The 2008 Presidential Campaign (was Obama Phenomenon 2)

[halplm]

wow, didn't even know this, but The first joint event for Obama and McCain will be at my church!

http://saddlebackcivilforum.com/index.html

I may try to get tickets, but I imagine it's going to be quite the nightmare to actually be there. I'll probably just watch it online.

[Jnyusa]

[removed]

[sauronsfinger]

NPR thismorning had a pretty good story detailing a major change in the McCain campaign recently. Once, McCain used to give rather long press briefings with lots of give and take with the press. This was one of the things that made him so popular with the press during his 2000 campaign and again this time in the primaries.

But now, the Straight Talk Express runs on very short exchanges with the press and an official stands over everything to make sure only a specific topic is discussed and the candidate stays "on message". Don't you love that phrase?

And why the change? The spokesperson for the campaign said its the fault of the press. Far too often, they don't print the daily message and instead focus on the side issues that come up during the exchanges.

[vison]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Sorta like the guy who owns the village in the other thread, no?

I dunno, solictr. Sometimes you're droll, sometimes I believe you're a troll. If I thought for one minute that you actually swallow all the tripe you put down before us, flinging slop to the hogs, so to speak, I'd be worried about you as much as it's possible for me to worry about a stranger far away who demonstrates what, IMHO, are excessively odd attitudes. Be that as it may, as a Canadian I don't see commies under every bush. Domestic communism was never a threat to the USA, but it gave J. Edgar Hoover and his boyfriends enormous pleasure to pretend it was, and who am I to decry that? Even gargoyles like Hoover need some fun, and since it didn't bother Americans very much, I'm not going to let it bother me. It could be, indeed, that Mr. Obama is Red rather than Black, but I have my doubts. He's so much the embodiment of the American Dream that it's, like, weird, man.

I wonder why Americans are so terribly, oddly, weirdly fond of mediocrity in high office? Is it what the Australians call the Tall Poppy Syndrome, and that Maritime Canuckians call the Escaping Lobster? It seems natural in Aussies or Canucks, but Americans?

I think Mr. Obama is bound to disappoint some people at some point, but I also think Mr. McCain, the poor old geezer, won't even be able to rise to that height.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

wow, didn't even know this, but The first joint event for Obama and McCain will be at my church!

http://saddlebackcivilforum.com/index.html

I may try to get tickets, but I imagine it's going to be quite the nightmare to actually be there. I'll probably just watch it online.

hal, I would try to go, if I were you. How many chances do you get to see history made? When was the last time that the presidential candidates for the two major parties participated in an event like this (which is significantly different than the traditional presidential debates.

[halplm]

Yeah, I'll probably try to get tickets on Wednesday, but I'm not going to camp out for them or anything

I don't imagine Rick will be asking any tough questions, as I'm sure he wants to be buddies with whoever wins , but it will be nice to hear questions from someone I am familiar with, and can trust not to be in either guy's pocket

[JewelSong]

Hal, if you do manage to get tickets, please report on your impressions and on the event itself. I would be very interested in reading it!

[solicitr]

So I do not believe it is correct to say that National Socialism might be admirable even if Nazi Germany is not.

Where on earth did you get that from, Jny? I am utterly nonplussed. Did I ever distinguish between National Socialism and the National Socialist German Workers' Party? They're all one as far as I can tell.

More to the point-could you possibly imagine that I ...I... would ever find any flavor of Socialism admirable? It's yet another kind of Utopianism: Marxism-and-soda, rather than neat, but still infested with the same damnable Idealism that Fichte and Schelling bequeathed to Hegel and he to Marx. Beware the synthetic a priori proposition: it's a bill of goods.

Of course fascism was doomed to failure. So also communism. But before they went down they both of them created hell on earth.

Vison: Domestic communism never went anywhere. Worldwide? How many millions murdered? How much misery? It was vile, and I'm glad it's dead. Aren't you?

Fascism and Communism are the extreme, exemplative cases of utopian idealism as a political principle; but much less virulent cases are still infected by the same essential fallacy. It's a form of thinking antithetical to a free society, a pragmatic society, an empirical, diverse, disorganized, sloppy, practical, random, messy un-ideal society. In other words, a living society.

[Jnyusa]

[removed]

[solicitr]

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

--Thomas Jefferson

[halplm]

A helpful link for those that need to blow off steam:

http://www.umbrage.org/index.php

It's oddly satisfying

[River]

That was way too much fun...

[vison]

That was way too much fun...

Yes, it was a bit o' fun, wasn't it?

[sauronsfinger]

Jonathon Martin is reporting that both the current President and Vice President will be making speeches on the opening night of the Republican convention.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's interesting, sf. I had heard that Cheney would not be appearing, but I would not at all be surprised to learn that he was. It would seem very strange for the sitting VP not speak at the convention. Nor do I really believe that it will be damaging to McCain to have either the president or the vice president speak at the convention, as unpopular as they are, currently. I don't think that will serve to further tie McCain to them, and it may help energize the party.

[Túrin Turambar]

So I'm guessing we've seen the demise of John Edwards now? The Democratic Party must be thanking its lucky stars he didn't win the nomination.

[yovargas]

John Edwards admits to having an affair

Why is this something he has to admit to the public? Like, why do we need to know this? And more importantly, why would it matter to his career? To anyone outside his family? Weird...

[Primula Baggins]

Except it would matter. If he had won the nomination, it would have mattered enormously, especially if sprung as an "October surprise." Yes, ideally it should be a private family thing; Elizabeth Edwards has posted on Daily Kos that she's known about this since 2006 and they have been "working on it" and please leave them alone (this means the affair pre-dates the diagnosis of her returned cancer).

But it speaks to his character in a way I find personally disappointing, certainly, and it speaks to his judgment in a way that I do think ends his political career. He tried for the nomination, knowing this was there to be found, something that would surely have cost the Democrats another presidential election. The party won't forgive him anytime soon.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, it matters. It's the price you pay when you become a public figure. For many people, of course, it wouldn't affect their opinion of his ability to govern. But for many others, it does reflect badly on him. Particularly since he lied about it. It would be ironic if this someone negatively affects Obama's campaign, given that there is never been any rumor (at least that I am aware of) that he has been involved in any extra-marital affairs, whereas McCain has. But the difference between McCain and Edwards is that McCain (at least by the time he was running for president in 2000, I don't know about before), was upfront about his history, whereas Edwards flat out lied about it until the proof was incontrovertable. That's the main reason why I don't think that McCain's history should be an issue, but Edwards' should be. I'm disappointed, but not very surprised. I have long expressed my distrust for John Edwards.

[yovargas]

Oh, I know it would be an issue as far as getting elected. I just don't really get why it matters so much to so many. They're politicians, not priests. It should be nobody's business as far as I'm concerned.