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Gary Floyd

Campaign 2008

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The fact that the race is at all close is a fucking disaster. You have one side who has been thoroughly discredited, demoralized, and in disarray with a candidate that its own base doesn't particularly like, with a country that is going to shit in any of 18,130,982 ways, and the other side is energized and been running on all cylinders with a great candidate (even if not everyone in his base likes him) who gets accolades that I personally have never heard credited to any other politician, and has reality, history and momentum behind them, and the candidates are effectively tied, or worse yet, shows the shit side with a slight lead? That's fucking unfathomable. If you were to write a movie script with such a scenario, you would be laughed at by anyone you showed it to because it's too unrealistic.

 

And the Rethugs are energized now that the mooseburger, a genuine nutjob, has joined the ticket. The dems are in a fight that, by all rights, they shouldn't even have to say anything and still win. And the odds are showing better than even that they will lose.

 

Yes, it's still early so it may end up meaning little in the end, but I think it's extremely worrisome that the race is so close and even after all those great speeches at the DNC, the Rethugs were able to neutralize them simply by piling on more hate and lies. It's unconscionable to any decent, logical, ethical individual.

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Huh, Biden was here, and I didn't hear a thing about it? I would've thought there'd be flyers all over campus for a VP nominee appearance. I wish I could've heard his "offensive" remarks in person.

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If "middle america" "small town folk" "real people" or whatever buzzword republicans like to use, are STILL willing to vote for the continuation of the policies of the last eight years thinking it is going to suddenly turn out any better for them this time around, then I am not really sure what is going to get them to stop voting republican.

 

Honestly, I think the Democrats are going to get a higher turnout and THAT is the main factor that will win the election, and voter turnout/new voters are not really being accounted for in any of the polls that are coming out/changing daily. None of the talking heads seem to be talking about new voters and the Democrats seeming to be doing a better job getting new folks interested.

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When did the conservatives begin to embrace the "easily offended victim" philosophy?

They always have, it's just that that particular load is swallowed more often when they're shooting it.

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Honestly, I think the Democrats are going to get a higher turnout and THAT is the main factor that will win the election, and voter turnout/new voters are not really being accounted for in any of the polls that are coming out/changing daily. None of the talking heads seem to be talking about new voters and the Democrats seeming to be doing a better job getting new folks interested.

 

Uh, isn't that what "Likely voter" polls are supposed to take into account? And depending on "New Voters" never works; if that were true, we'd have President Kerry today. While new voters might actually come out this year since Obama actually has appeal and charisma and isn't a "Shit, we really need a candidate this year!" like Kerry was, it seems like every year someone is talking about "new voters" pushing them to victory, and it doesn't happen.

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Guest Vitamin X

I get to meet Howard Dean on Friday. If I yell out YEAH! to him and get that shit on Youtube, I'll do it for $20. Any takers?

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Guest Vitamin X

It's a fucking potluck, too. Come on. What the hell am I going to cook that's going to impress the chairman of the Democratic Party.

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I think it's extremely worrisome that the race is so close and even after all those great speeches at the DNC, the Rethugs were able to neutralize them simply by piling on more hate and lies. It's unconscionable to any decent, logical, ethical individual.

If you saw "all those great speeches at the DNC", then you didn't see the convention the way normal people did. Most people didn't see the convention, they saw Katie and Keith and Wolf and Brit talking in the skybox while the speeches were being ignored somewhere behind them.

 

Is anyone waiting for the debates to decide? I personally am leaning towards Obama, but I'd like to hear them both go at it at the debates before making a final decision.

Debates could be a fucking disaster. "I'll answer that, but let me get back to the Senator's last point..." *eats up the rest of his time*

 

Look at Obama's issues page or for more information view his '"Blueprint for Change" document. Look at McCain's issues page. Find the issues you find most important and vote the way that reflects them.

 

Vote for issues, not personalities. Please oh jesus don't vote for the best sound bites.

 

Some of the issues one knows better than another. For instance, though I support Obama, I'll admit that McCain seems to have a better grasp on the immigration problem. Though both he and Obama thankfully address my feelings regarding who to blame for the illegal underclass (it's the employers, stupid) McCain's policy page seems to actually talk about a bit more things, and I'm impressed that he feels children of illegal immigrants should use the public school system so they don't form gangs or whatever else they'd do instead. I'm not sure he'd talk about that anymore since he's pandering to the base, but he's said it in debates.

 

On the other hand, as far as energy goes, I like Obama more because he's talked about increasing funds for public transport (and god knows Biden can't shut up about his love for Amtrak) whereas McCain seems to keep it conspicuously absent from his energy plan. Since I plan to never hold a driver's license and get around on public transit until I'm too old and feeble to use it, that's a good thing for me. It also helps that I think getting more as many people into a transport as possible does gads more to help energy consumption than our current "one man in an Escalade driving to the store" trend, but make up your own mind.

 

Above all, vote your self interest, not because you feel it's "wrong" that someone raises taxes on people who make way more money than you do or pays more lip service to some demographic like veterans or women. Those people all have way more lobbyists than you ever will.

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Biggest problem Obama has now is that McCain, through his convention and nominating Palin (political genius), and with the help of the media diving in on all the family stuff creating sympathy for Palin... has more or less torpedoed the "He's another Bush" thing. He made his name on being the non-Bush Republican, and he's gotten that label back.

 

Harping on him and George W. Bush just isn't going to work anymore.

 

They need a better line of attack, plain and simple. they're spending too much time attacking Palin specifically, failing to understand McCain's benefit isn't just Palin's presence, his benefit is the fact that HE CHOSE Palin. It's the whole, he's so daring, he went to alaska to nominate this woman, blah blah blah thing. Not to mention I've always thought there are at least 5 points worth of people who SAY they're for Obama but are secretly worried about him being a secret muslim and not sharing their christian values and that he's black (nobody believes he's a secret muslim if he's white, period).

 

There's a problem because there's no narrative they can use now on McCain, echoing how there was no narrative against Bush other than he's bad. They can't link him to Bush/Cheney, they can't make the subtle "he's a pussy" argument that was used against Kerry because of McCain's background, Palin secured the adoration of the religious right so they can't drive that wedge now, hammering Palin won't work, what can they do now? McCain's confidence on Iraq and Iran makes america's vagina wet, they want to be "just friends" with a guy like Obama. The only thing left to do is to try and refocus the whole debate on the economy.

 

I saw a great youtube debate clip between Clinton and HW Bush... it had Clinton talking to someone in the town debate, making a connection and telling them that they need to understand this election is about a failed economic theory, trickle-down economics, and which direction they want to go in. I thought, yes, that's what needs to happen in this election.

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Guest Tzar Lysergic
Look at Obama's issues page or for more information view his '"Blueprint for Change" document. Look at McCain's issues page. Find the issues you find most important and vote the way that reflects them.

 

Vote for issues, not personalities. Please oh jesus don't vote for the best sound bites.

 

This is correct and also frustrating to me.

 

I look at where they stand on the issues, and for each one I agree with I find something that utterly disgusts me. Why should I have to somehow muster the patience to vote for the less-worse candidate? Should I have some faint hope that in ten more elections I might get a shot at voting for the gun-toting atheist smoker of my dreams?

 

Those were basically rhetorical questions. Venting from total exasperation.

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That's essentially how I feel about it, Agent. Dig deep enough into the views of any of these clowns, and I've inevitably found something offensive enough to be a dealbreaker. (Admittedly, it happens faster with Palin than the other three involved.) It's the ol' Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwich.

 

Plus, our wonky electoral college guarantees that my vote means nothing. I live in Texas. There's no fucking way that Texas's electoral points are going anywhere but directly to John McCain, probably with an easy margin of well over a million votes in his favor. What's my incentive in voting, then? I don't know or care enough about local politics for any of that to matter to me. Am I supposed to care about the meaningless "statement" I would make by adding my one voice to the massive (yet also meaningless) popular vote tally? The way the system's set up, voting for McCain is pointless overkill which he doesn't need, and voting for anyone else is quite literally throwing my vote away.

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Well I think right now the media is turning this into Obama vs. Palin, which is deflecting all attention away from McCain. McCain is just sitting back and letting the media and Democrat strategists rail on Palin while the attention shifts away from him. I actually think Obama's camp needs to steer this campaign back towards the , "excuse me, remember McCain is the nominee and yes he is a continuation of 8 years of Bush"

 

Leave it up to Biden to take care of Palin at the debates.

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That's essentially how I feel about it, Agent. Dig deep enough into the views of any of these clowns, and I've inevitably found something offensive enough to be a dealbreaker. (Admittedly, it happens faster with Palin than the other three involved.) It's the ol' Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwich.

 

Plus, our wonky electoral college guarantees that my vote means nothing. I live in Texas. There's no fucking way that Texas's electoral points are going anywhere but directly to John McCain, probably with an easy margin of well over a million votes in his favor. What's my incentive in voting, then? I don't know or care enough about local politics for any of that to matter to me. Am I supposed to care about the meaningless "statement" I would make by adding my one voice to the massive (yet also meaningless) popular vote tally? The way the system's set up, voting for McCain is pointless overkill which he doesn't need, and voting for anyone else is quite literally throwing my vote away.

A lack of direct result from your vote can definitely be seen as a problem with the system, but what do you lose by voting? Two hours of one day? The "my vote is meaningless" statement relies on everyone else in the country going and voting, as opposed to taking that same "my vote is meaningless" approach. I agree that it would take something hilarious and amazing for Texas to come out any way but McCain, but that isn't really the point.

 

How do you actually get to a situation that reflects your ideal candidate, as Agent was venting for? Go vote for the one closest to what you want. If one of them gets 3% more of the vote in Texas than the party's last nominee, that's a shift towards several things you believe are in your self-interest. Maybe a few more cycles like that will get your views closer to the party mainstream. I'm not fond of things both McCain and Obama have done or currently support, but ultimately I've done a calculus of what matters to me most and picked my guy. If you insist on a candidate who holds only positions you agree with, you will never be voting in your whole life. And if you're cool with that, okay, but that seems like much more of a waste than "throwing [your] vote away."

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Biggest problem Obama has now is that McCain, through his convention and nominating Palin (political genius), and with the help of the media diving in on all the family stuff creating sympathy for Palin... has more or less torpedoed the "He's another Bush" thing. He made his name on being the non-Bush Republican, and he's gotten that label back.

 

Harping on him and George W. Bush just isn't going to work anymore.

 

Hold on there, cowboy. This is the point that Obama NEEDS to hammer. It's absolutely critical. I don't quite get how he's gotten back the non-Bush republican name, but it's probably at fault of the democrats. The fact that the race is this close is ridiculous. A McCain presidency won't be a Bush presidency, but there are a lot of reasons why one would think so, and the Democrats need to push that very, very hard. No one would vote for Bush again in this country. He's got a 30% approval rating. Keep the comparisons coming, that's one of their strongest attacks. McCain's already tried to steal the change message from Obama; let everyone know that McCain is just going to be part of the same Bush government. It's an effective attack.

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I think the "McCain/Bush" argument works but he needs to add more to it. How is McCain like Bush? Start with the fact that he'll say/do anything to get elected. Point out the fact that the same exact people who helped Bush get elected are now running McCain's campaign. Point out the fact that the George Bush's speechwriter wrote Sarah Palin's speech for the convention. He's gotta get into clear specifics on how McCain is just another Bush.

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He doesn't? From the speeches that I've heard that he does use that line of attacks, he does. But sound bites rarely show the whole picture.

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I don't quite get how he's gotten back the non-Bush republican name, but it's probably at fault of the democrats.

 

I won't deny that the democrats are at least partially to blame here, but let's not exculpate the media entirely. I mean, look at this

 

 

The problem here, as is almost always the case, is the media's insistence on focusing on these big campaign meta-narratives instead of on things like, I don't know, actual facts. And so you get shit like, "McCain is trying to position himself as a maverick who fights against the big-shots in his own party" but then instead of looking into that claim and seeing if it's actually true or not (hint: it's not) they bring in a couple Campaign Strategists or whatever to debate whether this tactic is going to "work" or not.

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Obama needs to really speak in clearer terms and make clearer contrasts. He's got a tendency to speak in complex sentences instead of making clear distinctions. Look at McCain: He sits there on the stump and reads off a paper things like: "I will lower your taxes, my opponent will raise them. I will win the war in Iraq, my opponent will surrender." It's completely scripted but it works and Obama needs to adopt some of it.

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Here's Obama today on the whole lipstick BS:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0zAbeu3v3Wc

 

Biggest problem Obama has now is that McCain, through his convention and nominating Palin (political genius), and with the help of the media diving in on all the family stuff creating sympathy for Palin... has more or less torpedoed the "He's another Bush" thing. He made his name on being the non-Bush Republican, and he's gotten that label back.

 

Harping on him and George W. Bush just isn't going to work anymore.

 

McCain still has a record.

 

This is a guy who said, boasted in fact, during an interview that "I've voted with the President over 90% of the time, higher than my uh, a lot of my-- even Republican colleagues."

 

I saw a great youtube debate clip between Clinton and HW Bush... it had Clinton talking to someone in the town debate, making a connection and telling them that they need to understand this election is about a failed economic theory, trickle-down economics, and which direction they want to go in. I thought, yes, that's what needs to happen in this election.

Well, what do think he's been saying? Contrary to GOP conspiracy, Obama doesn't control the media. The media is controlled by money, and they've seen fit to frame this as an Obama vs Palin race, probably because the primary race (which they helped drag out by rooting for the underdog all the time no matter who it was) made them a lot of money.

 

I hate to say it, but CNN stands to make much more dough from Black Dude VS White Woman than they do any race involving the millionth rich old white guy.

 

 

I look at where they stand on the issues, and for each one I agree with I find something that utterly disgusts me. Why should I have to somehow muster the patience to vote for the less-worse candidate? Should I have some faint hope that in ten more elections I might get a shot at voting for the gun-toting atheist smoker of my dreams?

 

Those were basically rhetorical questions. Venting from total exasperation.

The Dems have pretty much given up the gun battle. Obama's record has gun control on it because he's from motherfucking Chicago, where 20 people can die in a two block radius over a weekend in the west side of town, and violent crime far surpasses property crime which bucks the trend anywhere in the nation. Basically, if you want to have your life taken by gunfire, the streets of that city is the most likely place to make it happen.

 

If you're willing to settle with "the current laws are enough," then the Dems can work for you. We no longer have Di-Fi hauling AKs onto the Senate floor and holding them completely wrong while rambling about how dangerous they are.

 

My vote doesn't matter

And this is why we need to go ahead and realize that the electoral college was created to deal with unique challenges from the founding fathers era and has no place in this present age. Good luck with that.

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I really hate when people say that their vote doesn't matter. It's a democratic process, and of course your vote matters. By definition it matters. Voting is such an important opportunity to actually make your voice heard; I really do pity the people that just scoff at it. The electoral college won't override the wishes of a constituency other than in completely ridiculous, and I mean ridiculous, situations.

 

Fucking VOTE, people!

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If you don't vote, why the fuck are you in this thread? Further distilled, if you don't vote why the fuck do you even bitch?

 

Fuck saying vote or die, vote or shut the fuck up.

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Because, as previously explained, my vote has zero chance to make any change whatsoever. My state WILL give its electoral votes to McCain. There is NOTHING I can do which would have the slightest effect on the outcome in any way. Hence, the feeling of being disenfranchised.

 

Plus, as stated, I don't really like any of my choices here. Picking the pile of shit which is less stinky isn't appealling in the first place, especially if at the end of the day I have no input on which pile of shit gets picked.

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