[DruulEmpire]

Quote:
notty said:
Is John McCain not a member of Congress?  Is Barack Obama not a member of Congress?

Are my analytical skills not sharp because you don't agree with me?  

A simple tangle of usage here.

Congress is bicameral and has a Senate and a House of Representatives.  Technically, yeah, they're all Congressmen (a term I extend euphonically to the women) -- but colloquially, we speak of Senators as Senators but for some reason prefer to call a Representative "Congressman."  So we haven't had a Representative Prez -- although Bush the Elder took a circuitous route, trying twice and failing to be Senator, settling for Representative, and then working his way up through the Cabinet until Reagan made him VP.

All that said, I'm not sure what "Senator vs. Senator" really clarifies.  Reagan was a Governor, but I never voted for him; Carter was a Governor, and not a whole lot of people feel much nostalgia for him; Palin is a Governor, and she scares me several times more than Quayle ever did.

Clinton worked out ... except for that whole Southern cultural warp within which fellatio doesn't get counted as sex ...

[mofoapoo]

Quote:
notty said:But to predict he would make a good president based on his campaign seems foolish to me.

and you are right.  but a lot of people vote that way, about how likable and cute they are on the campaign trail.

Doesn't mean you have to be.  Just look at their past, and what they have done.  They both have extensive histories, and you should vote based off what they did before they decided to become president.

When you look at both of them, McCain is by far the worse choice of the two.  Even if you ignore the fact that his party has become so fowled and corrupt.  He was involved in corruption, voted with Bush on several occasions and supported him in both elections, has been saying things now that were the complete opposite less than 6 months ago, and has openly voted against specific things that are considered conservative.  Not only that, his VP has had several scandals appear on her in less than a month.  Says something about them.

The only good thing McCain has done was go to vietnam, and it sucks what happened to him, but that alone isn't enough to get me to vote for him.

I know how easy it is to become cynical with elections, but if you dig through the crap the media puts out there that retards masturbate to, you can find important stuff.

[notty]

Quote:
Real said:

really?  when people are making laws, setting domestic and foreign policy you dont think degrees of insincerity are of the utmost importance?  the ground is uneven to start to tell you the truth.  the race is a dead heat after the last 8 years of republican rule because in general america is the most right wing country in the free world.  i too think the prospect of that changing has people excited.  it has some very people very excited actually.  but what are the obama negatives being ignored that constitute the "rose colored glasses" that see this race tied?  i mean "change, change" is now the rallying cry of both sides.  what im getting at is if you pay attention, if you are inclined to, its very obvious who is far more full of shit.  the notion that politics doesnt matter because it isnt perfect is how people like geroge w end up in the most powerful office on earth....

Gee, I dunno, the same negatives as every politician?  Greed, unchecked ambition, need for attention (well, I can empathize there), lust for power?  D'ya really think these guys are out there to make the world a better place?  If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.

I don't care who is far more full of shit.  It's all relative.  Dubya didn't get into office because of voter apathy, he got into office through manipulation of the system.  He remained in office through the politics of fear.

[notty]

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:

Then why not roll the dice?  Why choose neither?

I'm only granting the possibility.  Anything can happen.  Personally, I don't feel he'd be an effective president.  Voting for him would be a waste of a vote.

[notty]

Quote:
DruulEmpire said:

Quote:
notty said:
Is John McCain not a member of Congress?  Is Barack Obama not a member of Congress?

Are my analytical skills not sharp because you don't agree with me?  

A simple tangle of usage here.

Congress is bicameral and has a Senate and a House of Representatives.  Technically, yeah, they're all Congressmen (a term I extend euphonically to the women) -- but colloquially, we speak of Senators as Senators but for some reason prefer to call a Representative "Congressman."  So we haven't had a Representative Prez -- although Bush the Elder took a circuitous route, trying twice and failing to be Senator, settling for Representative, and then working his way up through the Cabinet until Reagan made him VP.

All that said, I'm not sure what "Senator vs. Senator" really clarifies.  Reagan was a Governor, but I never voted for him; Carter was a Governor, and not a whole lot of people feel much nostalgia for him; Palin is a Governor, and she scares me several times more than Quayle ever did.

Clinton worked out ... except for that whole Southern cultural warp within which fellatio doesn't get counted as sex ...

Thanks for the clarification, Druul.  Feel free to insert governor or senator into that paragraph.  Doesn't change the argument.

[TheZookie007]

Quote:
notty:
John McCain should not run for president.  He should retire to one of his houses where he can ramble incessantly about the old days while his soulless robot wife spoon feeds him applesauce.  McCain is a warmonger.  It is all he truly understands, all he knows how to do.  This is a man who wants to bomb, bomb, Iran while building up our own nuclear program.  In matters domestic, he is clueless.  Apparently a devotee of Adam Smith, he worked for years and years to deregulate the markets, an experiment that turned out swimmingly, as we all saw last week.  A pity McCain lacks the wit to realize all systems fail when pushed to extremes, including capitalism.

Regarding Sarah Palin, she isn't fit to pull my dog sled.

At last we agree on something.

Quote:

"What Makes People Vote Republican?"

By Jonathan Haidt, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia; Author, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.

What makes people vote Republican? Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? We psychologists have been examining the origins of ideology ever since Hitler sent us Germany's best psychologists, and we long ago reported that strict parenting and a variety of personal insecurities work together to turn people against liberalism, diversity, and progress. But now that we can map the brains, genes, and **61** attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death. People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity" -- a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.

Diagnosis is a pleasure. It is a thrill to solve a mystery from scattered clues, and it is empowering to know what makes others tick. In the psychological community, where almost all of us are politically liberal, our diagnosis of conservatism gives us the additional pleasure of shared righteous anger. We can explain how Republicans exploit frames, phrases, and fears to trick Americans into supporting policies (such as the "war on terror" and repeal of the "death tax") that damage the national interest for partisan advantage.

But with pleasure comes seduction, and with righteous pleasure comes seduction wearing a halo. Our diagnosis explains away Republican successes while convincing us and our fellow liberals that we hold the moral high ground. Our diagnosis tells us that we have nothing to learn from other ideologies, and it blinds us to what I think is one of the main reasons that so many Americans voted Republican over the last 30 years: they honestly prefer the Republican vision of a moral order to the one offered by Democrats. To see what Democrats have been missing, it helps to take off the halo, step back for a moment, and think about what morality really is. ...

By the way, if you want to see authentic scientific poll results, a good non-partisan site is FiveThirtyEight. The consensus there is Obama's gonna get 74% of the electoral college votes.

P.S.: I knew from the jump that Dubya was going to be a bad president. Eight years later and I weep for all that he has helped to happen to my country. Lots of people said that in '04, even though they were not all that enthused about Kerry, they were voting for him, or rather, they were really voting for ABB: Anybody But Bush. No matter who wins, there will be change; whether the change will be positive (Obama) or negative (McCain, more war, more bad economic policy, more hatred of Americans overseas...) is for the voters to decide.

P.P.S.: If you don't register to vote and then exercise your right to vote in '08, you're gonna have to STFU for the next four years because you had the chance to try and change things and you didn't. I'm just sayin'.

[notty]

Quote:
mofoapoo said:

Quote:
notty said:But to predict he would make a good president based on his campaign seems foolish to me.

and you are right.  but a lot of people vote that way, about how likable and cute they are on the campaign trail.

Doesn't mean you have to be.  Just look at their past, and what they have done.  They both have extensive histories, and you should vote based off what they did before they decided to become president.

When you look at both of them, McCain is by far the worse choice of the two.  Even if you ignore the fact that his party has become so fowled and corrupt.  He was involved in corruption, voted with Bush on several occasions and supported him in both elections, has been saying things now that were the complete opposite less than 6 months ago, and has openly voted against specific things that are considered conservative.  Not only that, his VP has had several scandals appear on her in less than a month.  Says something about them.

The only good thing McCain has done was go to vietnam, and it sucks what happened to him, but that alone isn't enough to get me to vote for him.

I know how easy it is to become cynical with elections, but if you dig through the crap the media puts out there that retards masturbate to, you can find important stuff.

McCain is a joke.  He too would be a waste of a vote.

The one good thing about this whole song-and-dance is that it allows ample time for the thousands of investigative journalists to dissect the lives of these men.  Of course, now that most of the news outlets are privately-owned, whenever I read an article I must question the source.  Still, you are correct.  There's good information if you look for it.

[notty]

Interesting article, Zookie.  I saw a speech by a Berkeley professor on the same topic.  He framed his argument in terms of a family dynamic, where the Republican Party was the disciplinarian father and the Democratic Party was the nurturing mother.  Good stuff.

Is your voting comment directed at me, or the forum in general?

[Hugeboobfan]

Quote:
notty said:

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:

Then why not roll the dice?  Why choose neither?

I'm only granting the possibility.  Anything can happen.  Personally, I don't feel he'd be an effective president.  Voting for him would be a waste of a vote.

And herein lies the problem.  You think Obama is a waste of a vote, and McCain is a waste of a vote.  Presumably that means you'd be voting for a third party candidate, which you would have to acknowledge would have little to no chance of actually winning the election.  So if your 3 options are (1) waste vote on Obama, (2) waste vote on McCain, or (3) waste vote on 3rd party candidate, why not vote for the person that has a chance of getting elected and a possibility of actually being a slight improvement on the status quo?

All this depends on which state you reside in of course, but I can't see how being cynical and voting for someone who openly supports the same policies as the last 8 years is very helpful.

[TheZookie007]

Hugeboobfan has it right. If you're going to "waste" your vote, "waste" it on the fellow who at least has a chance of being as close to the polar opposite of the fellow who's being in power for the past eight years.

This just in:

ABC News: "Poll: Economic Discontent Boosts Barack Obama Over John McCain: Democrat Takes 52-43 Lead Among Likely Voters, Erases Republican's Post-Palin Pick Gains"

That's what happens when you strip away the glitz and tinsel and face the hard truths and the important issues.

[notty]

Don't be silly.  My vote is the only real power I have in this election, the only form of protest that matters.  I want both parties to know they have nothing to offer me.

I tried voting for a guy I didn't want in 2004, to oust another guy who was far worse.  I will never do that again.

[pedonbio]

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:

And herein lies the problem.  You think Obama is a waste of a vote, and McCain is a waste of a vote.  Presumably that means you'd be voting for a third party candidate, which you would have to acknowledge would have little to no chance of actually winning the election.  

I just wanted to mention that I detest Raplph Nader, but it does seem he is evolving a sense of humor. Two weeks ago he met with the editorial board of the  Washington Post. He asked why they didn't cover his campaign. They told him that it was because he couldn't win.

"So why do you cover the  Nationals?" was his reply.

[steveo]

Sorry gOOb... I see no reason to vote for a marxist. I really don't think you would like being ruled by a marxist either.

[Hugeboobfan]

I voted for a third party candidate in 2000, partly in protest because I wasn't pleased with either of the main two options.  It didn't work out well.

The 3rd parties in the US are stuck in a catch-22: they can't attract many voters unless they have some realistic chance of winning elections (or at least get 5-10% of the vote), and they can't have a realistic chance of winning elections until they attract more voters.  

After the last eight years I feel much less inclined to follow the Rage Against the Machine/Nader philosophy that there is no difference between the two parties.  They're both corporate servants who will lie straight to your face, but there are different policy priorities, as evidenced by how much fail G.W. was able to stuff into his two terms.

[ChrisR1]

Quote:
Hugeboobfan said:So if your 3 options are (1) waste vote on Obama, (2) waste vote on McCain, or (3) waste vote on 3rd party candidate, why not vote for the person that has a chance of getting elected and a possibility of actually being a slight improvement on the status quo?

A vote for a 3rd party candidate is not a wasted vote - it's a tiny but important message to Democrats & Republicans alike saying "You may differ slightly in your platform wrapping, but your both basically the same & we're tired of it"; if there's one thing both parties agree on, it's marginalizing the 3rd party vote. They need each other as foils.
The Democrats love to cite Nader as "taking" votes from Gore that should have won the election for him - Ralph Nader didn't take anything - he earned those votes from citizens that weren't satisfied with the policies either Bush or Gore. And the way the Republican canditates banded together to form the "Pro-Life, Pro-Family" slate and beat Ron Paul in the Louisianna primary, in an effort to minimize public awareness of his Libertarian stance, is absolutely appalling.