MaxFly

I don't think that's the case at all. There are a few reasons why Powell's endorsement at this particular time in the race is effective. First, this election has exhibited a consistent ebb and flow in the polls. Overall, Obama is fairing better right now than he did last month, but as of late, McCain has been making small gains in the polls. I think Powell's endorsement put a premature end to whatever gains McCain could have made over the next week, and as a result, kills any momentum McCain could have been hoping to build in the short term. Secondly, there are only two weeks left in this race. Media attention is at a premium right now, and the way Powell endorsed Obama effectively focusses positive media attention on Obama and places negative media attention on McCain, not just neutral attention. Powell didn't just endorse Obama... he also criticized McCain and the campaign he's run. This is a huge story and it diminishes the number of days McCain has left to get his message out through the media since the media is now preoccupied with another story. Third, I believe there are voters who haven't completely made up their minds yet. There are some who like Obama and are leaning towards voting for him, but also like McCain and could easily change their minds. Powell's endorsement may help to solidify that support among many of those voters in Obama's favor. Powell basically vouched for him, so many of those who might have been shaky may not be as shaky subsequently. I don't think anyone is saying that Limbaugh and McCain are friends, but I don't think there's any question that Limbaugh supports McCain over Obama, however magrinally. I also don't think there's any question that Limbaugh's insinuation....... scratch that, outright accusal that Powell endorsed Obama because of race is detestable. I just wish conservatives would come out and call Limbaugh on this. This is the kind of thing that's killing the Republican party in the minds of voters.

I can't blame McCain for being dismissive of the endorsement. Politically, it's the smart thing to do. There's no doubt that Powell's embrace of Obama burns McCain like ether, but he has to shrug it off, at least for appearances. Limbaugh's remarks were detestable, and if conservatives refuse to call him on them, I can't help but believe that they are in agreement. If Powell was singularlly motivated by race, he would have endorsed much earlier. As it stands, he donated the maximum he could have to McCain during the primaries.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/19/col...well/index.html :signthankspin:

Jada's looking good. Those heels must add 3 or 4 inches.

Biden was great last night. Palin wasn't bad herself. The bar was set so low for her that she would have had to accidentally set her podium on fire to not surpass it. However, I think it was clear that many of her responses were overly rehearsed and many of her answers made not sense and only tangentially related to the actual question that was asked. Then again, the art of debating is all about answering a question without actually answering the question, so she did well.

Yeah, it's happened a few times. We've always done a good job controlling running interferrence though.

Ha, yea, that's not very surprising. What's interesting/important is that the polls show that independents thought Obama won, by a little bit. And there it is... discounting out those who are partisan and have already taken sides in this election, the majority of those polled who have yet to decide who they would vote for believed Obama won the election. I thought Obama allowed McCain to get too comfortable when discussing the economy. He allowed McCain to rely on his earmark argument while also allowing him to level the charge that Obama requested more than 900 million in earmarks over the last three years. Obama should have responded that many of those earmarks went to places like Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the Illinois Primary Health Care Association and the Illinois Institute of Technology, and that if McCain is really upset that Obama sought money for hospitals and health institutions, he'd be more than happy to travel with him to those places and request that they return that money instead of using it to provide better health care. Obama also did well in making the case that the trickle down economic philosophy hasn't served the nation well. I don't think he came up short there. He said that the idea of refusing to meet with the leaders of unfriendly nations is foolish. He said that preperation is of course needed, but "preconditions" won't be set. He made the point that the refusal to meet with leaders hasn't worked in Iran or North Korea. He also made the point that 5 former Secretaries of State have agreed that the US should have direct diplomatic talks with the leaders of unfriendly nations. McCain tried to mischaracterize his position, but it seemed clear to most people that it was a mischaracterization. I do think Obama was forced to play defense, but it did give him the platform to draw a sharp contrast with McCain. It's basically, "Look, I want us to seek more diplomatic solutions in our foreign policy. John McCain wants us to continue the current Bush policies concerning how we conduct foreign policy. How well have the last 8 years gone for us on that front?" I think Obama could have been even stronger, but he did pretty well on what many have perceived to be his weakest issue.

Actually, it's Russia from Alaska...

Painful and cringeworthy... I think Cafferty went a little beyond what was necessary. There's a sort of meanspiritedness behind his rants; I don't get the sense that it's righteous indignation. Gov. Palin had an absolutely disatrous interview with Katie Couric. Her responses on her foreign policy experience and McCain's record of reform actually made me feel bad for her. She's a smart woman, but she's not knowledgeable on the issues at play here in this election. This was a Harriet Miers pick. :shakehead:

Lol, it would make initial picks a lot more critical.

I've joined... I think we should do weekly with stats focussed on points, rebs, steals, assists, blocks, turnovers, fg%, 3 pointers made, and ft%.

The "Jump on It" picture is hilarious. The pictures are beautiful, Brakes,

This must be where "Loretta" came from.

http://goodbaduglymovies.blogspot.com/2008...ven-pounds.html All that, yet an 8/10? Did I miss something?

That is priceless... That must have taken quite a bit of work, looking through his speeches to put that together.

Eh, I'd have to say that is the biggest misnomer of the campaign. http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=30705 http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/200...s-bundlers.html http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/29/lobbyists/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8041004045.html http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00009638 During this campaign, lobbyists and trade groups donated $181,000 to McCain, while Obama received $6,000, according to the New York Times. In all, lobbyists reported contributions of $4.7 million to Democrats and $3.3 million to Republicans, the Times reported this week. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/29/lobbyists/ 6,000 from washington lobbyists is extremely good considering McCain has recieved 30 times as much. If you don't consider that freezing out lobbyists, I don't know what to say. Those are impressive numbers as well... 94% of his money comes from small donations and only 18% from bundlers. It's important to note that all those that give to a bundler have to be listed. Also note the overlap of the 94% figure and the 18% figure from bundlers. This means that an extremely large percentage of those that give to bundlers give $200 or less... I think it's safe to say that Obama has wildly diverged from the way campaigns generally raise money... again, in keeping with the spirit of his pledge at the start of the campaign season. One last thing... most of his bundlers do come from law firms and wall street, but if you look at the the specific companies for which individual bundlers work, you'll notice that they are wildly varied. You don't have a single company making up a large percentage of donations... again, because most people are donating 200 dollars or less.

Huck was great!!!

I think Obama's positions on those issues are nuanced and somewhat intricate. I don't think he's really twisted those issues. Take public finance for example. Obama stated before he started running that if he and John McCain ended up running against eachother for the presidency, he and McCain should opt into public financing, the reason being that he believed lobbyists and big corporations had too much influence in the campaign financing and ultimate election of government officials. When it came time to declare what he would do, Obama decided against public financing... sounds horrible. However, Obama opted instead to raise the majority of his money through small individual contributions over the internet. He's frozen out the lobbyists, especially those of the big industries. He's basically adhered to the spirit of his pledge, though not the letter of it. Secondly, we have a problem with 527s. They are are independent groups, independently funded, that can buy ads for television and basically campaign against a nominee... the most famous being the Swiftboat Veterans in the 2004 election. They savaged John Kerry with false charges calling into question his patriotism and his service in Vietnam. This year, we will have similar operatives on the right. Jerome Corsi, a gentleman connected to the Swiftboat Veterans, has written a book about Obama entitled, "Unfit for Command" that is riddled with lies and false charges. He questions whether Obama used drugs in the senate, accuses him of being a radical muslim and other such foolishness? The book is at the top of the New York Times list. How do you fight those smears with limited funds? It was a calculated move to be sure, but it's not nearly as bad as it's been made out to be. Perhaps not dark, but certainly more negative. Unfortunately, the Republicans haven't really addressed any of the numerous issues that are on the plate this year. They've been too busy slamming Obama. Someone wrote a great speech for Sarah Palin, and she did an excellent job delivering it. She rallied the base and provided an infusion of energy for the campaign. Unfortunately, the speech wasn't heavy on substance and even worse, it wasn't heavy on truth. There were far, far too many disingenuous statements, even for a political speech of this nature.

You know, Joe Leiberman has greatly disappointed me of late. If I felt that he truly held the convictions he claims to, I'd have no problem with him. However, Joe was highly critical of President Bush before he won in 2000 and he's been critical of his policies since... John McCain has boasted about agreeing with President Bush at least 90% of the time. Something doesn't jive here... Leiberman's support of McCain hinges on the war, yet McCain's position has slowly shifted to Obama's stance concerning withdrawing troops with an eye to the conditions on the ground. I have an uneasy feeling that Leiberman is simply looking to get back at the democrats for trying to oust him and he is being disingenuous with his support of the GOP.

Yeah, you have to have policies to deal with the underlying issue, or what you've described will take place rampantly. I understand Bob's viewpoint... it's one that I sometimes revert to... But I've come to the conclusion that unless additional measures are taken, it won't bring about real change.

Bob, I'm just as much against abortion as you are, but I can't help but approach this issue with a certain level of practicality. Are you aware that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will remain legal in the vast majority of states in the US? The 10th ammendment states that powers not given to the country will be reserved to the states. It isn't enough to just try to change the law... the hearts, minds and practices of people need to be addressed. It's a much more deep seated issue than just the law. Ok, so we've removed the legality of abortion on the federal level, but it's still legal on the state level... have we done anthing to reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion? Obama has put forward plans to educate people and reduce the number of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion. I'm not hearing anything like that from the McCain campaign, and that is highly distressing. If you really want to do away with abortion, you need to attack the root of the problem. It makes me question the right's committment to really ending abortion when they only focus on the law and not the hearts and minds of the people that need to change.

Oh it doesn't solve the root of the problem, no question. The idea though is that one Supreme Court judge will be up in the next 4 to 8 years. McCain and Obama both have opposite litmus tests for judges...and the litmus test is over abortion. And if a pro-life judge gets on the bench, the majority is on the pro-life side. If the opposite occurs, we will probably have missed our last shot to do anything to the roe v wade decision. Bob, I don't support abortion either, but I have to disagree with the notion that there is only one litmus test for Supreme Court Judges on both sides. Over the last several years, our civil liberties here in the United States have been severely eroded. People can now have their phones tapped and the conversations recorded without their knowledge and without the acquisition of a warrant by those listening in. This is in direct opposition to the 4th Ammendment. To make matters worse, the government has conspired to make it impossible for people to sue phone companies that, in allowing these wiretappings without warrants, have violated the terms of privacy of your agreement with them. Certain provisions of the Patriot Act have made it possible to detain US citizens under suspicion without properly charging them with crimes. The Supreme Court has allowed the Executive Branch to grow its powers, giving the President and Vice President unprecedented powers and causing an imbalance in the balance of powers that the three branches of govenment are supposed to provide. In the last 8 years, our Executive Branch has scoffed at congress while abusing its powers (Valerie Plame, political firings of lawyers, withholding of documents and testimony concerning our entrance into Iraq). The Republicans have tried to make the Supreme Court simply about abortion and gay marriage, but there are a number of issues that will come into play. Also, for some reason, people think that the president only chooses Supreme Court Judges. In fact, he appoints many judges to lower courts. One more thing... Supreme Court nominations have to be approved by the senate. The senate will be largely Democratic in the coming years. If we are nominating someone only for their Supreme Court nominations, and their nominations don't get through, we're in trouble.

Why would you put your daughters business out there like that to kill a rumor? I would not want my parents putting my business in the world to help their careers. This whole thing just gets wierder and wierder... my goodness.. I'm with Schnazz on this... They put their daughter's business in the streets for political purposes... That's crazy... I'm just waiting for MSNBC or CNN to do a segment with a doctor about how wise it would be to fly from Texas to Alaska under the condition Palin was.

If the AP, or really any credible news outlet broke such a story, then it'd be worth reading. Bob, I was with you until I actually read the article... Palin herself said that when she went into labor, she was in Texas and decided to fly up to Alaska. Now, it's really one of two things... either she was lying... which would actually be the best thing... or she was grossly negligent... You are not supposed to fly when you are pregnant and you are definitely not supposed to fly when you have gone into labor. An 8 hour flight from Texas to Alaska after going into labor is a little suspicious... you have to admit... I agree with Bob, there's nothing to support this rumor, no reliable sources, no sources at all even, just a bunch of conjecture. However, like Max said, her going in to labor in Texas, giving a speech, and then flying back to Alaska is horrible. When my son was born, it started with my wife's water breaking. While we didn't have to sprint to the hospital, there's no way we could have waited eight hours before getting medical attention. When your water breaks, you're risking a serious infection and labor should be induced as soon as possible. An eight hour plane ride shows astoundingly bad judgment. The worst thing is that it wasn't just 8 hours... her water apparently broke, then she gave the speech, then she flew the 8 hours, and when she landed, she didn't go to the best hospital, but instead chose to drive 45 minutes to a less prominent and more secluded clinic. Wow...

If the AP, or really any credible news outlet broke such a story, then it'd be worth reading. Bob, I was with you until I actually read the article... Palin herself said that when she went into labor, she was in Texas and decided to fly up to Alaska. Now, it's really one of two things... either she was lying... which would actually be the best thing... or she was grossly negligent... You are not supposed to fly when you are pregnant and you are definitely not supposed to fly when you have gone into labor. An 8 hour flight from Texas to Alaska after going into labor is a little suspicious... you have to admit...