What you are about to read if you choose to is my personal perceptions. They are in no way indorsed or necessarily reflect the views of the DNC, GOP, FEMA, FBI, CIA, CDC, NFL, MLB, NBA or any other member of the alphabet soup brigade.
At the start of this year I had pretty much made up my mind that for the first time in my voting history I was willing to disregard the GOP out of hand. I personally feel that this administration will need to have 2 or 3 administrations completely tank it sometime in the future for them to fight their way out of the bottom 5 worse presidents in history. Up until the run up for the congressional elections a couple of years ago the GOP was pretty much rubber stamping whatever Bush asked for. The GOP has had the White House for 20 of the last 28 years and they have controlled congress for most of the last 17 years. I feel that the party has gotten away from what I thought was some of the core beliefs that I happened share. I’m not going to get bogged down in these because as I said at the outset this is my perception and it really has no relevance to the thoughts I am putting forth here. Besides, as I continue on you may get an idea what some of them are.
I felt that the GOP was bound and determined to continue marching to the beat of the drummer from the far right. They had only one guy on the ballot that I could see myself voting for and his chances of getting the nomination were about as good as Edwards getting the Democratic nomination. To my shock he wound up taking the nomination. Now I had to go back and rethink this.
At this point I was looking at this as a can’t lose election from my point of view. Let’s face it; the bar with Bush in office is not set very high. I also think that as much as we as a country believe we drive world events I think that some of these events are going to be driving us no matter who is in office. Both of these men in my opinion were qualified to be president and although they have differing views to achieve the same goals I see the possibility that we can take two different roads to get to the same place. I don’t think that one path is the path of destruction anymore than the other is the path to success. I think that with Iraq in particular we will have to revaluate what we will consider to be a successful end from what we would have at the beginning of war no matter who is our president.
John McCain is a man that I admire greatly. His service to our country is above approach. The courage and skill he has shown in dealing with the challenges in his life through all these years deserves to be respected by each and every person that calls this country home.
On issues that he has not agreed with in the past he has split with his party and held to these convictions. One of main reasons (by is own admission) for electing him this year was one of the main reasons he couldn’t get the Republican nomination in 2000.
As more time elapsed between when McCain had sealed up the nomination and the republican convection I was mulling this over again and then McCain made my decision for me. He chose Palin as his running mate.
I do understand the decision. In order to get elected he was probably going to need more support from the parties right. Some idiot thought that they could take away some of the Clinton voters from Obama and shore up support from the right. For me this was his first big test of the type of decision making we can expect as president. He failed miserably. I could have accepted a running mate from the far right. After all you have to get elected before you can do anything and Lieberman or Ridge was not going to get it done for him on Election Day. But damn, they couldn’t find someone from the far right who was even slightly qualified to be vice-president let alone being ready to assume the duties of the president? Mayor of a town of 6000 and a couple of years as the Governor of Alaska doesn’t even come close. Even Alaskans themselves know that they face very different challenges than most of us in the lower 48. My state has over 3 times the population. 4 international ports, 2 of them major, a much larger economy and our governor has been in office for 4 years and state government for many years before that and I wouldn’t want her as a vice presidential running mate either. I will however vote for her reelection.
The few times that the campaign has let Palin say anything outside of scripted campaign rallies I have found her downright painful to listen to. She talks in circles. She doesn’t seem to have a clue about what she is saying if it’s anything other than how John and her are “Mavrick’s” that are going to shake up Washington. The campaign has her playing cheerleader. She has said nothing that I’ve heard of any substance that would make me think I may be wrong about her qualifications. Tina Fey’s impression of her is more coherent than listening to her. I’m not even going to get into the troppergate thing that may or may not be anything. But in my opinion it shows me McCain’s decision process is flawed if they really think this is the best they could do. I do think that she may have a very bright future ahead of her. Maybe even on fox news or on a national ticket at a later date. I think that the next time we see her on the national stage after this election she will be much better than she is now. She needs more time in the minors before she is ready to step up to the majors. Providing of course they lose this election.
I’m also disturbed by McCain’s own admission that the economy is not his strongest area of expertise. This in itself wouldn’t be as big of a deal if I felt he had someone on his team that this was a strong suit but I’m not so sure he does. I found his statement a couple of months ago that the economy was strong quite telling. I know that the crises we now find ourselves in now caught just about everyone off guard. While no one should escape blame this was a house of cards that has been building up before Bush. But deregulation of the banking industry got the sub-prime mortgage off the ground that in turn spawned one of the biggest contributors to this mess the selling of “derivatives”. Guaranties that even these loans that never should have been made should default will they will be repaid if the mortgage company bought these “directives”. Now that sounds a lot like insurance to me but they couldn’t call it insurance because then a) it would be regulated and b) then they would have had to have the funds set aside to cover them. While deregulation in some industries has worked and worked well in this case unlike many of the others we had no way to protect ourselves. It’s not the same as moving to a different phone company or picking a different airline.
As someone who makes somewhat less than $250,000 a year and not currently paying taxes on my medical coverage I personally will come out ahead on my taxes with Obama’s plan as it is now. Having said that if paying some higher taxes now will take some of the burden off my son and then his kids I would pay them. We are in the hole. It needs to be paid for. What’s why we are into China for $500 billion now and the deficit that was such a bad thing during Regan and is acceptable to Bush keeps climbing. I am not an economist by any stretch of anyone’s imagination but even I know something has to give if you make $100 but your expenses are $150.
Prior to G.W. Bush I though that the GOP was the stronger party for foreign policy issues but not anymore. I think that if we are going to hold ourselves up as world leaders we need to conduct ourselves as such. The Bush policy of if your not with us your against us has turned both friends and foes against us or if not against us then keeping their distance.
I don’t think that McCain would be as woefully bad has Bush has been but I think that Obama will have a better chance of helping to heel this rift we have built for ourselves with a large part of the world over the last 5 or 6 years. Even Regan figured out that nothing changes if you just keep the status quo. We cannot be engaged in what is an ever shrinking world if we cannot understand that just because we want someone to act in a certain way it may not be right for them. We stand a better chance of making the changes we would like if everyone can be partners in the process and are not being dictated to. Just read the reactions in this forum when some of this gets heated. It quickly slides to name calling, labels and people get defensive. Do you think its any different when dealing with entire nations?
This same line of thinking has been spread by a small percentage of GOP members towards our own citizens. Some of these people feel that if some of us don’t see things as they do then we are un-American. I would love to know who and when we made this very small percentage of people the countries consciences. I personally resent this. To the best of my knowledge we live in a country of free speech and the free flow of ideas I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I don’t expect everyone to even respect my views. I do expect the respect of my right to have my own views.
Finally, I just see more upside with Obama. I didn’t vote for Regan in his first term but even though I didn’t support him I could see why he was so widely supported. He was eloquent and you could tell that be believed everything he was saying even though you may not agree with all of it. His vision of what America could be again showed that the country needed change after the Carter years. I hoped his message would come true but I voted John Anderson at the time. After he showed that he could walk the walk as well as talk the talk I voted for him in his second term.
In hindsight most of Regan’s vision was correct. At that time a movement to the right was probably the right thing for our country. The nation was too far to the left and the Democratic Party found itself out of step. This time I don’t know if our nation has been moved too far to the right or if the Republican Party just made the wrong choice the last 8 years but I think it now finds itself out of step just as the democrats did in 1980.
Before Obama I have not seen anyone even close to Regan as far as being able to convey the sense of hope and change that resonates with as many people. While I have no doubt that McCain would do a better job than Bush he is too close to the status quo. With McCain’s very poor decision of a running-mate I’m willing to roll the dice on my gut.
As you listen to the stump speeches and the political pundits tell you what their man is going to do for you over the next 4 to 8 years remember that George W Bush stated in one of the debates prior to his first term that United States was not going to be involved in “nation building”. Well, I think that world events conspired to flush that one down the toilet. Neither of these men will be able deliver everything they are promising. Neither of these men is going to be the total disaster we have already endured in the last 6 years or so. None of us is going to get everything we want from either of these men. Nor will we ever no matter who is running.
All though I think that Obama is the right choice now if this was 2000 and not 2008 I could see myself voting for McCain easily. If he can somehow pull this off I won’t be considering it a defeat either personally or for the nation. But other than McCain’s family and friends few people in this nation will be praying for his survival more than I.
At the start of this year I had pretty much made up my mind that for the first time in my voting history I was willing to disregard the GOP out of hand. I personally feel that this administration will need to have 2 or 3 administrations completely tank it sometime in the future for them to fight their way out of the bottom 5 worse presidents in history. Up until the run up for the congressional elections a couple of years ago the GOP was pretty much rubber stamping whatever Bush asked for. The GOP has had the White House for 20 of the last 28 years and they have controlled congress for most of the last 17 years. I feel that the party has gotten away from what I thought was some of the core beliefs that I happened share. I’m not going to get bogged down in these because as I said at the outset this is my perception and it really has no relevance to the thoughts I am putting forth here. Besides, as I continue on you may get an idea what some of them are.
I felt that the GOP was bound and determined to continue marching to the beat of the drummer from the far right. They had only one guy on the ballot that I could see myself voting for and his chances of getting the nomination were about as good as Edwards getting the Democratic nomination. To my shock he wound up taking the nomination. Now I had to go back and rethink this.
At this point I was looking at this as a can’t lose election from my point of view. Let’s face it; the bar with Bush in office is not set very high. I also think that as much as we as a country believe we drive world events I think that some of these events are going to be driving us no matter who is in office. Both of these men in my opinion were qualified to be president and although they have differing views to achieve the same goals I see the possibility that we can take two different roads to get to the same place. I don’t think that one path is the path of destruction anymore than the other is the path to success. I think that with Iraq in particular we will have to revaluate what we will consider to be a successful end from what we would have at the beginning of war no matter who is our president.
John McCain is a man that I admire greatly. His service to our country is above approach. The courage and skill he has shown in dealing with the challenges in his life through all these years deserves to be respected by each and every person that calls this country home.
On issues that he has not agreed with in the past he has split with his party and held to these convictions. One of main reasons (by is own admission) for electing him this year was one of the main reasons he couldn’t get the Republican nomination in 2000.
As more time elapsed between when McCain had sealed up the nomination and the republican convection I was mulling this over again and then McCain made my decision for me. He chose Palin as his running mate.
I do understand the decision. In order to get elected he was probably going to need more support from the parties right. Some idiot thought that they could take away some of the Clinton voters from Obama and shore up support from the right. For me this was his first big test of the type of decision making we can expect as president. He failed miserably. I could have accepted a running mate from the far right. After all you have to get elected before you can do anything and Lieberman or Ridge was not going to get it done for him on Election Day. But damn, they couldn’t find someone from the far right who was even slightly qualified to be vice-president let alone being ready to assume the duties of the president? Mayor of a town of 6000 and a couple of years as the Governor of Alaska doesn’t even come close. Even Alaskans themselves know that they face very different challenges than most of us in the lower 48. My state has over 3 times the population. 4 international ports, 2 of them major, a much larger economy and our governor has been in office for 4 years and state government for many years before that and I wouldn’t want her as a vice presidential running mate either. I will however vote for her reelection.
The few times that the campaign has let Palin say anything outside of scripted campaign rallies I have found her downright painful to listen to. She talks in circles. She doesn’t seem to have a clue about what she is saying if it’s anything other than how John and her are “Mavrick’s” that are going to shake up Washington. The campaign has her playing cheerleader. She has said nothing that I’ve heard of any substance that would make me think I may be wrong about her qualifications. Tina Fey’s impression of her is more coherent than listening to her. I’m not even going to get into the troppergate thing that may or may not be anything. But in my opinion it shows me McCain’s decision process is flawed if they really think this is the best they could do. I do think that she may have a very bright future ahead of her. Maybe even on fox news or on a national ticket at a later date. I think that the next time we see her on the national stage after this election she will be much better than she is now. She needs more time in the minors before she is ready to step up to the majors. Providing of course they lose this election.
I’m also disturbed by McCain’s own admission that the economy is not his strongest area of expertise. This in itself wouldn’t be as big of a deal if I felt he had someone on his team that this was a strong suit but I’m not so sure he does. I found his statement a couple of months ago that the economy was strong quite telling. I know that the crises we now find ourselves in now caught just about everyone off guard. While no one should escape blame this was a house of cards that has been building up before Bush. But deregulation of the banking industry got the sub-prime mortgage off the ground that in turn spawned one of the biggest contributors to this mess the selling of “derivatives”. Guaranties that even these loans that never should have been made should default will they will be repaid if the mortgage company bought these “directives”. Now that sounds a lot like insurance to me but they couldn’t call it insurance because then a) it would be regulated and b) then they would have had to have the funds set aside to cover them. While deregulation in some industries has worked and worked well in this case unlike many of the others we had no way to protect ourselves. It’s not the same as moving to a different phone company or picking a different airline.
As someone who makes somewhat less than $250,000 a year and not currently paying taxes on my medical coverage I personally will come out ahead on my taxes with Obama’s plan as it is now. Having said that if paying some higher taxes now will take some of the burden off my son and then his kids I would pay them. We are in the hole. It needs to be paid for. What’s why we are into China for $500 billion now and the deficit that was such a bad thing during Regan and is acceptable to Bush keeps climbing. I am not an economist by any stretch of anyone’s imagination but even I know something has to give if you make $100 but your expenses are $150.
Prior to G.W. Bush I though that the GOP was the stronger party for foreign policy issues but not anymore. I think that if we are going to hold ourselves up as world leaders we need to conduct ourselves as such. The Bush policy of if your not with us your against us has turned both friends and foes against us or if not against us then keeping their distance.
I don’t think that McCain would be as woefully bad has Bush has been but I think that Obama will have a better chance of helping to heel this rift we have built for ourselves with a large part of the world over the last 5 or 6 years. Even Regan figured out that nothing changes if you just keep the status quo. We cannot be engaged in what is an ever shrinking world if we cannot understand that just because we want someone to act in a certain way it may not be right for them. We stand a better chance of making the changes we would like if everyone can be partners in the process and are not being dictated to. Just read the reactions in this forum when some of this gets heated. It quickly slides to name calling, labels and people get defensive. Do you think its any different when dealing with entire nations?
This same line of thinking has been spread by a small percentage of GOP members towards our own citizens. Some of these people feel that if some of us don’t see things as they do then we are un-American. I would love to know who and when we made this very small percentage of people the countries consciences. I personally resent this. To the best of my knowledge we live in a country of free speech and the free flow of ideas I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I don’t expect everyone to even respect my views. I do expect the respect of my right to have my own views.
Finally, I just see more upside with Obama. I didn’t vote for Regan in his first term but even though I didn’t support him I could see why he was so widely supported. He was eloquent and you could tell that be believed everything he was saying even though you may not agree with all of it. His vision of what America could be again showed that the country needed change after the Carter years. I hoped his message would come true but I voted John Anderson at the time. After he showed that he could walk the walk as well as talk the talk I voted for him in his second term.
In hindsight most of Regan’s vision was correct. At that time a movement to the right was probably the right thing for our country. The nation was too far to the left and the Democratic Party found itself out of step. This time I don’t know if our nation has been moved too far to the right or if the Republican Party just made the wrong choice the last 8 years but I think it now finds itself out of step just as the democrats did in 1980.
Before Obama I have not seen anyone even close to Regan as far as being able to convey the sense of hope and change that resonates with as many people. While I have no doubt that McCain would do a better job than Bush he is too close to the status quo. With McCain’s very poor decision of a running-mate I’m willing to roll the dice on my gut.
As you listen to the stump speeches and the political pundits tell you what their man is going to do for you over the next 4 to 8 years remember that George W Bush stated in one of the debates prior to his first term that United States was not going to be involved in “nation building”. Well, I think that world events conspired to flush that one down the toilet. Neither of these men will be able deliver everything they are promising. Neither of these men is going to be the total disaster we have already endured in the last 6 years or so. None of us is going to get everything we want from either of these men. Nor will we ever no matter who is running.
All though I think that Obama is the right choice now if this was 2000 and not 2008 I could see myself voting for McCain easily. If he can somehow pull this off I won’t be considering it a defeat either personally or for the nation. But other than McCain’s family and friends few people in this nation will be praying for his survival more than I.
