McCain vs Obama, round 2
Matthew Leverton

It's a town hall "debate" tonight. Basically it means a bunch of canned responses to pointed questions.

Question #1: How is the government going to bail out us nearly retired people who are losing our investments and retirement funds?

Obama doesn't answer the question.

Neither does McCain, but he does stroll around and say the questioner's name about ten times.

ReyBrujo

I know! People buy US Treasury bonds, and the Treasury gives the money to the US reserve, which in time gives the money to the banks who lost all the money. Balance again, and everyone is happy!

Mark Oates

Oh shit! I forgot!

... watching ...

McCain looks like he has a wooden right hand.

Obama doesn't seem to be doing to well.

Tom Brokaw's not sounding too good these days :-/

nonnus29

Sounds like the Big News out of this debate will be: McCain Proposes $300 billion Plan to Stabilize the Housing Market.

Matthew Leverton

I fell asleep during it. 8-)

I thought they both did a good job.

nonnus29
Quote:

I thought they both did a good job.

Ahh, the Obama-McCain rock-em sock-em robot dream.... That's a good one.

:D

Edit:

Hot off the presses: ACORN offices in Nevada raided for voter fraud:

.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_el_pr/voter_fraud_probe

Obama had deep ties with ACORN in the past.

Thomas Fjellstrom
Quote:

Obama had deep ties with ACORN in the past.

Can you back up that claim?

ReyBrujo

Not right now, but I am sure Palin will be able to supply them tomorrow.

Edgar Reynaldo

I haven't looked up whether Obama worked with or for ACORN, but take a look at the mission statement for the group :
About ACORN

Quote:

Voter participation: Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote.

Other highlights include getting the minimum wages raised in several states, first time homeowner mortgage counseling and foreclosure prevention assistance, working to eliminate predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders, and other good deeds.

They sound like a bunch of real villains, helping fight for the rights of low and middle income citizens. ::)

Without evidence of actual impropriety on Obama's part, what is the point of saying that he's had deep ties to ACORN in the past just after saying some of their offices are currently under investigation? At best, it is cheap gossip, and a waste of time to insinuate he was potentially involved with a select small group of possibly unintentional participants in fraudulent voter registration. Considering they've helped 1.7 million people to apply to register to vote, are a few hundred improper registrations even statistically relevant?

I haven't watched the debates tonight yet, but I have them taped to watch tomorrow.

Thomas Harte

McCain really needs to land a knock-out blow sometime soon. But maybe we're all underestimating him — maybe he's sitting on something explosive and waiting until, say, November 3 to come out with it?

Anyway, per SurveyUSA who have been the most McCain-friendly pollster and were still predicting an extremely narrow McCain victory until today:

Quote:

Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released 11 days ago, Obama is up 2 points; McCain is down 4. 17% of Republicans cross over to vote for Obama; 12% of Democrats cross over to vote for McCain; independents favor Obama by 16 points. Among men, Obama leads by 11 points. Among women, Obama leads by 19. Obama leads by 39 points among Hispanics, by 63 points among blacks. Among whites, Obama and McCain are tied.

Don Freeman

It was kinda funny how Obama was talking of attacking Pakistan and then McCain said pretty much that he wouldn't announce his moves to the enemy. Not even five minutes after hearing this Obama was back saying stuff like that again... The boy has NO common sense when it comes to foreign policy. YOU DO NOT GO PUBLIC ABOUT WHO YOU MIGHT ATTACK! That is just stupid! Especially with someone that is suppose to be an "ally" on terror! Yeah, it might be true that we would attack Pakistan or cross into Pakistan if they would not help deal with Al Qaeda...but do not go to the public with this...you don't tell a foreign country publicly these things, at least not in this context. Totally wrong and totally lacking foreign policy! He pretty much made a laughing stock of Pakistan in front of the world....just not right.

Edit:
You do it a little more subtle like sell more nuclear material to their arch nemesis, India!;D

Thomas Fjellstrom

heres an interesting site I just learned about: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Its calling for a 89.2% chance of Obama taking the office.

And its all done using pure statistics. They even take the bias out of the polls.

Thomas Harte
Quote:

McCain said pretty much that he wouldn't announce his moves to the enemy.

Irrespective of Obama's position or wisdom, surely the logical consequence of that is that he won't be announcing his moves to the American public either, i.e. he's asking for a mandate to just invade places and tell people about it later? Is it even possible to get Congress or the House to vote on something without it being pubilc knowledge?

Thomas Fjellstrom

Just do what Bush did, ignore the House and Congress :)

Matt Smith
Quote:

YOU DO NOT GO PUBLIC ABOUT WHO YOU MIGHT ATTACK! That is just stupid! Especially with someone that is suppose to be an "ally" on terror!

It's bad timing to do it in the current US public mood, but the "Axis Of Evil" served BushCo's purposes well.

axilmar
Quote:

It was kinda funny how Obama was talking of attacking Pakistan and then McCain said pretty much that he wouldn't announce his moves to the enemy. Not even five minutes after hearing this Obama was back saying stuff like that again... The boy has NO common sense when it comes to foreign policy. YOU DO NOT GO PUBLIC ABOUT WHO YOU MIGHT ATTACK! That is just stupid! Especially with someone that is suppose to be an "ally" on terror! Yeah, it might be true that we would attack Pakistan or cross into Pakistan if they would not help deal with Al Qaeda...but do not go to the public with this...you don't tell a foreign country publicly these things, at least not in this context. Totally wrong and totally lacking foreign policy! He pretty much made a laughing stock of Pakistan in front of the world....just not right.

It depends on the war tactics. Sometimes announcing an attack is good, sometimes it is not. For example, announcing an attack may scare the enemy which might do some unexpected moves.

The worrying fact is that no president speaks about withdrawing the US army from around the world and stop wars. They both speak of war as if it is the easiest thing in the world.

And before you say 'war on terror', I might point out that there is no terrorist threat for USA or Europe, and most terrorist acts are done in Asia or Africa. Of course, there is 9/11, which makes me wonder who was really behind that, since Al Qaeda has never dared set foot in USA or Europe (various 'incidents' in Europe are done by groups that declare affiliation with Al Qaeda, but they are not actually Al Qaeda).

nonnus29
Doubting Thomas said:

Can you back up that claim?

http://www.google.com/search?q=obama+acorn

Ooooh, that was sooo hard.... :P

Thomas Harte
Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?q=obama+acorn

Ooooh, that was sooo hard....

Just to be clear, because you haven't explicitly spelt it out and I don't want to misunderstand what you're saying, your point is that Obama was once highly involved in ACORN and ACORN may be a dodgy operation as evidenced by a the recent raid? I'm right to suppose that you aren't alleging that Obama was in any involved in that specific part of ACORN or is directly linked to voter fraud?

Matthew Leverton
Quote:

YOU DO NOT GO PUBLIC ABOUT WHO YOU MIGHT ATTACK!

Do you realize that Palin made the same comments about Pakistan that Obama did? Palin said, "We would cross into Pakistan to get Bin Laden regardless if we had the support of the Pakistani government." McCain then defended her, because he had to. But this is precisely what Obama is talking about.

Comments like that are why I don't like the debates. Both sides do it.

McCain knows Obama wouldn't really announce an attack against Pakistan in any situation that McCain wouldn't himself. But he keeps repeating the line over and over again. If you say something long enough, people eventually believe it. Yet McCain and Obama have exactly the same stance on this issue.

From electoral-vote.com:

Quote:

A CBS poll poll of 516 uncommitted voters taken just after the event showed that 40% thought that Obama won and 26% said McCain won. On the all-important issue of the economy, Obama got a boost. Before the event 55% thought he would make the right decisions on the economy; afterwards it was 68%. McCain also gained strength, going from 41% to 48%. On the issue of who best understands the voters needs, Obama went from 59% to 80% and McCain went from 33% to 44%.

CNN also ran a poll of 675 adults and also concluded that Obama won. Here 54% said Obama performed better and 30% said McCain did. The people polled thought Obama was the more intelligent person by 57% to 25% and expressed his views more clearly 60% to 30%.

The bad economy is causing fewer people to care about the war, which is McCain's strength. If the uncommitted voters are saying Obama won that debate (which to me had no clear winner), then I think it's obvious that this election has only a single topic: the economy.

Bob Keane

I think it was a mistake to say America will invade Pakistan. It will only offend Pakistan and encourage the terrorists to say another Muslim country is being threatened. Just look at Bush's "Bring it on" statement.

Thomas Fjellstrom
Quote:

Ooooh, that was sooo hard....

Thats not actual proof, and you have shown no wrong doing by ACORN or Obama.

Thomas Harte

Hmmm, pollsters pretty conclusively give the third debate to Obama but McCain's polls are improving. Obama's down to a 3–5% national lead, after being at more like 5–10% a week ago. And states like Florida that seemed to be turning solidly blue are heading back into competition.

26 days to go, according to my quick calendar glancing!

Matthew Leverton

"Winning" debates has not had much effect on polls in recent elections.

Bob Keane

According to this map

and this article four of the six states having registrations contested are either democratic or leaning democratic, Nevada among them. Maybe the Republicans are suppressing their right to vote? Or is it part of the ACORN plot? Nevada has corrected the problem BTW.

Thomas Harte

Yeah, just wait until all the Democrats who have otherwise not voted since 2006 get along to the voting booths and discover that they've been deregistered.

On my way to work I overheard an American say to the other "If McCain wins then I'm going to have to leave the US". I decided not to ask the obvious follow-up question.

Mark Oates

What's follow-up question? I said that to somebody the other day.

Matthew Leverton

I suspect it has something to do with TH not working in the US.

Thomas Harte

I'm pretty confident that London hasn't legally merged with the US, not matter how obsessed I and others have become with American politics. South African politics are also rating highly, so I guess that's acting as a counter weight.

Otherwise, I've just read that the real Sarah Palin will be on Saturday Night Live on October 25, and Obama has bought 30 minutes of prime time CBS for programming not yet disclosed on the evening of October 29. Think they'll be more influential than the debates?

Mark Oates

More influential than my vote, that's for sure.

Thomas Harte

I thought New Mexico was a battleground state? Or is it one of the ones that McCain has just pulled out of to play Bush-2004-electoral-college-result defence?

EDIT: to explain, a lot of the state specific parts that are put into election stories sometimes fail to sink in as, like most non-Americans I think, I don't know which two letter code goes with which state when they're non-obvious.

Mark Oates

You're right, it's New Mexico. My most recent checks show that NM in the blue.

Matthew Leverton

Don't worry, half of Americans think New Mexico is a country. It will be a close contest there.

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