Hadn't seen this discussed in the thread yet. The whole 'I have a bracelet too' comment by Obama seemed odd enough when he said it. It just seemed like something that was brought up knowing that McCain would mention it. Now we find out that the father of the soldier who Obama mentioned had asked him not to use his son's name as a campaign tactic.......

Article:

Political Punch

Interview with father where he mentions that he didn't want his son's name used for political purposes:

http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/...qwar5years.mp3

You left out something kind of important.

Nothing I posted was different than what you posted. The complaint was by the father and the mother said she was happy to hear the reference but wanted it all to go away. That's exactly what was in the article I posted and nothing was left out.

your snippet left that very important part out. I once tried, in this thread, to start only link to articles and got hammered on it eventhough my stance remains that most people dont read the long articles. If that was you joining me in the thought that people dont read them, than welcome. If not, than Im sure someone should equally point out how your choice of what to put out there, what you chose to summarize, and what you put in a link, makes things look.

Side topic related to Palin.

I REALLY would like to see the Republican strategists just let Palin speak freely. They're making such an effort to fill her full of knowledge on the issues and to avoid making a mistake that they're turning her into a robot that doesn't resemble her personality in any way. If they don't let her show her personality (which is her strong point), they're going to end up shooting this campaign in the foot.

I'm reminded of the Bob Dole campaign where they told him to 'act presidential' rather than just being himself. After the election, he was open and even funny in his appearances, leading most to wonder if the election would have gone differently if he would have acted like himself in the run-up to the election. We'll be thinking the same of Sarah Palin if they don't take the cuffs off soon.

Will she make mistakes here and there? Probably.

Will she be forced to say that she's not sure or isn't up to snuff on certain topics? Probably.

Is a free-speaking Palin better than the Palin robot? Absolutely.

"Did you think I didn't hear him?"

:)

If people don't read the info, that's their issue.

fine opinion. I think thus far, they have filled her with so much info and put on such trigger points of which talking point to react with, that she cant think. Whether or not that would be better I dont know, but Im glad we can agree that the few interviews she had have been disastrous.

Ok, so then you meant to spin it....cool. Glad I could put it back on even footing.

The debate is this week, which is why I mention this now. If they let her loose and she does well in the debate, people will quickly forget about those interviews and note that she did well against an experienced senator. If she tries to stick to the talking points, she'll fail miserably.

The expectations are so low that, like my opinion with McCain, if she even draws...she wins. Barring a Nascar like wreck I think most watchers will be 'disappointed' in a way. Should she win or draw the base will be empowered however Im, again, not sure it'll sway anyone. BTW I hope the format is better, the last one's format was uber-awful.

The problem is that she doesn't have much knowledge about national or world affairs. No style is going to cover that up. I've gotten to a point where I feel a little sorry for her. She's like an A-ball pitcher suddenly called to the bigs. She just doesn't have the knowledge or experience to handle a campaign at this level. If I were a Palin fan I'd worry that this campaign is tarnishing her brand to the point where she won't ever have another shot at national office.

LOL....I swear that I didn't read this before I made my post about Palin. I'm sure that my post validity will be diminished now that I find out that I'm thinking like Bill Kristol. :)

William Kristol: How McCain wins - International Herald Tribune

well said

Hey you've now you've played the ulitmate substantial discussion avoider, "I'm an offended Jewish person" tactic.

Flasch I wasn't trying to argue. I just saw a statement, and had to call "Bullshit".

I'm not asking for you to even substantiate the references. But if you say that "W" used the "Feds","Army", and "DoD" to intimidate those that shouldn't be intimidated, then I'd think you'd at least be able to produce a reference to each that you could believe in. As it is, I think you just threw it out there with zero substance.

Fair enough, I'm just sticking with my original assessment, "Bullshit"

The problem is, when she speaks freely they end up having to issue retractions as with her Pakistan comment this weekend.

That's exactly the kind of thing that Flasch considers a "lie", and "hypocritical".

Not the proper usage of either word, of course, but maybe I'm just behind the times.

And I covered that in my point. She's going to screw up here and there and that's something they'll have to deal with. But I contend that they have zero chance of winning the election if they continue to restrain her personality. They're better off letting her go. She's certainly not going to make any more stupid statements than her VP opponent on the Dem side. He's a walking contradiction and quote machine despite his 20-some years of experience.

Obama now has a 5 or more point lead in all national head to head polls but one. GW/Battleground Tracking is the black sheep with McCain up by 2.

Edit: I see now that larry already mentioned this.

Yeah, let give 3 days to operatives from both sides to ensure as many people who haven't followed politics get bribed to vote as possible. That's a great way to ensure quality elections.

In this process, why not just take 75% of your campaign money and hire a ton of "mercenaries" to take people to the polls. Maybe buy them lunch and give them a "propaganda onslaught" heading to the voting booth. Our elections would become even a bigger joke than they are now.

There are current exclusions for most employees and most polls open at 6 AM. So, if you work a job from 6 AM to 8 PM, you get a little screwed in the deal and need to get an early ballot. But everyone else has numerous opportunities (early AM, evening, vote absentee/early ballot, use the state "time to vote" option with your employer). All adding more day/time will do is allow more shenanigans from both sides to essentially "buy" elections.

so you'd really rather disenfranchise people?? :eek:

You just summarized what happens on a single election day in St. Louis every 4 years.

Thanks, Captain Overgeneralization.

anytime ;)

While everyone has the right to vote, there's a certain degree of responsibility involved. There are a ton of ways to ensure your vote is taken regardless of your circumstance. The easiest is to get an absentee ballot (I usually get one in the mail anyway), fill it out and take it to a mail box at your convenience.

• If you don't have access to a campaign center, you can get the material sent to you via online gov't sites.
• If you don't have access to the internet, you can use a public library.
• If you don't have access to a library, you can vote early in the morning.
• If you can't vote early in the morning, you can use the state statute to take off work to vote.
• If you are worried about losing your job and leaving early, you can go vote after your job.

If you don't have access to the internet, don't live next to a library or campaign center, can't vote early in the morning, can't take off work (even for your hour lunch), can't vote after work and don't know how to use the postal service to mail an early ballot, you just may not have the chance to vote and I guess you will be disenfranchised :p

I would much rather exclude the small percentage of people who really want to vote, but fall into the above situation (probably less than 1%) than make the election a 3-day "Tent sale" with used car salesmen getting as many uniformed people as possible into voting booths. I don't see how this country benefits from making every election the outcome of a random number generator.

I don't see how it would be worse than it is currently. If I want to spend all my budget on "street money" I still can. I'd also be fine with nationwide mail voting as in Oregon. It just makes little sense that we still vote the same way we did 200+ years ago.

171 more posts and we surpass the M-F thread...

I love how Democrats are, in this time of of economic crisis, trying to add all these silly things and bail out all the industries, and trying to show it's power. Both parties suck.

Unfortunately it puts them in a bit of a tough spot... Unless she suddenly picks up her game significantly, they're screwed with her either way at this point. But I guess with "maverick" decision making, you have to be willing to take bad results with the good.

Biden says dumb things, but there is a world of difference between Biden's stupid statements (saying FDR was president and television existed during the great depression) and Palin's (directly contradicting your pary's stance on Pakistan and not grasping the most basic issues during a softball interview).

very quickly so as not to waste too much of my time showing stuff that you'll throw in the trash:

Feds Intimidate War Protesters :: there it is . org :: pertinent pointers


http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nationa...s20071014.html

If that's disenfranchisement, then I'm with the disenfranchiser. Again, I don't want the election to be determined by who has the best ground game but by who (the people think) is the best candidate. And I have a hard time with the parenthetical part since it's a glorified high school popularity contest as it is to all but maybe 10% of the population.

SI

correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't McCain express support in the debate for continued funding of Star Wars??

and now we get this in Time magazine (no surprise to those of us who have been following along and realize what a clusterfuck the whole program is -- shit I don't think it'll ever work, it's money flushed down the drain at this point):

The Latest Star Wars Woes: Launching Fake Targets - TIME

I think he referenced it as being a major reason the US won the cold war. I think he is in favor of the current missile shield project (referenced in the Time article).

People need to really start looking at these advanced defense mechanisms as what they really are - glorified R&D for the pentagon (and eventually the private sector). If people don't want to do that, I can see that point. Still, there have been a ton of technological advancements (esp in the areas of satellite systems, communications and GPS) from these "star wars" projects. Much like with the original space travel projects, you have to look at more than just one finished product (in this case, a missile shield).

That said, I know McCain has hammered the administration/congress for Lockheed costs and I would think he would get more involved with the costs here as president. Here's a good article on some aspects of "bloated" defense spending with both McCain and Obama in mind:


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...5PA&refer=home

Not if you're the one getting the $$$. It goes in your pocket. And if you;re the person allocating the money, you likely get a commission.

I don't think we need to have three day voting, but I think all states should expand to early voting.

Also, no matter how backed up a precint may be, they should be required to stay open until everyone that got in line on time has a chance to vote. This is part of the problem in many inner cities which don't have enough polling locations or enough volunteers and run into really long lines.

Furthermore, any state that requires photo ID to vote must offer a free state ID. Otherwise, requiring an ID to vote amounts to a poll tax.

I think many states cover these options, but some do not and that leads to the complaints we get every 2 years.

As an Obama supporter I agree that the Republicans should let Palin speak more freely and more often.

:D

yeah, i know they're basically glorified R&D - just wish they'd abandon the pretense -- really the pretense of this "missile shield" is just getting us in hot-water internationally, so why not just drop the act.

good to see both men looking at out-of-control defense spending though

I think the reason that the GOP conventional wisdom this morning is that they need to "Let Palin just be herself" is because people don't like the Palin they have seen.* So, they have to spin that Palin as "not the real Palin." Which might or might not be true. But, if true, it means that McCain's campaign is basically saying "You guys would like the real Palin, and if we showed her to you, we would be more likely to win the election. But, we are forcing her to cover that person up and making her pretend to be someone who she is not who you guys will like less." Which begs a pretty obvious question.


*Not totally true, of course. A fair number of people like Palin just fine. She just seems to have fallen flat with the swing voters. If McCain loses this election, one of the big stories will have to be how a guy who was apparently (depending on who you believe) seriously considered to be Kerry's running mate four years ago managed to lose the center of the electorate. I have some theories on that, but they are all in a pretty proto form and not really fit for posting at this point. (And, hey, until November 4th, we won't know whether McCain really did lose the center or not. I'm not counting him out. This is a guy whose primary campaign was down to a stick of gum and a broken paper clip while we were all talking about Romney v. Huckabee but who managed to McGyver his way to the nomination. The lesson? Don't count out old Navy guys who are tough as shit.)

Has this been posted yet?

Report: 60 Million People You'd Never Talk To Voting For Other Guy | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Again, if you're the one getting paid, why would you be eager to stop it?

Electoral sites...

FiveThirtyEight - Obama 325.5-212.5
Electoral-Vote - Obama 286-252
Real Clear Politics - Obama 301-237

McCain rushed back and saved the deal? Just wanted some clarification on that. BTW bill failed market is cratering, to use McCain's lingo.

Today's Gallup is 50-42 and contains two days of post-debate polling.

still time to save the vote while it's open....Perhaps John can run over and sway the votes.

This will be an interesting discussion. The Democrats went out of their way to say that McCain didn't help anything and that the bailout bill was something that they brokered. Will they be taking credit for a bill that they can't even pass with a majority of both houses?

FWIW.......I think this bill failure is a good sign that the general Congress is starting to vote based more on their constituent's wishes rather than following the party lines. There was a ridiculous amount of public input against this bill being sent to Congressional offices and it appears that the majority of them were listening.

The market has recovered most of it's loss that it had during the vote.

and he didnt deliver the GOP....nuff said.

They didn't have to deliver the GOP. The Democrats couldn't even muster support within their own ranks. Blaming the GOP for the bill failure is humor at its finest. The Democrat leaders wanted GOP support so they could help shoulder the blame if this bailout failed. The result is that the GOP and roughly 20% of the Democrats decided they didn't want to be the ones to stick their necks out for this bill. I'm against the bailout, so I'm certainly glad to see this happen.

Stop spinning. McCain said he's 'rushing' back to make sure this happens, the negotiated through the weekend, and he didnt deliver the GOP as he 'rushed' back to do. spin it however you want, deflect it all you want but the matter is a FACT. IT IS A FACT!!!!!! Im watching it with my own eyes and have watched for 10 days. IT IS A FACT.

Why are the democrats not putting this to a vote. They have plenty of House and Senate support to pass it (even without McCain and the House republicans)?

If Obama/Reid/Pelosi is right and we are facing the worst economic crisis since the depression if it isn't passed, why wait for those "stubborn" house republicans?

I'm going to write this off as sarcasm. If you're serious.............

idk if you can blame it on the democrats.


More republicans voted against it than democrats. more democrats voted for it than republicans.

i think you have to blame it on this groundswell of public opinion you've been talking about.

1. Im shutting down my campaign to go make sure that the deal that ccomes through is one that we like, and passes and is good for the people

2. they work 24hours / day over the weekend negotiating

3. They come up with a deal that has bi-partisan support (dont make me get the quotes)

4. Deal fails 2-1 on the GOP side.

Where do you see the falsehood?

There is some interesting talk out there about how this is the classic prisoner's dilemma. Basically, this bill needs to pass. But it is unpopular with the public, so no one wants to be on record as voting for it. So, most every politician want the following: For the bill to pass but to have voted against it. But, of course, if everyone votes that way, then it won't pass.

Google prisoners dilemma and bailout bill. I am sure you can find a better summary of the situation than my ham-handed attempt.

The whole thing is a facinating view of applied game theory.

On some level, since Democrats have the votes, I wonder why they don't write and vote on a bill for which they would be willing to take the political heat. Instead of using $700 billion of taxpayer money, loan the money to the agency that will give it out, and pay back the loan with a temporary 0.25% tax on securities trades that will automatically expire after the loan is payed back with interest. People have speculated that such an approach would pay back the loan in 5-6 years.

To the contrary. I'm not blaming Democrats. I'm saying that the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves if they truly wanted this to pass, yet they failed to pass it with a pretty solid majority of the House. They had enough votes to pass this bill without getting a single Republican vote.

I would note that the backlash against earmarks has been pretty heavy of late. I'm guessing that the $25B earmark to the auto industry didn't help ease those concerns in the House.

Yep, unfortunatly the public sees it as a "giveaway" to banks but don't realize if they fail, they are going to suffer pretty damned badly. They just don't realize what their anger has done. :(

As Bob Schieffer said that prior to the last bill, only FOUR Republicans raised their hands when Paulson asked who was going to vote for the Bill. This is quite a bit more than 4 GOP votes for the new bill.

just to help you out MBBF

The spin is that Pelosi's speech was so partisan that it killed the GOP support. Pelosi trumped McCain.

Paulson had a roomfull of all the GOP members?

I need to read her speech. The GOP congressmen seem pretty ticked about it.

I had not heard that. My comments had nothing to do with that. I'm certainly not a fan of Pelosi, but I'll leave that for a Pelosi thread. :)

Regardless, it doesn't matter how many GOP members she did or didn't irritate. Her own party did not even fall in line behind her. This vote certainly is a power check for the Democratic leadership. They said they had a bi-partisan agreement in place. From the looks of the vote, there wasn't even a partisan agreement in place.

It's quite possible that Palin's made more stupid statements in the 4 weeks she's been in the limelight than Biden has made in his almost 3 decades of service at the federal level. :D

95 dems voted against it.

Now THAT is false. She may do some good work given a few years, but Biden has her covered overall. Given the chance, she may chase him down. :D

yeah. both of my parents are economists (dad has a phd) and they're really worried (as am i) that people are not seeing the full picture

My fix of your quote is equally right and evidence over the past 10 days are spot on with the events. You may not be wrong since it's your opinion but mine is equally right.

I don't think you understand the politics behind this. There was no way the democrats were going to force this through without republican support. It would have made them far, far too vulnerable.

You can criticize the dems for not just forcing it through, but I think that's unfair given the situation. Of the five major parties involved (executive, senate repubs, senate dems, house repubs, house dems), the house repubs were the only ones not on board. They have to take the bulk of the blame if this situation blows up due to inaction.

I wish Bloomberg had run. I think, if he did, would have a real opportunity to steal the show right now.

Dems are saying they brought more "yeah" votes than planned and that the reason it was that number was in conjunction with the planned amount from the GOP.

I assume that this is assumed to be worked out behind the scenes and the actual vote is just a stamp so.

GOP strategists are saying that this is 'devastating' to McCain because the economy drags on and the ideology of the GOP got us into this mess and now the GOP wont let us fix it. - CNBC

Interesting. I wonder if the GOP congressmen don't much care about this since McCain has trashed them in his attempt to become a change candidate.

You've obviously missed my point. I certainly understand exactly that. I stated that both sides were saving their own ass. My only point was that if they truly wanted to pass it, the Democrats certainly could have done that without any GOP support. They knew it was a flawed bill. I haven't blamed anyone. I said the Dems have to look at their own party if they want to assess blame since they couldn't muster support within their own party.

As I stated before, this has far more to do with the general public voicing their concerns. There's no one to blame. It's a lousy bill that didn't pass and I'm glad both sides saw that.

I won't bother throwing anything in the trash. I'm actually happy that you produced something that you could believe supported your position. I had begun to wonder.

I think has more to do with them just not wanting their name on this bill. This is going to be wildly unpopular among Republican rank-and-file, and there is only few weeks before their elections. A lame-duck congress would pass this in a blink.

If this gets much messier, the GOP may want to throw this election and let someone else dig out of this hole. :) I'm guessing that the challenger is going to have a great shot at getting elected in 2012 no matter who ends up in the White House.

When have they ever?

Barney Franks: "The Republicans are saying that someone hurt their feelings, and so they are punishing the country by not passing this bill? Tell you what, give me the twelve names that changed their vote, and I'll talk uncharacteristically nice to them."

The Pelosi was too mean argument is ridiculous. Vote for or against the bill, but don't try and blame your decision on a speech almost no one heard.

Again, when did Republicans become such pussies?

I don't suppose you'd like to give us their thoughts in a 3ish paragraph nutshell? QS put it perfectly either in this thread or the recession thread- (paraphrasing) we're all pretty intelligent people if we're arguing over the nuance of politics, but the entire economy is so big, it's hard to get your head around so there's no concept as to whether any number of forms of bailouts are a good idea or not.

SI

Reminds me of a political comic I saw during the primary where the Democrats realize how screwed up things are and decide they don't want the job, so they all drop out. The Republicans now realize they might win and that terrifies them so they call out the Democrats for being unpatriotic and abandoning America.

The other thing to consider is how much worse can things get? Things are bound to be better in 4 years than they are now (I sure as hell hope so), no matter who is in charge. If so, the incumbent may be able to coast to re-election a la Reagan in 84.

CNN is playing Pelosi comments. Yeah. She basically said this was all the White House's fault, and the party is over. Very bi-partisan.

fivethirtyeight.com notes that of the 38 incumbents in close races, the vote was 30-8 against, and pretty much among the others.

It reads pretty tepid to me, but I haven't heard the delivery.

talk to me after dinner tonight and i'll have more of a coherent thought fresh off their lips.

*shurg* Saying the dems didn't vote for it because its a flawed bill and that they couldn't muster support with their own party I think reveals that you don't understand the politics of the bill and why it failed.

not to play thread-police, but shouldn't the economic posts be in the recession thread?

That wasn't her speech. She doesn't address herself when speaking I'm pretty sure.

not when it effects the race so much, IMO.

Yeah, this is more about the political fallout. The direct financials are the other thread.

I don't think Pelosi's speech was a very good idea, but since when did Republicans take over as the party of whiners? They should be voting on whether or not the bill is good for the country. If Pelosi's speech really did affect their vote, then that's pretty sad. What happened to the tough, take no prisoners Republican party that we've seen since 1994?

People talk about Republicans abandoning their conservative principles, but now it seems like they've abandoned their testicles too.

That's been gone for a long time.

As far as I can tell that's the main portion of her remarks. Maybe there was an intro that wasn't included, but that's certainly the bulk of what she said.

Well from what I've seen on google finance ...

Sovereign Bancorp, Inc. SOV -69.06% 1.72B
National City Corporation NCC -58.22% 1.20B
Genworth Financial, Inc. GNW -40.91% 2.08B
Fifth Third Bancorp FITB -38.12% 5.78B

Now bearing in mind the last banks to post drops like that folded within days its looking like it'll be a lively few days unless some sort of rescue plan is passed promptly.

awful awful timing to have a Jewish holiday ;)

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

Sorry, but that's too much for my cynical self to let pass. Good for the country? Congresscritters? Are you f'ing kidding me?

I was just reading about National City (since it owns my mortgage), and they were saying that this was ridiculous. They are not as deep in the sub-prime as Wamu, and that they were still fluid. Of course, now the stock has lost half its value, either someone will swoop in and swallow it, or people will get scared and pull their money, and they will fail.

:)

Well sure, but they could at least fake it. I'm just surprised that they've taken the whiner approach. This is not the party of Karl Rove anymore.

They're out Democrat-ing the Democrats. This is bad for McCain, not only because Economics is something he's getting killed on being in the news for.. but...

http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...845325,00.html

But the candidate with the most riding on Monday's vote is McCain, who backed the concerns of conservatives in the House over the initial agreement. "John McCain stood up for House Republicans," said Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican who was involved in early negotiations. "He stood up to the Administration. John McCain vastly improved this bill."

But if a majority of the House Republicans don't vote for the measure, McCain could lose political face. "If McCain cannot persuade them, it is hard to portray him as a leader," said Clyde Wilcox, a political science professor at Georgetown University.

I heard exactly the same about WaMu just before it went down ... bah now I'm spreading 'fear' just like the media, but to be honest I think most of the recent bank 'failures' have been failures of confidence not of the banks themselves.

All it takes now is the rating agencies looking at the share price drops and downgrading those banks (as happened with WaMu) and hey presto, instant failures/cheap purchases for the surviving banks ...

She ad-libbed.

Most Emailed News Stories

Yeah, that was the part they played on CNN and pissed the GOP off.

She did this time...

YouTube - Dems for Bailout: Pelosi #1 "anything goes mentality"

What IS the full picture? I'm an economics light weight...I go to work and get a paycheck. I have no stock invested in any mortgage or financial institution, I don't have a mortgage, I don't work for a mortgage or financial institution, so I'm not sure where "I" fall into all of this.

I'm having a hard time of: "Separating the chaff from the whey?" or however that saying goes, to put it simply.

If it's only going to be hard for a year or two (if there is no bailout), then I say, "F" em, too bad. If this will indeed cause millions of jobs to be lost, then let's get this bailout rolling.

If you or anyone could point me to a link or something that explains this mess in laymans terms (without the politics), that would be awesome.

Millions of Jobs lost
Millions of homes in Foreclosure
More bad assets on the books everywhere
Small business failings left and right as credit becomes unavailable
Major business failings on a lesser scale but prominent as theyll be unable to get new debt or refinance old

Basically an entire seizure of the engine.

Pain on a scale we havnt seen in our generation.

IMO, w/ the bailout as its stated, if implemented as I see it, the engine will slow to a crawl and standards will rise but the engine will be able to be restarted. W/o it you'll suffer pain and a lot of it, until someone comes up with an FDR like way of starting the economy again (with the world economy as a little help).

the above is only my opinion.