

On socialized medicine - what is the percentage tax+medical component of your *total compensation* (ie including the employer funded medical component)? Do you expect the democrats to raise taxes more than this amount?

Dd

[Rsak]

And if you want to see some good name calling, you should get plenty of that tonight from "your guy". I have no problem with that at all, other than it won't win him the election. "My guy" (mostly) took the high road in his speech. Obama's focus was mainly on why he should be elected, not why McCain shouldn't be elected. See, it all comes out in the wash.

It has nothing to do with my guy or your guy, especially since I don't have a guy due to being undecided. Common decency is actually debating policies and stances rather then school yard name calling. I will and have called out this type of behavior on both sides of the spectrum. I don't listen to people like Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken for this very reason and despise any cable new program that features two sides arguing it out rather then objective analysis.

Its the issue of being able to understand someone else's position and agreeing to disagree with respect.

And dear lord why is Obama's speech so hard to find on his website (in text format).

[Ddrak]

Flipping through the campaign promises, McCain seems far less fiscally responsible than Obama. Most of Obama's extra funding comes from letting the Bush tax cuts expire, which you could either call a tax hike or a return to normal depending on your point of view. His health care plan (which is so far from "socialized" that it's mind boggling that Fallakin even uses that term) seems mostly about shuffling things around and turning the government into a part-time-broker for insurance rather than a core insurer itself. Dunno how well it will work to tell the truth - probably no worse than the current broken-ass system.

On the other hand, you have McCain who is promising no meaningful cut in services, promising $70 billion more on military spending, with at least $350 billion in reduced revenue from tax code changes and yet promising to turn the deficits around by coming up with an extra $450 billion a year on top of that $420 billion he's already lost over the current budget. THAT'S why I say it's more of the same, and why I wonder if anyone following the current GOP spiral into economic disaster is fiscally sentient, let alone fiscally conservative.

Obama will murder McCain in the debates, red herrings about town hall meetings not withstanding. He's simply a much better speaker and a much more charismatic person than McCain could ever hope to be, and that's all debates are about. Obama's reasons for dropping the Town Hall stuff are hardly from being worried about being stood up by McCain - I'd say he's much more concerned about being pitted against Palin or random plants in the crowd who have far more opportunity to steal media attention and make up for McCain's dullness.

The only thing remaining is to see how well the Democrats can handle Palin without screwing themselves over. Obama did well staying out of the limelight during the GOP convention, so it's going to be an interesting week to see how his campaign spins up against Palin's attacks.

Dd

[Fallakin Kuvari]

You might want to go to places like Factcheck.org and see how both parties are measuring up in the factual dept.

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Brooks Jackson is a journalist who covered Washington and national politics for 34 years, reporting in turn for The Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and CNN. At CNN he pioneered the "adwatch" and "factcheck" form of stories debunking false and misleading political statements starting with the Presidential election of 1992. His investigative reporting for the AP and the Journal won several national awards.

He is the author of two books: Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process (Knopf, 1988) and Broken Promise: Why the Federal Election Commission Failed (Twentieth Century Fund: 1990). He is coauthor with Kathleen Hall Jamieson of unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation (Random House, 2007).

The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has been the premier communication policy center in the country since its founding in 1993. By conducting and releasing research, staging conferences and hosting policy discussions, its scholars have addressed the role of communication in politics, adolescent behavior, child development, health care, civics and mental health, among other important arenas. The Center’s researchers have drafted materials that helped policy-makers, journalists, scholars, constituent groups and the general public better understand the role that media play in their lives and the life of the nation. The Policy Center maintains offices in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

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All of that screams raging liberal to me, pass.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

If you noticed Palin's blouse looked like it was half unbuttoned - she almost looked like some naughty scool teacher

That's very deliberate. She's *supposed* to look like that. It takes the media spotlight off Obama. Sex sells better than a black guy.

Here's an interesting question though - would you prefer a "tax and spend" party or a "don't tax and still spend" party?

On socialized medicine - what is the percentage tax+medical component of your *total compensation* (ie including the employer funded medical component)? Do you expect the democrats to raise taxes more than this amount?

Dd

Parents pay for my health insurance, it costs them somewhere around $85/month. Wife's employers Dental and Health costs her $300/month. I'm sure the taxing to pay for it would end up around the $300/month barrier, if not higher.

[Harlowe]

Yeah that looks like RAAAAAGIN' LIBERAL.

[Kulaf]

Dd....where are you getting your information on McCain?

http://www.johnmccain.com/Images/Issues ... iefing.pdf

Comprehensive Spending Controls: John McCain will institute broad reforms to control spending:
• The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan
operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were
financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.
• A one-year spending pause. Freeze non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending for a year and
use those savings for deficit reduction. A one-year pause in the growth of discretionary spending will
be imposed to allow for a comprehensive review of all spending programs. After the completion of a
comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government, we will
propose a plan to modernize, streamline, consolidate, reprioritize and, where needed, terminate
individual programs.
• Take back earmark funds. The McCain Administration will reclaim billions of add-on spending from
earmarks and add-ons in FY 2007 and 2008.

Bi-partisan Fiscal Discipline: A McCain Administration will provide the leadership to achieve bipartisan
spending restraint equivalent to that in the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement between a GOP Congress
and a Democratic President.
• In 1997, President Clinton and the GOP Congress agreed to balance the budget by restraining the
growth in spending and cutting taxes over a ten-year period.
• With the same bipartisan effort today, with the federal budget that is now 70 percent larger, we could
keep taxes low and still balance the budget by holding overall spending growth to 2.4 percent. Unlike
Congress and the Executive branch in recent years, a McCain Administration will enforce the
spending restraint to balance the budget and keep it balanced.
• A McCain Administration would perform a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and
activities of the federal government, and then propose a plan to modernize, streamline, consolidate,
reprioritize and, where needed, terminate individual programs. McCain could use the bi-partisan
commission structure used for the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC).
Such a commission could be required to report to the President who would then submit the
recommendations to the Congress for a straight up or down vote.
• A McCain Administration will review all special spending provisions to end subsidies to high-income
individuals and corporations

Eliminating Wasteful Spending

Stop Earmarks, Pork-Barrel Spending, And Waste: John McCain will veto every pork-laden spending bill
and make their authors famous. As President, he will seek the line-item veto to reduce waste and
eliminate earmarks that have led to corruption. Earmarks restrict America's ability to address genuine
national priorities and interfere with fair, competitive markets.

Leadership, Courage And Choices: Reducing spending means making choices. John McCain will provide
the courageous leadership necessary to control spending, including:
• Eliminate broken government programs. The federal government itself admits that one in five
programs do not perform.
• Reform our civil service system to promote accountability and good performance in our federal
workforce.
• Reform procurement programs and cut wasteful spending in defense and non-defense programs.

Reforming Entitlement Programs For The 21st Century

Reform Social Security: John McCain will fight to save the future of Social Security, and he believes that
we may meet our obligations to the retirees of today and the future without raising taxes. John McCain
supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts – but not as a
substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle to
address these challenges, but if the Democrats do not act, he will. No problem is in more need of honesty
than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs. Americans have the right to know the truth
and John McCain will not leave office without fixing the problems that threatens our future prosperity and
power.

Control Medicare Growth: The growth of spending on Medicare threatens our fiscal future. John McCain
has proposed comprehensive health care reforms that will reduce the growth in Medicare spending,
improve the quality of care, protect seniors against rising Medicare premium payments, and preserve the
advancements in medical science central to providing quality care.

You want to talk about fiscal responsibility and you want to see Obama in office? You think if Obama wins the Democrats won't try to claim a "mandate" for their politics? Taxes will go up......government will grow at a rate not seen since FDR.......and spending will increase at a rate that will make everyone forget about W.

[Lurker]

And dogs and cats will be living together!!

Get over yourself Kulaf. There's only been one party that's shown fiscal sanity and that has shrunk the size of government in the last 25 years and it isn't the Republicans.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

And dogs and cats will be living together!!

Get over yourself Kulaf. There's only been one party that's shown fiscal sanity and that has shrunk the size of government in the last 25 years and it isn't the Republicans.

So giving the economy we had while Clinton was in office's full credit to Clinton and not the Republican Congress that happened to be in control of the votes then, eh? Get over yourself, Lurker.

[Kulaf]

Yeah.....and it's the Republican party. As much as you want to claim credit for policies under Clinton......remember who spends the money in this governement.....it sure wasn't him. Go look at how the issue of fiscal conservatism came to the forefront of politics. Go look at the control of Congress 40 years ago and the steady erosion of Democratic control of Congress.

You want to talk history......let's talk.

[Lurker]

So giving the economy we had while Clinton was in office's full credit to Clinton and not the Republican Congress that happened to be in control of the votes then, eh? Get over yourself, Lurker.

As much as you want to claim credit for policies under Clinton......remember who spends the money in this governement.....it sure wasn't him.

You two either weren't paying attention or you aren't old enough to remember the budget fights of the 90's. Clinton won those fights and got the budgets and priorities he asked for.

[Kulaf]

Yeah I distictly remember him getting that national health care package he wanted.

[Kulaf]

Ohh.....and I do recall the 93 budget......that one was a winner for the Dems. Pretty much cost them control of Congress. Remember that one Lurker?

[Lurker]

The Health Care failure was largely due to Hillary's inability to work with people and it came early in his Presidency.

And while the Republicans benefited politically from the 93 budget it was that budget, the Clinton budget, that set the country back on the track towards fiscal sanity. Thanks for admitting I was right.

Credit for fiscal sanity and the balancing of the budget goes almost entirely to Clinton. Obama is of the same mindset. The Republican Party gave up on fiscal conservatism long ago.