Democrats versus Republicans

[sck5]

PB

It is good of you to apologize. I accept your apology. It is a good thing when you are able to admit you are wrong

[PBzeer]

Even though I know it's an effort in futility sck5, I'm going to make one more effort to try to explain to you what I actually said. Not what you think I said, or may want to believe I said, but what I actually said.

Obama entered statewide politics as a candidate for the state senate. Prior to voting in the primary election for that seat, he had his rivals disqualified by technicalities. By doing so, he ran unopposed, thereby not needing any votes to defeat his rivals, and taking away any choice from the voters. One can argue that's simply good politics, just as one could say he was afraid to put it to a vote. The end result though, is he required no votes to win his first state election.

On the other hand, in Palin's case, she first lost one race and won her second, by running against inumbents. In other words, she let the voters make the choice.

Apples to apples. State race against state race. It is not cherry picking, nor any other devious comparison. I did not, by implication, by words, or any other means, equate running for state office with running for national office. Which was the whole point of the example. To attempt to say I meant anything else, is a flat-out distortion.

I have made every effort to clarify, what could easily be understood by anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the English language. Beyond this point, I have no choice but to assume that rather than fairly debate the issue, you choose to willfully distort my views. If that is indeed the case, then I have nothing further to say to you, and request you direct no further posts to me.

[craigtoo]

Is it just me... or does everyone see PB banging his head on a bulkhead?

[jrd22]

He's probably unconcious on the galley floor by now. I'm thinking about banging my head on the bulkhead just reading it .

John

[GreenEgg]

Obama entered statewide politics as a candidate for the state senate. Prior to voting in the primary election for that seat, he had his rivals disqualified by technicalities. By doing so, he ran unopposed, thereby not needing any votes to defeat his rivals, and taking away any choice from the voters. One can argue that's simply good politics, just as one could say he was afraid to put it to a vote. The end result though, is he required no votes to win his first state election.

On the other hand, in Palin's case, she first lost one race and won her second, by running against inumbents. In other words, she let the voters make the choice.

Don't give up P.

You are stating facts.

That drives liberals crazy.

:-)

[JohnRPollard]

Originally Posted by craigtoo

Is it just me... or does everyone see PB banging his head on a bulkhead?

I think his EPIRB just auto-deployed...

[SailorMitch]

Originally Posted by serenity4u2

PB.... Osama did not accomplish anything as a community organizer... HIS own words.... He did file a law suit against the government because some angry bitter colored people lived in a ghetto that had asbestos, lol...

Now Osama does have Jeramiah Wright and Bill Ayeres, lol....

PB... From an earlier post.... Yes her husband is a snow mobile champ... She also races snow mobiles and has wone 4 or more by her own admission... Not very sure about her family running marathons or Her... It was reported on Fox news that she runs them as well... Now, take what the media reports with a grain of salt- lol... Thinking since her parents exposed to moose hunting trhey probably exposed her to marathon running. She is pretty athletic. State basketbal champion from HS days.. Her own words- Snow mobiling is her best upper body work out... Personnally, she probably could be a Bow Bunney, yet I think she probably has know problem running a boat.

Over all, you expect the VP to balance the ticket. I also expect the VP to be Second to the President... Palins young... Yet, look at osama's VP.. He's OLD as McCain... When I see the two together... I want to ask biden- 'Hey who's that young colored boy running around with you'- ooops, I forgot he's actually the president candidate. Osama was 10 years old when biden entered the US Senate- lol... Now, that ticket looks very unbalanced...

Serenity--Thanks for revealing the true you. yes it is a truly laughing matter that "some angry bitter colored people lived in a ghetto that had asbestos, lol..." And then there is the very enlightened comment "When I see the two together... I want to ask biden- 'Hey who's that young colored boy running around with you'- ooops, I forgot he's actually the president candidate. Osama was 10 years old when biden entered the US Senate- lol... Now, that ticket looks very unbalanced..."

You make Jesse Helms (RIP--Racist in Perpetuity) look like a civil rights activist. Now that is a real LOL moment for you. You make the right wingers proud no doubt.

[sailaway21]

The beat goes on...

Another gratuitous attack on Fox News for reasons known only to the refined poster and racism is being assigned again. The only real revelation being that racism is apparently a right-wing ideal. Who was to know? I suppose I'll have to place a picture of Robert Byrd next to Jesse Helm's photo on the mantle just to get a bit of diversity in my racists.

I actually consider a poster to be a tool who drives-by criticizing a perhaps poorly thought out, and worse edited, post while offering nothing of his own to the debate. But then, on the Looney Left, all the questions have been answered, since about 1956, and there's really no need for debate is there?

There's a nervousness in 'Toonville, with the quiet thought creeping in, "not again?". Well, yes it is does seem to be happening again. But the Loonies never seem to get the point. They claim that the American people just don't understand and have not read their words and policies ignoring the possibility that the American people have done just that, and found them wanting.

So you nominated a guy who accidentally ended up in the Senate out of the scrum of Illinois politics. He's got a strong background in organizations that synchronize voter fraud in the fertile soil of Cook County as well as organizations that accomplish little while using up charitable and government monies where he's accomplished little of substance-not that the Annenburg project was ever anything more than a vehicle for supporting the lifestyles of the rabble-rousers and so, success is a difficult metric under the best of lights. And soon you'll be blaming the unenlightened American electorate again.

How soon they forget. Clinton, the only successful Dem president since Truman, ran as a neo-liberal. Remember "the age of big government is over"? That was your guy; the one who actually won the election-twice. His wife even had a chance-not a big chance, but a chance. Instead you guys nominated politics pop music equivalent of Sinead O'Connor, who's on the same missing persons report as Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, Walter Mondale, and a host of other now unrecognizable persons.

James Carville, last year said, "The good news for Democrats is that the only way they can lose is by taking themselves out of it. The good news for Republicans is that they are perfectly capable of doing so."

Gettin' that old feeling again aren't you? Me too.

[sailaway21]

Regarding the choice of Governor Sarah Palin as veep candidate, Mark Steyn says it in his own inestimable way within the pages of National Review Online:

10:06 AM

The hostess with the moosest [Mark Steyn]

Over in the Frumistan province of the NR caliphate, our pal David is not happy about the Palin pick. I am - for several reasons.

First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, "all-American", but hyper-American. What other country in the developed world produces beauty queens who hunt caribou and serve up a terrific moose stew? As an immigrant, I'm not saying I came to the United States purely to meet chicks like that, but it was certainly high on my list of priorities. And for the gun-totin' Miss Wasilla then to go on to become Governor while having five kids makes it an even more uniquely American story. Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy.

Second, it can't be in Senator Obama's interest for the punditocracy to spends its time arguing about whether the Republicans' vice-presidential pick is "even more" inexperienced than the Democrats' presidential one.

Third, real people don't define "experience" as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been around long enough to have got both the War on Terror and the Cold War wrong. (On the first point, at the Gun Owners of New Hampshire dinner in the 2000 campaign, I remember Orrin Hatch telling me sadly that he was stunned to discover how few Granite State voters knew who he was.) Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain't run nothin' but his mouth. She's done the stuff he's merely a poseur about. Post-partisan? She took on her own party's corrupt political culture directly while Obama was sucking up to Wright and Ayers and being just another get-along Chicago machine pol (see his campaign's thuggish attempt to throttle Stanley Kurtz and Milt Rosenberg on WGN the other night).

Fourth, Governor Palin has what the British Labour Party politician Denis Healy likes to call a "hinterland" - a life beyond politics. Whenever Senator Obama attempts anything non-political (such as bowling), he comes over like a visiting dignitary to a foreign country getting shanghaied into some impenetrable local folk ritual. Sarah Palin isn't just on the right side of the issues intellectually. She won't need the usual stage-managed "hunting" trip to reassure gun owners: she's lived the Second Amendment all her life. Likewise, on abortion, we're often told it's easy to be against it in principle but what if you were a woman facing a difficult birth or a handicapped child? Been there, done that.

Fifth, she complicates all the laziest Democrat pieties. Energy? Unlike Biden and Obama, she's been to ANWR and, like most Alaskans, supports drilling there.

Sixth (see Kathleen's link to Craig Ferguson below), I kinda like the whole naughty librarian vibe.

08/30 03:53 AM

[PBzeer]

This is offered, as much as possible, as a dispassionate look at the first major decisions by the two major presidential candidates, and how those decisions may effect the election. Some may agree, some may disagree, but that's what choices are about. These are though, my own opinions, and not a regurgitation of others views and statements.

In choosing Biden, Obama has chosen someone contrary to, and in fact, the target, of his message of hope and change. Someone who epitomizes the "politics as usual" that Obama says needs to end. The choice did little to heal the divisions left over from the primary, and by some Hillary supporters, was taken as a slap in the face. It also, seems counter-productive to retaining the enthusiasm of the youth vote by making Obama seem like just another politician, and not the new and different candidate that they voted for.

I don't think the choice particularly costs him any votes, but neither does it make him overly appealing to undecided ones. And, if one accepts the conventional wisdom that Americans prefer a divided government, then the choice could be seen as moving the undecideds towards McCain.

The major impact to me though is that it dampens the energy and enthusiasm outside the core liberal base, and among those not usually inclined to be passionate about the election, by giving them nothing new. And in an election which many see as a foregone conclusion, this could be fatal.

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The main difference in the McCain pick, is that he chose, not just someone who mirrors his message, but in many ways, intensifies it. This gives, at least the impression, that his message is consistent, and that he will follow through on it. This does make a difference.

Though both made choices that appealed to their bases, McCain's was neither enthused, nor passionate about him, unlike the case on the Obama side. That dynamic, has now changed. Changed in a way that is crucial to McCain's chances of winning. No Republican can win without a committed and energetic base behind them.

As regards the undecided vote, I see a double-edged sword. It gives cover to both those who are inclined to vote party first, though not particularly comfortable with the candidate. As well as those who are not particularly comfortable with crossing party lines. In the main though, I think it gives a slight edge to McCain on the undecideds, by offering a ticket that is different from the same old politics as usual.

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I have no idea if my observation will prove correct. Either in whole or part. I do though, feel they are valid. We shall see.