Obama or McCain? How will America fare under the 44th commander-in-chief?

[Powerslave]

Originally Posted by Electric Banana

...Why is George Bush an option?

I think the point is that whoever wins, Bush already got elected twice, so he already 'won'. SOADIHSDPoIASDHPSDOihASDpoIDSHPOISd. He's just trying to joke around.


ANYWAYS, dunno about the whole black or women president thing. It's easy to think so, but who knows, racism is "so pass?", will it really play a role? Polls put him ahead, and he did well in all white states, meaning that at least a huge chunk of the population isn't racist. Besides, Obama is so... unblack in the traditional American sense of the word. His mom is white, he was raised by white grandparents, and his dad was a Kenyan, not a slave. He spent his youth in Hawaii and Indonesia. He seems almost foreign, and that might be the problem.

As for a women president? I don't know, I don't see how Americans would be less likely than Argentines, Chileans, Nicaraguans, Germans, or Brits at electing a woman leader. I mean, seriously, is there a particular reason why Americans would be more machista than other nationalities? Maybe, but I don't see the connection.

All in all, I hope (as probably 90% of the rest of the world does) that Obama wins, if at least so that those freaks from the PNAC get out of formulating foreign policy. Although, on the other hand, it's not as though Democrats have a particularly less historically brutal foreign policy record, but it would at least be an improvement? Maybe? Hopefully? In either case it looks as though it's really gonna be a crazy Democratic year, and their gonna win a bunch of seats everywhere (they've already won a handful of new ones, haven't they?), so unless Phakiel is right and people are still too racist, I would imagine the guy's gonna win.

[Phakiel]

Lets hope I am wrong.

[Less Than Liz]

Phakiel: "Obama shouldn't be president because racists still exist"? I still don't understand why that's a reason we should avoid him. It might be an obstacle to the White House, but it's not a reason for non-racists who otherwise support him to avoid voting for him.

[Raidou]

Folks, have Obama decided to take Hillary in as running mate?

[Powerslave]

Yeah, I keep wondering about that. I mean, I don't know, that seems like it'd be the best of both worlds (well, in a way), but is it like having the cake and eating it too? Not like I particularly like Clinton, but wouldn't that be the best way to get elected? Maybe someone who knows more has more of an opinion. I just percieve like that would be good for the Democrats.

[Raidou]

(Source: Why Won?t Whites, Jews, and Catholics Vote for Obama?)
Bill Levinson - 5/3/2008

Despite the endorsement of Senator Robert Casey (D-PA), Barack Obama lost the Pennsylvania primary by a 55-45 margin. In Luzerne County PA, a traditional Democratic region whose demographics include factory workers and the descendents of immigrant coal miners (many Catholic), Obama lost by a three to one margin. Why does Barack Obama have so much difficulty in getting white people (and especially Catholics and Jews) to vote for him? Let?s give ?Barry? some hints and see his likely conclusion.

(1) Barack Obama joined a church whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, had already accompanied Louis Farrakhan (a prominent racist, anti-Semite, and Catholic-hating bigot) to Libya to meet with dictator Moammar Khadafy.
* Jeremiah Wright is on record as publishing a blood libel of Israel?a guest column that accuses Israel of working with South Africa to develop an ?ethnic bomb? to kill Negroes and Arabs?in his church?s official bulletin. (http://tucc.org/upload/tuccbulletin_june10.pdf ?Letter to Oprah,? starting on page 8. Trinity United Church of Christ links worked as of April 29 2008. If they don?t, a Google search on the title and/or keywords like ?ethnic bomb? should allow the reader to verify this material elsewhere.)
* Jeremiah Wright blood libeled the United States by accusing it of developing the AIDS virus.
* Jeremiah Wright called upon God to damn America for using nuclear weapons on an enemy who had attacked the United States.
* Jeremiah Wright said that ?white America? got a ?wake up call? after 9/11.
* Jeremiah Wright published a guest editorial from a Hamas terrorist named Marzook in his church?s official bulletin. (http://tucc.org/upload/tuccbulletin_july22.pdf, ?A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle? starting on page 10)
* Jeremiah Wright wrote ?state? of Israel, as in ?so-called state of Israel,? in his church?s official bulletin. (http://tucc.org/upload/tuccbulletin_july8.pdf, ?Look Again? on page 9)
* Jeremiah Wright?s War in Iraq IQ Test asked whether the United States or Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a greater threat to world peace.
* Barack Obama distanced himself from Jeremiah Wright only at the end of April 2008, when it became clear that Wright?s intemperate remarks were becoming a liability to his campaign. This is not doing the right thing because it is right, but because it is expedient. This theme pervades every one of Obama?s actions, as shown by his reluctance to ?reject? Louis Farrakhan?s endorsement.

(2) Barack Obama refused to ?reject? the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan until Tim Russert, who was joined in his efforts by Hillary Clinton, backed him into a corner during a televised debate in February 2008.

(3) Barack Obama appeared with Al Sharpton at a meeting of Sharpton?s National Action Network in April 2007. There he endorsed Sharpton and his organization as follows: ?Reverend Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed. What National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.? We encourage our readers to do a Google search on ?Sharpton? and ?Freddy?s Fashion Mart,? ?Crown Heights,? ?Yankel Rosenbaum,? and ?Tawana Brawley? to verify for themselves Sharpton?s extensive record of inciting hatred of white people and especially Jews.

(4) Barack Obama has to date (April 29 2008) refused to reject the endorsement of Michael Moore, who writes, ?The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ?insurgents? or ?terrorists? or ?The Enemy.? They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow ? and they will win.? (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/me...ate=2004-04-14, link active as of April 29 2008). It?s possible that most Americans, and especially those with family members in the Armed Forces, do not appreciate the depiction of terrorists who, while disguised as civilians, plant roadside bombs that blow off our soldiers? arms and legs, as ?Minutemen.?

(5) Barack Obama solicited and accepted the endorsement of MoveOn.org. MoveOn.org?s record includes:
* Publication of an insult to General David Petraeus. We find the very concept of General Petraeus, a distinguished officer, having to call Barack Obama ?Sir? after this totally repugnant. Come to think of it, we find sickening and repulsive the idea of a buck private having to address as ?Sir? an individual who has accepted this organization?s endorsement. An individual who joins in an insult to our men and women in uniform, which Obama has done by lending credibility to MoveOn.org, is totally unfit to be our Armed Forces? Commander in Chief.
* MoveOn.org published an anti-Catholic hate cartoon that shows Pope Benedict waving a gavel in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. This cartoon is unmistakably similar to the anti-Catholic cartoons of the infamous 19th century cartoonist Thomas Nast, so Catholics just might find Obama?s empowerment and enablement of MoveOn.org a wee bit offensive to say the least.
* MoveOn.org exercised editorial control in favor of anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic hate speech at its now-disgraced Action Forum (which was shut down in 2006 because of the scandal). The hate speech included an outright blood libel of Jews, denigration of Catholics as pedophiles, accusations that Evangelical Christians participated in voter fraud, racist comments about prominent African-Americans, and 9/11 conspiracy theories.

(6) Barack Obama is on record as orchestrating the defeat of Illinois? Born Alive Infants Protection Act. (Jill Stanek has documented this extensively.) While it is obvious that everyone in the pro-life community finds this sufficiently repulsive to vote for whoever (or whatever) is running against Obama, no self-respecting pro-choice person is going to stand with Obama on this either. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY, one of the most liberal members of Congress) said of the Federal version of this legislation, ?There is no such thing as a right to a live birth abortion.?

(7) Barack Obama cannot be bothered to show respect for our National Anthem. His hands were folded neatly over his crotch while Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and others had their right hands over their hearts; in other words, had Obama simply forgotten, there were plenty of people around to remind him by example. (This is the true story, which has been confused with an unfounded one to the effect that he won?t say the Pledge of Allegiance.)

(8) Obama campaign volunteers at at least one headquarters in Texas decorated their office with a picture of Che Guevara.

(9) There is substantial evidence that Obama misused the United Church of Christ?s tax-exempt resources?resulting in an IRS investigation of the church?by giving a campaign related speech, ?A Politics of Conscience,? at the UCC?s annual meeting in June 2007. Church officials assert that Obama and his people were told before the event that no campaign related activity could occur at this event, and that the Obama campaign understood and agreed to this rule. Obama then proceeded to write and deliver a speech whose content included explicit campaign promises.

(10) A New Black Panther Party page was removed from my.barackobama.com only after it became an Internet-wide scandal. This ties in with Obama?s clear reluctance to distance himself from the unsavory individuals and organizations that seem to be drawn to him like flies to honey. The underlying theme is that their votes and support are more important than basic common decency. Postings that used terms like ?Zionist Thought Police? and ?Jewish Lobby? were removed from my.barackobama.com only after they began to spread across the Internet. The same goes for a posting that called Black Clinton supporters ?House Slaves,? another that called Ward Connerly an ?Uncle Tom,? another that called John McCain an ?old man? who should pay a ?deserved visit to the undertaker,? and yet another that accused the United States and Israel of waging war on civilians (see Jeremiah Wright above). A profile that blood libels Israel by accusing it of murdering peace activist Rachel Corrie was still online as of April 29 2008. A posting that uses the terms ?house Negro? and ?field Negro? (http://my.barackobama.com/page/commu...kenthomas/CsN9) is still online as of April 29 2008, and ?Negro? is not exactly the word it uses.

While Obama and his campaign staff obviously did not originate the above material, it is consistent as opposed to inconsistent with the other items we have listed. That is, if we were painting a picture, the unsavory material from my.barackobama.com would blend right in with the picture as opposed to standing out as an aberration or anomaly. Again, the authors of the above material seem to swarm around Obama the way flies are drawn to honey.

This timely article from "Global Politician" website lists 10 reasons why Obama will not pick up some of key demographic segments he must secure to win the General Election. His list of 10, and the segments he identifies is a good start to articulating the growing number of hurdles Obama must overcome to get back in the race.

[Jarrid]

Yeah, well McCain I'm sure has a nice history as well.

[Raidou]

Wait, I will hunt for reasons why Americans will not vote for McCain as well, just to be fair.

Nah, too lazy. Is easy actually.

George Bush's successor, period.

[Jarrid]

Was not expecting you to hunt it down. I know there are probably tons of reasons. Like this one: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/052...g,64705,6.html. Yay.

[Raidou]

I don't like McCain not just because he is going to be succeeding Bush, but he even talks like him! Is pretty scary when he endorse stuffs like spying on the public, war in middle east. So what if he was a Vietnam war time hero, it doesnt mean a thing.

[Powerslave]

Wow, whoever Bill Levinson is, he is obviously an extreme reactionary.

[charolastra00]

I'm so glad I'm going to be out of the country for this election. It's already stressing me out. Election day will see me watching the returns with copious amounts of tequila in a seedy bar in Mexico.

That said, I really hope Obama wins. He had better make a good choice for VP because that position will be needed to gather up some of the toss up voters. As much as I adore Bill Richardson and really hope he gets it, I'm thinking the most pragmatic choice would be Jim Webb of Virginia. This is the first election in awhile that Virginia has been a toss-up state. It carries a fair amount of electoral college votes and Webb could help cinch those. He's a former Republican (switched parties in 2006 and is now the junior senator of Virginia) who has been against the war from the beginning. He also has the military background needed to help balance out Obama's ticket and his son is a soldier in Iraq. The biggest problem with Webb, though, is that he wrote a very anti-woman article in the 70s saying that women should not be in combat. That might be the one thing to keep him out of the VP slot since Obama needs to get the female vote.

Hillary Clinton is still an option for VP but for some reason, I don't think it will happen.

[Nickoten]

Originally Posted by Melliandra

Political parties also piss me off. Just because a person decides to align themselves with a certain political party doesn't mean they hold the same values and beliefs as the party is supposed to stand for. Republicans are generally for smaller government and reduced spending. Does this sound like Bush at all? He has ruined the name of the republican party by trying to pretend he[s republican. Just because he claims to be republican though doesn't mean that every single republican(or any republicans) believe the same things as him or will run the country the same way. Personally I can't wait till we either do away with political parties or get more than two parties who actually have the slightest chance of ever having a viable candidate.

Considering that political parties put forth the money to get their candidates into office and keep them in there, it seems to me that the person in office is probably going to be motivated to push the agenda of their respective party, lest they lose their main support.

Phakiel: "Obama shouldn't be president because racists still exist"? I still don't understand why that's a reason we should avoid him. It might be an obstacle to the White House, but it's not a reason for non-racists who otherwise support him to avoid voting for him.

He's doubting that Obama will get elected, not saying that he's against Obama being elected. Hell, the post right above yours indicates that he hopes Obama will win.

[Less Than Liz]

Nick, did you read the rest of his posts where he agreed that we should cater to the negative elements of society? The implication is not that that's what will happen, but what we should do.

[Nickoten]

I did, and saw that bit as extremely vague. Did he mean that we shouldn't vote for Obama because some racists may not like him? Or did he mean that, in a discussion such as this, we should take into heavy consideration the negative aspects of our own society? Perhaps it could be taken as the former, but seeing as how he continues to say things like, "I hope I'm wrong" or "I'd like to see Obama get elected" I think it is most likely the latter.