Your Intelligence Solicited
Tell me why I should vote for Senator McCain or Senator Obama.
I don’t want to hear about ACORN or Ayers.
I don’t want to hear about age or less elegant speeches.
I want to hear your objective, reasoned analysis as to your views as to the preferred next president.
I’m about to get on the Obama train. Tell me I’m right or wrong. But don’t argue, convince. Facts, not allegations. History, not distortions. Passion is OK but it has to be predicated in logic.
I'd especially like you to confirm or rebut my fear that a Democratic President with a Democratic Congress is a risky thing.
Thank you.
24 comments:
When discussing political matters with my liberal friend(s) I just ponder this old Axiom:
"Silence is golden...Duct tape is silver.
Works with "I'm Switzerland (inside joke to the rest of you)" but not with my question.
Come on, it's a slow Sunday, give me facts, analysis. Convince me.
I'm voting for Nader, myself.
I don't see any real differences between the Democrats and Republicans. The rhetoric is different, but somehow the policies always end up the same.
(Blogger won't let me log in for some reason. I'm not sure why.)
with Pelosi as House leader and Reid as senate leader the prospect of a socialist leaning liberal democrat as president send shivers down my wallet.The wealth they want to spread comes from those of us who have earned it. I'm all for charity,but I like to choose my own recipients. As you know I give a lot to unwed mothers and young college co-eds trying to better their lives. I would hate for them to lose their "scholarships".
I cannot, nor will not, rebut that claim. One of the things that manages to keep this county from teetering over the brink is checks and balances.
Although controlling both the congress and the presidency is a complete wet dream for both parties, it is rare that it happens. Because we like having our congress and president at odds. It prevents either congress or the president from running away with the country undeterred.
As for convincing you to vote one way or another... that's not my department.
But if you do what I did -- rate each candidate on each of the issues that matter to you, hopefully the answer will come clear.
At any rate, it really doesn't matter, as you are but a drop of water in the ocean of mediocrity that is our wonderful country, so vote however you want. :)
No one can predict what will happen during a given presidency. The only people with the relevant experience are those running for re-election. Therefore, you have to judge the candidates by other qualities that you think are important - not just their resume.
I'll be voting for Obama because I believe he has the intellect, knowledge, and temperament that I think are necessary to handle the inevitable crises that will come up. (Colin Powell actually said this very well today.) I want a president that is calm, cool and collected. I want someone who will consider the situation before acting, to the extent that time is available. I want someone I trust to make the correct decision.
Based on the way I have seen the campaigns run, and how the candidates have reacted to the financial crisis, I think that Obama is the one who is the most presidential. I used to admire McCain, but he seems to have abandoned every quality that made him special and appealing. The relentless negative campaign tells me nothing about what he plans to do should be be elected. His selection of Palin, who so obviously is not prepared for the VP or presidency, was the nail in the coffin as far as McCain ever getting my vote.
There is something to be said for divided government, but that is not a strong enough argument for me to change my opinion about who should head the executive branch.
Fermicat has expressed it as well as it can be expressed. The gridlock in Congress must be broken in order for us to move forward.
I admire Sen. McCain for his status as a Vietnam Vet, POW and once in a blue moon, for his so-called "maverick" attitude. Sen. Obama, I like for his ability to talk to the ordinary people and also, for his intellect which shows he can walk and work with those who are of different cultures, higher educational status, etc. If you like the Bush years, then think totally of voting for McCain because the majority of his ideas run along those lines.
Frankly, whether Congress and the Senate or loaded up with Democrats or Republicans, as long as it is the same old faces there, the same old stuff will be forthcoming, in my humble (hah) opinion! Just more words, more pork, more absurdity all too often.
McCain=hothead, irrationality, based on his choice of Palin for a running mate for openers. Obama=cool, suave, a thinker, able to deal in a diplomatic manner.
McCain=so-called "Pro-life" yet also for the death penalty, isn't he? A bit of an oxymoron there, me thinks. McCain=more potential for ultra conservatism in the Supreme court -like we need more of that too, right?
I see too many incongruities with McCain that I guess my liberal leanings feel don't exist with Obama -or perhaps, some would say those are my liberal blinders I wear. Maybe so. But, I do believe a "Change" is really necessary and Obama would, indeed, be that.
I have no illusions about Barack Obama. For progressives, he's a holding pattern at best - I expect an Obama administration to break little new ground. But the Republican Party has gone so far off the deep end that unless they change radically I can't see myself voting for a Republican for national office for many years to come.
Politics today is a team sport. Not only are you voting for a President, you vote for all their advisors and everyone else who'd be hanging on with them. With Obama, labor, civil rights advocates and other progressives would at least be able to get in the office and talk to him. (Whether he'd listen is another matter.) But with McCain, they'd never get past security. A vote for McCain is a vote for Gingrich, Rove, Armey, and the rest of the Repulican crazies. Not to mention his "good friends" John Hagee and G. Gordon Liddy.
What America needs at this point is an administration that has a mature attitude towards government, one that understands that government can be used to better the lives of average citizens. We don't need another administration that cynically mouths the platitudes of small government while letting its cronies loot everything that isn't tied down.
Fermi and Jeni also made several excellent points.
Ira Chernus (thanks to my buddy the Farmer for this one):
A President Obama might have to spend most of his political energy just preventing things from getting worse. But that should be reason enough to support him.
More than that, a Democratic victory -- especially when the Democrat is an African-American -- would move the political center back toward the left, not nearly far enough, but quite perceptibly. It would create an opening for real change and a mood of expecting change, as Kennedy's election did in 1960. We on the left could channel our energies into pushing the Democrats in our direction -- which is precisely what the theory of community organizing tells us to do.
If Obama and the Dems fail to fulfill the expectations for change, they could trigger the same kind of grassroots activism in the streets that we saw in the '60s. At least the possibilities would be there.
A McCain victory, on the other hand, would reverse the current leftward creep of the political center. It would create a huge impression that America really is an immovably conservative country, which would foster the expectation that nothing will or can change for the better. Once again, we'd all have to put all our energy into merely preventing the very worst. That kind of negative politics has been the hallmark, and the curse, of our national life for some 35 years now.
It's time to move forward again.
I'm in the Obama camp but not without reservations. However, I found Colin Powell's explanation for his support to be one of the best I've heard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv3Vr8T9MA&eurl=http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs_display?sub=13045813&site=407900
This is a center right nation that will lurch significantly leftward with the election of a collectivist chief executive and congress. The revenues required to fund such a government will make you nostalgic for the incompetent feckless hypocritical old anti-Semite Jimmy Carter. Most importantly, this may be the final assault on the productive among us.
Domestic and foreign capital will seek investment elsewhere, as the productive are punished for industry, inventiveness, and success. By the way, private charity in the USA is staggering when compared with that of governments around the world. Those generous wallets will be less full with the hands of the Democrats grasping for the dollars. The tax burden now of the productive is disquieting at best.
The current financial crisis is the creation and problem of government aided and abetted by those who should know better. The implicit guarantee of government somehow made "toxic" debt securities and instruments seem benign. Remember, "junk bonds" were junk for a reason and long before they failed and had no value.
Housing for us all is laudable ideal, but it does not suspend the laws of business or of capital. CCC - credit, character, and capacity - as rules of lending have never been more important. Carter started this train wreck and each successive congress and executive added to the coming wreck with pressure to lend. That congress measured compliance by number of loans made to target groups and not by those that succeeded should tell you all about what is to come with a collectivist government.
Just imagine giving Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi your permission to hold your wallet and future. Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. This bailout of a government created pig's breakfast is pitiful. It is not unlike continuing to drink at the bar to avoid the bill and the hangover. Last call will come, and Dave, the bill is yours to pay.
Sure, Wall Street coyly used the implicit guarantee of Frannie and Freddie and securitized all manner of debt and risk of default, but that is cured easily without making us - Europe. Wall Street invented the securitization of everything since we are no longer an industrial or manufacturing nation but all service industries, 'super size those crisps, Dave, Sir?' Such an economy needs fewer investment bankers so work and profits were invented with little regard for the purpose and need or the forseeable consequences of the securities.
Wall Street must be allowed to feel the thin end of the wedge like the rest of us even those who played low interest rates and ever increasing housing prices to flip residences. Protecting Wall Street and the house flippers is the wrong approach. Better to fund commercial paper directly by the Treasury than thru Wall Street. The problem is a lack of 90 day credit instruments to fund this nation's economy. Fund it directly and let those who deserve it fail.
A congress and executive that is unrestrained for years will be unstoppable and a republican administration has done the heavy philosophical lifting for them and cannot complain as we go the way of collectivist regimes. Socialism has failed everywhere else in case that has escaped ones notice. Yet, like the old leftist, some still yearn just to try since with us socialism will be different and will succeed. And, if pig's could fly, there would be bacon hanging from the trees.
The established republican party is a disaster and will be no deterrence to the collectivists. Big government conservatives combined with those with social, religious, and foreign policy agendas in a now rapidly dissolving alliance. Also, the GOP has decided that it is a party of incumbents and not of government and or of opposition. The rules that favor incumbents and hypocritically carved up districts to disfavor white male democrats in favor of African Americans and Republicans is clear enough. Eldridge Gerry is smiling in his grave.
The Reagan alliance has been betrayed and will realign. Capitalism is under assault in the last place it should expect a fight. See, please, the lead editorial in the most recent THE ECONOMIST. Here, is the link;
"http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?source=most_commented&story_id=12429544"
I have opted for a new political party as of now we number our members at 1, but expect to grow. We are capitialists, libertarians, and rationalists.
The point is that there will be no party of opposition and the only opposition will be a president that has the center right nation with him that realizes that too many faddists and feckless made a choice of style rather than a choice of government. No one of us would select a lawyer, doctor, roofer, or best friend this way.
Electing John McCain is the only option for those who think, who care about the future, who oppose those who have made the mess being around to manage the clean up on the nation's aisles. His natural sense of western libertarianism and capitalism will slow if not halt the coming destruction of a nation as good as any ever to have existed and one that deserves a more noble fate.
Vote Obama.
Reasons include
- we need government spending that works like an investment and can yield returns (think green economy and the many jobs to be created there)
- we need a good conservative party again and until the Republicans are made clear losers, they won't duct tape the neocons and theocons voices. The Republicans need to be transformed and that is not going to happen as long as they still win elections.
- this is a world of multi-lateral requirements. We can't go it alone.
- Iraq is not the best investment we can make of $10 billion a month, much less 1,000 lives a year.
-Obama has a great economic team (includes Buffet and Volker)
Off of the top of my head, these are the major reasons.
The major arguments for each side have been made here already. Some more reasoned that others but made none the less.
At this point I believe it is all moot. Obama will be our next president and all those who have been hoping for something "historic" will get their wish. But look out.
The founders saw the wisdom of checks and balances. Imagine again the world of Pelosi, Reid and Obama ganging up and selecting Supreme court justices that will likely come up in the next 4 let alone an unfettered path to create spending programs that buy more votes and further the slide toward an even more socialism.
Rick has it right - wealth redistribution is the goal and before you start the liberal chants let me ask -- How many of you have forgone all tax deductions and sent in the full amount plus a little bonus check to the IRS to fund your favorite welfare recipient? My guess is very few. Much easier to be generous with other folks money than your own.
Some observations of the observations:
-JCT has it right, period!!
-Cool, suave and diplomatic don't necessarily mean 'thinker'
-Obama resonates with ordinary people because he says what they 'want to hear' rather than what they need to hear.
-McCain is about as far from "ultra conservative" as you can get without being liberal. He is pro-life in defense of the inocent new lives. He is pro-capital punishment for those who chose the path they took.
- Ron D is dead on about needing to wakeup the GOP. Two years of Pelosi, Reid and Obama will do more for the party than anything. (note that I list Obama last. Do you think that experienced legislators like Reid and Pelosi let a "junior" senator tell them what to do?)
Thanks to Dave for providing such a stimulating topic.
Sorry for the typo's above. Speed and quality don't always mix.
A President whose platform is to raise taxes is poison to our economy, especially in this climate.
A President whose first instinct is the US when a Security Council member invades another country is beyond ignorant and naive.
I don't want the President to need ont the job training and Obama clearly does.
Carter was "measured" and had the right "temperment". The situation today is scarily reminiscent of 1976 and that was a disaster.
We are in debt and going further in debt, Obama wants to spend spend spend (just like Bush has done). McCain will spend, but less than OBama. More spending is a BAD idea.
I really don't see how anyone can be undecided at this point. Like another post said, look at the issues which matter to you and vote for the candidate that best meets them.
Anyone who is still undecided a week before Election Day, please don't vote.
No brainer. First of all, a Democrat Congress and a Democrat President is very frightening, given the history of the party and their continuing foray into risky and radical liberal behavior. Having that much unchecked power is the basis for your argument.
The real question is whether you want a socialistic society or a successful capitalistic society. Simply put, taking from those who spend their lives working hard to be successful and giving to those who depend on the government is socialistic in every aspect. This has nothing to do with the definition of rich, as we have extremes on both ends of the spectrum. Farmers, small business owners and many others who fall into this category will pay unnecessary taxes in order to fund more undeserved entitlement programs. When you penalize these people, what is the incentive to grow, add jobs and provide growth? If the Democratic party succeeds in their goals, we will see more companies move jobs overseas and move toward greater automation to prevent being taxed by our government.
Our goal should be to take every measure to ensure that the US economy is incented to grow and create more jobs. This will not happen under Obama and the Democrat Congress since they want greater union involvement and that means more companies closing or moving offshore.
You asked for facts and these are steeped in history with a new President (Obama) who would be at the mercy of Reed and Pelosi and the power players who are calling the shots.
Socialism or Capitalism. The choice is yours.
I say McCain only because he has military experience and we are a military nation
More essential reading on the general subject.
The choice between socialism and capitalism is no choice, as neither exist in pure form, nor can they.
I respect the arguments of the free-market apologists, but I've got to tell you that the Republican Party represents what you believe little more than the Democrats do. Republicans and Democrats are agreed upon the necessity of big government; their chief disagreement is what big government should be used for. One reason I don't support Republicans is because every election cycle, they bamboozle millions of Americans with small-government, budget-cutting rhetoric that they have no intention of ever acting upon.
I agree with Dr Sar..; Republicans have let us down. However I don't see the logic in not supporting them because they haven't delivered on smaller government.
So rather than support the candidate that promises smaller government but may not deliver we should support the candidate that promises bigger government and will likely over deliver????
Thanks for all of the comments. To my conservative friends, I'm not convinced that Obama will spend us into the grave even with the help of Reid and Pelosi, though I'm still uncomfortable with the prospect.
I'm also not convinced that McCain will not further expand government intrusion into our lives and won't spend money that we don't have. As Thomas and Doc and others on the liberal side of this debate have said, Republicans talk small government and spending cuts and then emulate Democrats in their levels of intrusion and spending. (I know Thomas, you aren't a liberal or a Democrat, but you're damn sure not a Republican.)
That said, the Dems have my heart; but, my heart often wants what my wallet can't afford. Therein lies my dilemma.
Dave - read my last sentence in post above again and think about your logic. As a negotiator you should understand that accepting 100% of what you don't want because you can't get 100% of what you do want doesn't make sense.
Also - it appears that your blog has a larger conservative following than is usually evident.
Neither McCain nor Obama are "good" choices. I believe that's why so many Americans are finding the choice so hard, and why the polls are so close. When you have to vote for the "lesser evil" when you vote for President, that's a sign of the times that our political climate is messed up. I voted for McCain because the Democrat led government has destroyed the housing market and a Democratic President will, without a doubt, continue to destroy a poorly managed budget.
It's unfortunate that the media has continued to do what they do and destroy the fairness and balance required at these critical times. Too many people are considering voting the way they may, due to bastardized reporting. So sad.
Hey Eric, though I'm probably on the other side, I can disagree that the media has done us a disservice by its coverage.
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