Re: Obama Takes Early Lead in Early Voting

DoctorT — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:56:57 -0000

It really doesn't mean much when you know that Obama has been pushing to get the voters to register and early vote all along. I just hope that they are real people and not any of the fraudulent voters. That whole fiasco may tarnish this whole election. If it were Chicago (where I'm from and Obama lives), I'd suggest looking for any of the permanent decomposing voters from the cemetaries, but then again, I'm getting a bit cynical. Let's hope for good weather on election day.

Re: Political rallies get ugly but Colorado spared as Election Day nears

DoctorT — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:13:00 -0000

Character matters in the Election of persons to the offices of our country, and the Presidential office is no exception. I'm sure everyone is wondering why the current presidential election is not a blow-out by now. The economy is currently in distress if not true crisis which traditionally favors the Democrats, the very persuasive, suave, motivational Senator Barack Obama is young which favors getting out the youth vote, Senator Barack Obama is Black and this has pulled in nearly all of the black vote and most of the minority votes in this country, and Obama by "not taking public financing" has pulled in huge, unprecedented, amounts of money to his campaign. The Obama camp is outspending Senator McCain camp combined by 5:1. The unpopular Republican incumbent president in office during a time of national crisis (9/11 attacks), Afghan and Iraq wars, Russian invasion of Georgia, and possible nuclear proliferation by Iran and North korea, which has also been the Democrats number one point of attack on John McCain, should also be a favorable circumstance for Barack Obama.

So why is the election not "out of reach", "a done deal", etc…..

Because character matters.

Barack Obama has not sealed the deal. He has not shown America

1. What he stands for.
2. That he will follow through on the numerous, popular issue, promises that he has made.
3. That he is truly bipartisan.
4. That he will represent all the people.

In fact he has
A. Recently come out and said that he wants to "spread the wealth around." A philosophy that is not consistent with the Capitalist, free market philosophy that the United States built it's world power reputation on.
B. Never actually followed through on the promise to provide a middle class tax cut, which was one of the platform promises he ran on to get into his Senate seat from Illinois.
C. Broken his promise on taking public financing which was legislation that was put in place with the express intention of removing the role that unbalanced financing can play in any election.
D. Denied any relationship with ACORN when the evidence is there that he has been involved with them before.
E. Refused to disclose where his money for his campaign is coming from.
F. Changed position on many issues from positions that he had discovered were untenable, unsupportable, or unpopular:
G. Not taken initiative in moment of crisis to resolve critical issues, such as the financial crisis that resulted in a Bail out of Wall Street, where he waited to see what would happen before he committed to going to fulfill his senatorial duties.
H. A reputation of being a far left liberal who has not had to challenge his party on any issues nor work with the Republicans on any issues, which raises the question as to if he will in any way try to work with the Republicans or if he will simply try to "Run them Over" once he is in office. Frankly his rhetoric and some pundits interpretation of his statement would suggest that he would take a "my way or the highway approach.

Where as Senator John McCain has made it very clear about how he feels and plans to run his administrations. It is not all rosy though in that he has often been lacking in specifics of how he would accomplish his plans and not everyone would necessarily agree with his plans but at least one knows where he is coming from and what he would likely do.

Character portrayed by John McCain includes:

A. His philosophy of doing what is best for the country even if it is unpopular and potentially damaging to himself politically.
B. A proven history of working in a bipartisan fashion.
C. Leadership :proven.
D. Position on international policies and his stated concerns about telegraphing intentions to one's enemies.
E. Tax cuts for everyone. (although personally it would be better if everyone paid more for a short time until we can start to bring down the defecit. Though that is not practical in this economic environment.)
F. Decreasing government expenditures which shows him to be adapting to the economic environment.
G. Experience with dealing with military crises and how to protect our troops.

So you might ask how serious is the issue.

Consider:

Obama has secured the Black vote in America. He has already a guaranteed 20% of the 50% needed US electorate to win. All he needs is 3/8 of the remaining electorate (37% of the rest of the minority and Caucasian votes) and he is having trouble getting it.

The independents and soft voting portions of the Republican and Democratic party continue to vacillate back and forth.

The Democrats are continuing with very negative attack ads in addition to the more usual positive ads. Front runners at this point are usually trying to stay on topic with their selling points in a positive fashion at this point.

Obama has been doing less interviews and some would say laying low hoping to ride out the current lead that he is enjoying.

Joe Biden has been getting tough interviews such as the recent one with WFTV that is trying to get answers to the above as yet unanswered questions. http://tw.youtube.com/watch...

Joe Biden has even gone so far as to re-initiate his campaign for Senate in Delaware. That is hardly a re-assuring sign.
http://tw.youtube.com/watch...

In the words of President John Adams, "Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."

Also by President John Adams The people "have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge-- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."

By Richard Nixon: "With all the power that a President has, the most important thing to bear in mind is this: You must not give power to a man unless, above everything else, he has character. Character is the most important qualification the President of the United States can have."

Peggy Noonan (Political author) "In a president, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant... He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever... You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you can't buy courage and decency, you can't rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him... He needs to have, in that much maligned word, but a good one nonetheless, a "vision" of the future he wishes to create.. But a vision is worth little if a president doesn't have the character-- the courage and heart-- to see it through."

Horace Greeley : "Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures."

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Re: Obama Takes Early Lead in Early Voting

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