Honestly I am very torn this year, probably because I am making myself more informed than I have in the past. So far my strategy is to vote for the candidate I have the least disdain for at election time. I can say I have never not voted Republican in my life, for anything, but I can't get behind McCain. I don't trust him. Well ok, I don't trust either of them, but I trust him less than Obama. I must also say I had to turn the television off last night listening to Hillary. What a crock!
Oh my goodness, I do love the drama of Sarah Palin! I think McCain was grasping for some of the women/young votes that he wouldn't receive otherwise. I think it was probably necessary, though he may now end up alienating some of his other votes. And did Mr. Conservative really know that her 17 year old daughter was pregnant? I'm not sure about that one. All this being said, I kind of like her, though she lacks even more experience than Obama. But seriously, what does the VP do anyway? Ha!
Actually on Sarah Palin she has more experience than Obama. Well they have the same number of years in the public service arena. 1992 I believe is when she was voted onto the city council and from there went onto be Mayor, then made a bid for lieutenant governor which she lost in the primary, then was appointed to the blah blah commission on energy or something like that and then ran for and won the governorship of Alaska. Obama was a community organizer which I'm not sure what that entails, and then he served on some board of something or rather with the Weather Underground Terroist, William Ayers, and then he was a State Senator, and then finally a U.S. Senator in 2004. Sarah has actually been in charge of such things as city and state budgets, she's made deals with Canada and Russia in regards to Alaska's energy and of course she has executive experience as a former Mayor and Governor which is more than anyone else can say on either ticket. McCain, Obama, and Biden only have legislative experience which is fine but POTUS AND VPOTUS are both part of the executive branch.
This is my take on why McCain picked Palin. The conservative base of the Republican party (which is what I consider myself) doesn't trust him at all and really no one was excited about the thought of electing him Prez but we consider him the lesser of two evils. I honestly believe Obama is a much more dangerous man to elect as our President. His views are way too left for my comfort he's not just your run of the mill liberal (which in my opinion is bad enough) he is a socialist/radical leftist. I wouldn't want him having any power to pick Supreme Court Justices or be able to fool around with his interpretation of the second amendment. But I digress, I was talking about Palin. So McCain knew he needed to pick someone who is an actual conservative. Palin is but she is also a reformer which he loves because he thinks of himself as one too. She did take on the corrupt Alaskan GOP and beat them and has done a lot to clean up Alaskan politics. So he knew he had to get a real conservative to shore up his base, he wanted a reformer to mesh with his campaign narrative and then he knew that this race is historic and identity politics will come into play so the fact that she was a woman was another reason he selected her.
To be honest I think she was a good choice. Conservatives love her. What I gather from the blogosphere is people are actually now excited about the campaign and are contributing both $$$ and volunteering something they weren't doing before. The average, not very politically involved centrist, will connect with her because of her her realness. She isn't some hoighty toighty elite who can't connect with the average American. She is a working mother with average problems and a relatively normal life. I think her poor daughter's pregnancy will help with that. There are a lot of people that find themselves dealing with children that have made mistakes. Of course die hard liberals will not like her because she is conservative but that is too be expected.
Nice, I always prefer a fact-based opinion over "vote for my guy 'cause the other guy sucks". Dana is the second person today I've heard bragging up Palin's qualifications. I was a bit confused at first but now I think it may make sense. It is getting interesting...
Wow, the stuff you can learn on a blog. Go, Dana, go!
I'm hearing Republicans leaning toward Obama and Democrats leaning toward McCain. Records are good evidence, but retrospective; speeches don't always get to the point. I think the real tests of character are the debates. Can't wait!!
(P.S. POTAS and VPOTAS? One of the many things I missed by not getting a college degree!)
Although it took me way too long to respond to this and I honestly haven't been following the fast changing world of politics in the last couple of weeks, I will say that I have been impressed with Sarah Palin thus far and I appreciate your comment, Dana. I do have just a few long standing issues with McCain. For a so-called conservative, he is way too left for my liking. He has often voted with liberals on various key conservative initiatives in the last 10 years. He did not support a constitutional amendment to protect the institute of marriage, he voted for embryotic stem-cell research and opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty.
He opposed conservative judges, by leading the infamous "Gang of 14". He stated that Samuel Alito was too conservative. Como? If you'll recall, he was a vocal opponent to the early Iraq war and publicly trashed Donald Rumsfeld. He is now a supporter of said war. I remember when he was considering leaving the GOP caucus and in 2004, he approached John Kerry to run as his vice president. Along those same lines, he has said, more than once, that Hillary Clinton would make a good president.
He outright assaulted the 1st amendment with his McCain Feingold legislation, which left me with the distinct feeling that he has little regard for freedom of speech.
Personally, I don't trust him at all. I think he has proven he will say whatever he has to to whomever he is trying to garner votes from. He has a horrible temper as seen at many events, and has horrible language. There are many YouTube videos out there illustrating him losing his cool, calling people names and berating his staff. I also take issue with his age and with his health. I have seen many 72 year-olds quicker than him. When I lived in Arizona I really enjoyed him as a senator and felt he had a humble nature about him when discussing his time as a POW. It seems now that invokes it in nearly every speech. I absolutely respect his time in the service and the price he paid for this country, but I am pretty sure that anyone who has heard of him is clear that he was a POW. I even know such random things as he played Scrooge in the POW's staging of A Christmas Carol at the Hanoi Hilton. Enough already.
I have read and seen him be very slow on the uptake when he is asked non-scripted questions and often has to have them repeated several times. I am highly interested to see the debates, though I am sure those are heavily scripted.
One more side note, what kind of marriage do the McCains have where Cindy brought home a child from Bangladesh without first discussing it with John? And they had no idea how old the other was until they saw it on their marriage license? And she was able to become a pilot without him knowing? But I digress...
I do not take much issue with Sarah Palin, other than her complete lack of foreign policy experience. I think she is exactly what McCain needs to even have a chance of winning and I have noticed that the polls are much closer since she joined the ticket. It's McCain I struggle with. I am absolutely one of those coveted "undecided" voters and I will be paying close attention in the coming months to hopefully make an educated decision.
Not like we have much of a choice. Idaho is strictly a red state. Our vote in either direction is futile. One one hand, I can become one with the mewing sheep who know nothing of either candidate but feel the need to tow the party line or on the other, I can try to stop a landslide of Republican votes. It won't stop me from voting but I can't help but feel pessimistic... borderline cynical.
Things I agree with in Obama:
A: Birth control and abortion rights. I don't take a hard line on abortion like many do. I think there are reasons to legitimately need one. I would not condone aborting my own child but that is from my own choice and not any dictation from a higher power. I believe in the “parents” right to choose.
B: Wishes to fundamentally change the "No Child Left Behind" policy. Yep, I am on board with that. It should not be a pure punishment if you fail to succeed as the students ultimately pay that price. It should be extra federal funding when you succeed that is scalable based on how much you succeed. How much you succeed depends on the amount of knowledge they have amassed at the end of every year of class.
C: He is against the death penalty and so am I. However, I think we are in agreement due to a coincidence. I don't like it because it takes to long and costs too much money. If we could take them out back and shoot them I would be all for it. Especially child rapists. He seems to think it does little or nothing to deter others from committing heinous crimes. I don’t care if it is a deterrent for others. I feel it is a successful deterrent for the criminal IF YOU GET THE JOB DONE.
D: He acknowledges global warming is real and does not need the whole of the scientific community to beat him over the head with facts before he will yield. We live on this planet and it is our responsibility to take care of it. I don’t care if every polar bear died tomorrow. What I do care about is loss of assets for the USA and loss of life around the world due to any number of things from an increase of malaria, a change in weather systems causing crop failures or even something like excessively strong storms.
E: Gay marriage. He is ok with it and I don’t really care. They (gay men and women) are now and have been for some time able to go through the courts and get all the things they wanted that marriage gives like power of attorney (medical and financial) or change their names or any number of other legal actions. It takes more time and costs more money than getting a marriage license. If marriage is only regarded as the legal binding of two people together then we are saying gay people can get married but they need to pay more money and waste more time than strait people. If you really believe in the sanctity of ‘holy’ marriage as described in the bible, then you must believe it goes beyond a simple United States legal document. If you really felt it was something special then you must admit that if gay people get married it is not the same kind of married a man and a woman share in the eyes of God. It is a document allowing certain privileges at a lower cost that the roundabout legal way and has nothing to do with what Christians name ‘marriage’.
F: Guns. Guns are fun. I enjoy guns. Obama is against having massive weapon stashes purchased and gun shows, and is against the purchase of automatic weapons and wants better tracking bullets used in crimes. Fine. He wants to get rid of concealed weapons permits. That’s a bummer but I think I can manage to live without that privilege.
*sigh* This blog is getting tedious. I will end it here. Basically I don’t agree with every policy but I agree more with Obama than with McCain. It has nothing to do with the ‘superstar’ vote. He is simply an individual who’s values sit well with my own… well enough to let him be president.
Disclaimer: The views in this comment are the views of Jake and do not necessarily reflect the views of Steph. It should be noted that just because I agree with Obama's policy does not mean I disagree with McCain's. I feel both are good men and want to do right by their countrymen.
Wow! You two definately have some differing opinions. Since we are all sharing, here are some of my thoughts - they are simple. Maybe you can guess where my vote is going.
A. War. Terrorists want to kill me and my entire family. Whether or not anyone thinks they have a good reason is irrelevant to me. I want them to die first and support my country's proactive efforts to accomplish this.
B. Guns. I believe the right to bare arms is in the constitution because it gives us the ability to protect ourselves if our government gets out of hand. If the government wants to compromise this, we should all be very wary.
C. Taxes. Tax me to build highways and keep my borders safe. Don't tax me to pay for social programs. If you think we need these programs, then you donate to them and leave me out of it. On a side note, I'm actually in an income bracket that would highly benefit from such programs...but keep your money, I'll work for mine.
D. Global Warming. The sky is falling. Whatever. I think we should clean up the environment too but so many of these knee-jerk solutions have negative effects that nobody really knows if we are helping or making it worse. The fact is the earth is headed for another ice-age as it has done so many times before. Buy a parka.
E. Oil and natural gas - If we have a big bowl of it, I want to stick every straw we have into it so we don't have to pay our enemy to get it. And of course we should still be diligent in exploring alternative sources of fuel and energy. But for now, tap it!
F. Off the cuff: McCain. Grouchy Grandpa. Palin. She's smart...and hot. Obama. Helpful neighbor. Biden. Who?
12 comments:
Uh, so who ya votin' for?
Well if Mason has anything to say about it, Obama. Ha!
Honestly I am very torn this year, probably because I am making myself more informed than I have in the past. So far my strategy is to vote for the candidate I have the least disdain for at election time. I can say I have never not voted Republican in my life, for anything, but I can't get behind McCain. I don't trust him. Well ok, I don't trust either of them, but I trust him less than Obama. I must also say I had to turn the television off last night listening to Hillary. What a crock!
It's all getting very interesting, isn't it? And your thoughts on Sarah Palin?
Oh my goodness, I do love the drama of Sarah Palin! I think McCain was grasping for some of the women/young votes that he wouldn't receive otherwise. I think it was probably necessary, though he may now end up alienating some of his other votes. And did Mr. Conservative really know that her 17 year old daughter was pregnant? I'm not sure about that one. All this being said, I kind of like her, though she lacks even more experience than Obama. But seriously, what does the VP do anyway? Ha!
Actually on Sarah Palin she has more experience than Obama. Well they have the same number of years in the public service arena. 1992 I believe is when she was voted onto the city council and from there went onto be Mayor, then made a bid for lieutenant governor which she lost in the primary, then was appointed to the blah blah commission on energy or something like that and then ran for and won the governorship of Alaska. Obama was a community organizer which I'm not sure what that entails, and then he served on some board of something or rather with the Weather Underground Terroist, William Ayers, and then he was a State Senator, and then finally a U.S. Senator in 2004. Sarah has actually been in charge of such things as city and state budgets, she's made deals with Canada and Russia in regards to Alaska's energy and of course she has executive experience as a former Mayor and Governor which is more than anyone else can say on either ticket. McCain, Obama, and Biden only have legislative experience which is fine but POTUS AND VPOTUS are both part of the executive branch.
This is my take on why McCain picked Palin. The conservative base of the Republican party (which is what I consider myself) doesn't trust him at all and really no one was excited about the thought of electing him Prez but we consider him the lesser of two evils. I honestly believe Obama is a much more dangerous man to elect as our President. His views are way too left for my comfort he's not just your run of the mill liberal (which in my opinion is bad enough) he is a socialist/radical leftist. I wouldn't want him having any power to pick Supreme Court Justices or be able to fool around with his interpretation of the second amendment. But I digress, I was talking about Palin. So McCain knew he needed to pick someone who is an actual conservative. Palin is but she is also a reformer which he loves because he thinks of himself as one too. She did take on the corrupt Alaskan GOP and beat them and has done a lot to clean up Alaskan politics. So he knew he had to get a real conservative to shore up his base, he wanted a reformer to mesh with his campaign narrative and then he knew that this race is historic and identity politics will come into play so the fact that she was a woman was another reason he selected her.
To be honest I think she was a good choice. Conservatives love her. What I gather from the blogosphere is people are actually now excited about the campaign and are contributing both $$$ and volunteering something they weren't doing before. The average, not very politically involved centrist, will connect with her because of her her realness. She isn't some hoighty toighty elite who can't connect with the average American. She is a working mother with average problems and a relatively normal life. I think her poor daughter's pregnancy will help with that. There are a lot of people that find themselves dealing with children that have made mistakes.
Of course die hard liberals will not like her because she is conservative but that is too be expected.
I think this race just got interesting!
Nice, I always prefer a fact-based opinion over "vote for my guy 'cause the other guy sucks". Dana is the second person today I've heard bragging up Palin's qualifications. I was a bit confused at first but now I think it may make sense. It is getting interesting...
Ok, I just read these and I fully intend to respond as soon as I get some time, hopefully tomorrow. Good stuff though.
Wow, the stuff you can learn on a blog. Go, Dana, go!
I'm hearing Republicans leaning toward Obama and Democrats leaning toward McCain. Records are good evidence, but retrospective; speeches don't always get to the point. I think the real tests of character are the debates. Can't wait!!
(P.S. POTAS and VPOTAS? One of the many things I missed by not getting a college degree!)
Although it took me way too long to respond to this and I honestly haven't been following the fast changing world of politics in the last couple of weeks, I will say that I have been impressed with Sarah Palin thus far and I appreciate your comment, Dana. I do have just a few long standing issues with McCain. For a so-called conservative, he is way too left for my liking. He has often voted with liberals on various key conservative initiatives in the last 10 years. He did not support a constitutional amendment to protect the institute of marriage, he voted for embryotic stem-cell research and opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty.
He opposed conservative judges, by leading the infamous "Gang of 14". He stated that Samuel Alito was too conservative. Como? If you'll recall, he was a vocal opponent to the early Iraq war and publicly trashed Donald Rumsfeld. He is now a supporter of said war. I remember when he was considering leaving the GOP caucus and in 2004, he approached John Kerry to run as his vice president. Along those same lines, he has said, more than once, that Hillary Clinton would make a good president.
He outright assaulted the 1st amendment with his McCain Feingold legislation, which left me with the distinct feeling that he has little regard for freedom of speech.
Personally, I don't trust him at all. I think he has proven he will say whatever he has to to whomever he is trying to garner votes from. He has a horrible temper as seen at many events, and has horrible language. There are many YouTube videos out there illustrating him losing his cool, calling people names and berating his staff. I also take issue with his age and with his health. I have seen many 72 year-olds quicker than him. When I lived in Arizona I really enjoyed him as a senator and felt he had a humble nature about him when discussing his time as a POW. It seems now that invokes it in nearly every speech. I absolutely respect his time in the service and the price he paid for this country, but I am pretty sure that anyone who has heard of him is clear that he was a POW. I even know such random things as he played Scrooge in the POW's staging of A Christmas Carol at the Hanoi Hilton. Enough already.
I have read and seen him be very slow on the uptake when he is asked non-scripted questions and often has to have them repeated several times. I am highly interested to see the debates, though I am sure those are heavily scripted.
One more side note, what kind of marriage do the McCains have where Cindy brought home a child from Bangladesh without first discussing it with John? And they had no idea how old the other was until they saw it on their marriage license? And she was able to become a pilot without him knowing? But I digress...
I do not take much issue with Sarah Palin, other than her complete lack of foreign policy experience. I think she is exactly what McCain needs to even have a chance of winning and I have noticed that the polls are much closer since she joined the ticket. It's McCain I struggle with. I am absolutely one of those coveted "undecided" voters and I will be paying close attention in the coming months to hopefully make an educated decision.
Not like we have much of a choice. Idaho is strictly a red state. Our vote in either direction is futile. One one hand, I can become one with the mewing sheep who know nothing of either candidate but feel the need to tow the party line or on the other, I can try to stop a landslide of Republican votes. It won't stop me from voting but I can't help but feel pessimistic... borderline cynical.
Things I agree with in Obama:
A: Birth control and abortion rights. I don't take a hard line on abortion like many do. I think there are reasons to legitimately need one. I would not condone aborting my own child but that is from my own choice and not any dictation from a higher power. I believe in the “parents” right to choose.
B: Wishes to fundamentally change the "No Child Left Behind" policy. Yep, I am on board with that. It should not be a pure punishment if you fail to succeed as the students ultimately pay that price. It should be extra federal funding when you succeed that is scalable based on how much you succeed. How much you succeed depends on the amount of knowledge they have amassed at the end of every year of class.
C: He is against the death penalty and so am I. However, I think we are in agreement due to a coincidence. I don't like it because it takes to long and costs too much money. If we could take them out back and shoot them I would be all for it. Especially child rapists. He seems to think it does little or nothing to deter others from committing heinous crimes. I don’t care if it is a deterrent for others. I feel it is a successful deterrent for the criminal IF YOU GET THE JOB DONE.
D: He acknowledges global warming is real and does not need the whole of the scientific community to beat him over the head with facts before he will yield. We live on this planet and it is our responsibility to take care of it. I don’t care if every polar bear died tomorrow. What I do care about is loss of assets for the USA and loss of life around the world due to any number of things from an increase of malaria, a change in weather systems causing crop failures or even something like excessively strong storms.
E: Gay marriage. He is ok with it and I don’t really care. They (gay men and women) are now and have been for some time able to go through the courts and get all the things they wanted that marriage gives like power of attorney (medical and financial) or change their names or any number of other legal actions. It takes more time and costs more money than getting a marriage license. If marriage is only regarded as the legal binding of two people together then we are saying gay people can get married but they need to pay more money and waste more time than strait people. If you really believe in the sanctity of ‘holy’ marriage as described in the bible, then you must believe it goes beyond a simple United States legal document. If you really felt it was something special then you must admit that if gay people get married it is not the same kind of married a man and a woman share in the eyes of God. It is a document allowing certain privileges at a lower cost that the roundabout legal way and has nothing to do with what Christians name ‘marriage’.
F: Guns. Guns are fun. I enjoy guns. Obama is against having massive weapon stashes purchased and gun shows, and is against the purchase of automatic weapons and wants better tracking bullets used in crimes. Fine. He wants to get rid of concealed weapons permits. That’s a bummer but I think I can manage to live without that privilege.
*sigh* This blog is getting tedious. I will end it here. Basically I don’t agree with every policy but I agree more with Obama than with McCain. It has nothing to do with the ‘superstar’ vote. He is simply an individual who’s values sit well with my own… well enough to let him be president.
Disclaimer: The views in this comment are the views of Jake and do not necessarily reflect the views of Steph. It should be noted that just because I agree with Obama's policy does not mean I disagree with McCain's. I feel both are good men and want to do right by their countrymen.
Wow! You two definately have some differing opinions. Since we are all sharing, here are some of my thoughts - they are simple. Maybe you can guess where my vote is going.
A. War. Terrorists want to kill me and my entire family. Whether or not anyone thinks they have a good reason is irrelevant to me. I want them to die first and support my country's proactive efforts to accomplish this.
B. Guns. I believe the right to bare arms is in the constitution because it gives us the ability to protect ourselves if our government gets out of hand. If the government wants to compromise this, we should all be very wary.
C. Taxes. Tax me to build highways and keep my borders safe. Don't tax me to pay for social programs. If you think we need these programs, then you donate to them and leave me out of it. On a side note, I'm actually in an income bracket that would highly benefit from such programs...but keep your money, I'll work for mine.
D. Global Warming. The sky is falling. Whatever. I think we should clean up the environment too but so many of these knee-jerk solutions have negative effects that nobody really knows if we are helping or making it worse. The fact is the earth is headed for another ice-age as it has done so many times before. Buy a parka.
E. Oil and natural gas - If we have a big bowl of it, I want to stick every straw we have into it so we don't have to pay our enemy to get it. And of course we should still be diligent in exploring alternative sources of fuel and energy. But for now, tap it!
F. Off the cuff:
McCain. Grouchy Grandpa.
Palin. She's smart...and hot.
Obama. Helpful neighbor.
Biden. Who?
So who will I vote for? It's pretty simple.
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