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Bugs

For Obama, Spanish remark no landmine: The Swamp
Generally speaking I agree with the concept of getting American youth involved in learning additional languages at earlier ages in the US school system. But the way Obama went about the presentation of this idea was pretty piss poor IMHO. To go from talking about not forcing immigrants to learn English, to making sure our own kids can speak Spanish, to getting every child to speak more than one language is not exactly the logic trail I would have chosen to try and get this idea across.

That being said if another language was to be taught to kinds in America the logical choice would be Spanish.

I also hate the European comparisons about being multi-lingual. Of course many Europeans are multi-lingual. Many European countries are smaller than some of the individual US states. So Europeans are compelled to lean other languages based simply on proximity. If each of the fifty states all had their own language most of the US population would be multi-lingual as well. But as it it, with the exception of Spanish, most American would have to travel thousands of miles to get to a location where English is not easily used to communicate, and where they would be immersed in another language.

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"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion" - Steven Weinberg

Boon Mee

Only 57% of registered voters believe Barack Obama is a Christian.

sabang

Less than 57% of US voters believe God is a Christian.

Milkman

^^ Boon I didn't lick your link, so I don't know the source.

My opinion is, who cares? Some voters will make that an issue.

Personally, I don't like a Xtian being President, but that's the way it is. As for BO, there is a concerted campaign to squash him, and spreading the rumors about his religion, mother's atheism, etc., is because they don't have dirt on him.

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Military men are dumb, stupid animals, to be used as pawns for foreign policy

Boon Mee

From the link:

The latest Pew Poll (in which Barack Obama leads John McCain 48-40) asks registered voters what religion they think Barack Obama is. Only 57% say that he's Christian. 12% say Muslim. Another 25% don't know. 1% say he's Jewish! (Must be that Aipac speech):

btw - there's so much 'dirt' on BO, one knows not where to disperse it...

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ผมเป็นคนบ้านนอก

sabang

Obama leads McCain nationally in 3 polls

THE NUMBERS (Quinnipiac University poll)
Barack Obama, 50 percent
John McCain, 41 percent
___
OF INTEREST:
Independents are evenly divided between the two candidates. Whites prefer McCain by 7 percentage points, but there are variations: whites without college are solidly behind McCain while college graduates are split equally. White men back McCain by a large margin, while white women prefer Obama by a hair. Virtually all blacks support Obama. Voters under age 35 prefer Obama by a 2-to-1 margin, those in middle age lean narrowly toward Obama, while those age 55 and up are evenly divided. Overall, 5 percent say Obama's being African American makes them less likely to vote for him, while 20 percent say they are less likely to vote for McCain because he would enter office at age 72.



THE NUMBERS (ABC News-Washington Post poll)
Barack Obama, 50 percent
John McCain, 42 percent
___
OF INTEREST:
Obama is more trusted than McCain on domestic issues like the economy, the budget deficit and immigration. But McCain is widely seen as knowing more about world affairs, and more say he would do the better job handling an unexpected major crisis. The two run about evenly on who would do the better jobs with Iraq, Iran and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Obama is considered far likelier than McCain to restore the U.S. image abroad. During a campaign in which both candidates have been accused of revising their views on some issues, about three in four say it's better for a contender to adjust to changing situations than to rigidly stick to a position.



THE NUMBERS (CBS News-New York Times poll)
Barack Obama, 45 percent
John McCain, 39 percent
___
OF INTEREST:
Twelve percent were undecided, double the number a month ago, while at least one in four of both candidates' supporters say they may change their minds. McCain leads among whites of both sexes and working-class whites. Obama has a sizable lead with Hispanics and voters under age 65. The two are running about evenly among independents and people age 65 and up. McCain is seen as the better commander in chief and as more patriotic than Obama. Yet six in 10 of McCain's supporters say they'd want more candidates to choose from, double the number of Obama supporters who say so.

The Associated Press: Obama leads McCain nationally in 3 polls

Maybe y'all should be buying some Bling & Velour futures to offset those extra taxes you're gonna pay Republicans.

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To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

Milkman

The recent economic news and sense of negativity may likely help the challengers and hurt the incumbants.

We'll see. The polls nationwide could tighten in the next 13 weeks until the election, and in particular, battleground states. Hard to say at this point, though.

Butterfly

McCain is old, this will become apparent late in the campaign,

Bugs

I guess Obama is lucky it's called the presidential race and not the "commander-in-chief race":
ABC News: McCain Tops Obama in Commander Test

With these kind of numbers all Bush needs to do to get McCain elected is start another war somewhere else in late Oct or early Nov.

NYT: Obama isn't closing racial divide - The New York Times - MSNBC.com

And something seems fishy about these poll numbers - I haven't really looked hard at the numbers but it seems that only 30% of white's having a favorable opinion of Obama would not be enough to give him the kind of numbers he has in other polls?

Then again maybe they don't have a favorable opinion of Obama but would still vote for him over McCain?

Boon Mee

Heh... More Iraq war airbrushing, at the L.A. Times.

Boon Mee

Says it all, really: Time Publishes Definitive Puff Piece on Obama

"NEW YORK—Hailed by media critics as the fluffiest, most toothless, and softest-hitting coverage of the presidential candidate to date, a story in this week’s Time magazine is being called the definitive Barack Obama puff piece.

“No news publication has dared to barely scratch the surface like this before,” columnist and campaign reporter Michael King wrote in The Washington Post Tuesday. “This profile sets a benchmark for mindless filler by which all other features about Sen. Obama will now be judged. Just impressive puff-journalism all around.”

The 24-page profile, entitled “Boogyin’ With Barack,” hit newsstands Monday and contains photos of the candidate as a baby, graduating from Columbia University, standing and laughing, holding hands with his wife and best friend, Michelle, greeting a crowd of blue-collar autoworkers, eating breakfast with diner patrons, and staring pensively out of an airplane window while a pen and legal pad rest comfortably on his lowered tray table.

According to political analysts, the Time piece features the most lack-of-depth reporting on Obama ever published, and for the first time reveals a number of inconsequential truths about the candidate, including how he keeps in shape on the campaign trail, and which historical figures the presidential hopeful would choose to have dinner with.

“The sheer breadth of fluff in this story is something to be marveled at,” New York Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet said."

A little ahead of the curve here or what? It's downright frightening to think this fool could get elected.

'Time' Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Milkman

ChiangMai noon

is the onion a news source now booners?

wondered where you got your material.

Bugs

Looks like Obama has agreed to four debates – three for the presidential candidates and one for their VP’s. Hopefully all parties will agree to be a bit flexible with the format of the debates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us...te.html?ref=us


Some early reports on the so-called “shift” or even “flip-flop” on the offshore drilling by Obama were a bit over the top IMHO. All the man is saying is that he would agree to some offshore drilling as part of concessions to be made to get a broader energy bill passed. Good move as I see it, should almost completely take the heat off him on this issue. He can stand firm on that he opposes it, while at the same time not get beat over the head with the issue as he has already shown his willingness to compromise.
Obama says shift on drilling is practical step -- chicagotribune.com


An interesting bit brought to us by those folks across the pond:
Is Barack Obama too thin to win the White House? - Times Online
Will fat Americans vote for a skinny Obama?

Norton

Agree. McCain should go real easy on this one. He was a very strong opponent of offshore drilling in the not so distant past.

Slightly off topic but seems offshore drilling or for that matter any exploration should be a State (local) issue not a Federal issue? If Californians or Alaskans don't want it they should have the right to vote yea or nay.

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There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

Bugs

As I understand it that is basically what will happen once the federal laws against the drilling have been lifted. The Feds trump the state so there was no need for the states to even debate it as long as it was against the rules on a Federal level. As the Feds step away it will be up to the states to control what happens in each area.

Milkman

^ and ^^

Off-shore drilling

This seems like another election year issue.

If the off-shore drilling goes ahead, it'll be about 10 years before the oil hits the market. So, yes some oil (we don't know how much) will hit the US market, but it won't affect gasoline prices, IMO. Election fake issue. The US media has been discussing it in a shallow way for almost 4 weeks.

The serious problems that the US faces in not only energy costs, and these other more serious issues are not even discussed.

sabang

Great editorial from the NY Times- written by Bob Herbert, himself an Afro American. It says what Obama himself can not say, although I reckon he'd just love to.

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.
Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:
“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”

Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.
Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”

Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black. So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.
But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.
Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/op...th&oref=slogin

Yep.

Bugs

A 'Change' Election Changes the South | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

Quote:

CAMPAIGN 2008 Southern Discomfort A journey through a troubled region.

An interesting article that gives a bit of a picture of how things are in parts of the South. Me Mum and Da moved from the Midwest to one of the southern states near the Mason Dixon line not too long after I moved away to go to university. Even more than a decade later they are still known as “those Yankees” at the local corner store. Spending some time in the South with some good ol’ boys can be quite an interesting experience for one born and raised in the Midwest.

Must say some of the attitudes mentioned in the article are not specific to the South. Some of the roots of my family tree are based in a northern part of Appalachia and they would sooner cut off their hand than vote for Obama primarily because of the race issue. Ya'll should see the reactions out of some of them when I talk about my Thai partner.

Some snippets from the article:

Quote:

…the past wasn’t forgotten or forgiven so much as put aside while people got on with their lives and their business.

Anyone can see and experience this aspect of the South fairly easily.


My mom works at a bank in the South (interacts daily with lots of different folks) and this is one thing she has commented on several times. The number of folks that thought they were above racism and seem genuinely surprised that race has indeed factored in to how they will vote in Nov.


From the feedback I have gotten from me Mom it seems this is doing a bit of both, depending greatly upon the individual. Seems to mainly have magnified folks already ingrained ideas in regard to race.



These highlight an aspect of the race that actually finds me pulling for Obama at times. It would indeed me a monumental thing to have Obama win this thing and hopefully move the US another step towards better long-term race relations.

Quote:

…said he can’t bring himself to vote for Obama, either. Why? “Because I believe he is a Muslim,” said my cousin. Not so, I said. He was raised a Christian and is a practicing Christian. My cousin shook his head. “I just don’t believe him,” he said.

These two are examples of how regardless of the facts folks can and will support their own preconceived ideas and simply say say they don’t believe the facts are the facts. IMHO one of the main reasons the negatvie campaigning works.



Of course this is what Dent thinks because the N word is all he hears ringing in his feeble little mind whenever the O word is mentioned, or the M word for that matter. The thing is men like this still get a vote.

An interesting view of things, as I think almost the opposite. If the economy was not an issue/factor I think McCain would be leading in the polls right now.

This view of things bodes well for McCain and certainly is what McCain hopes people think – that he is not and will not be a third Bush term. To some degree I think McCain also is banking on some of the independents viewing him not only as not a third term for Bush policies but also “not a typical Republican”.

I think across the US there will be a growing battle by both the Blue and Red teams for the Brown vote. Before this use to be mainly a Southwest issue, soon is will be a nationwide issue.

Norton

I would add the general dissatisfaction, perceived or real, of the Republican Brand.