Poliics

[dlgood]

I'd like to like you John, but you didn't mention a single specific thing you'd do or a specific aspect of your party's ideology that you'd change.

Not a single sacred cow touched. Could have at least mentioned Guantanamo or Torture.

That was pretty gauzy. Where's our "Maverick."

Comments

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

You know, I just passed by the channels and my thought watching (ever so briefly) was, OMG, this guy looks old and tired. The presidency ages everyone who holds that office, so imagine how it will affect him..

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Yes. He does look weary here, particularly in front of large crowds. He's always looked much better in small settings. This didn't play to his strength.

[regala-electra.livejournal.com]

But he was a POW!

...my friend.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's great. What are you going to actually do for me now?

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

Didn't the whole "maverick" thing kinda go out the window? They don't even let the press on the "straight talk express" anymore.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

It has, but I thought he still needed that aspect to pull moderate voters. He missed a good opportunity to water that garden while he had an audience...

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm thinking the wingnut veep choice is going to scare off the moderates who were considering him. He's pretty much just pleasing the right-wingers at this point.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

From your mouth to whatever's ear!

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm never going to see eye-to-eye with McCain on a lot of issues, but he used to be a guy I had a lot of respect for. I have no idea what happened to that guy.

[jade-okelani.livejournal.com]

McCain was told by his advisers that he couldn't win the presidency and be himself, which took him from a guy I would have legitimately considered voting for and turned him into a GWB clone. Only without GWB's youth and vitality.

Add the chick he's got running as his VP and I am so out. I'm sad that the first woman to actually make it on a ticket is someone I'm so opposed to; I can only hope the other women of the world aren't stupid enough to vote for her ticket just because she's a woman.

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

I'm sad that the first woman to actually make it on a ticket is someone I'm so opposed to...

Not the first:

Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro, 1984 Democratic presidential ticket.

[jade-okelani.livejournal.com]

I should clarify: having been born in 1981, it's the first time I was able to *vote* for a woman in my lifetime. Though it seems the tradition is holding up, Palin is facing even more scandal and ridicule than Ferraro did.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think that's the case. We've just got way more media outlets now. And the tone is much worse. I remember her getting ripped hard, but mostly because of the sketchiness of her husband's business dealings.

The moralizer with a pregnant kid is just too hard for the press to pass up.

[jade-okelani.livejournal.com]

That's true and it's not - it IS true that Palin's situation is too much for our gossip happy media to pass up, but Hillary bore the brunt of a lot of sexist BS from supposedly legitimate press, as well. Chicks get a tough run when they try to step into the big shoes, deserved or not. They get the sorts of questions that aren't asked of men, and are held up to higher standards.

I'm really surprised they vetted Palin given everything that's come out they supposedly knew about. There had to be another female candidate with fewer skeletons.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

But she's Pro-Life. It was very hard to find a viable, prominent female republican who is so attractive to the base.

Olympia Snowe, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Condi Rice... most any of the more experienced, vetted women they could have picked are Pro-Choice.

And, of course, we point out that the nature of the sexist coverage are different. Much of Palin's is (1) men noting that she had no national profile and (2) mommy wars with a lot of the debate being among women. My mother seems to have a remarkably negative view of Palin though my mom worked (part-time) and would really have liked to vote for a woman. And probably could have voted for McCain-Snowe if that was the ticket.

Hilary's is much of the older "feminists aren't real women and hate men - look at that pantsuit" plus the conspiracy theory stuff.

[jade-okelani.livejournal.com]

That's all true.

I will respond that I think they actually miscalculated by appealing too much to the base in this particular case - I know they were concerned with "Maverick" McCain, but he's stepped so far away from that, and the only other option for Republicans is *so* far away from their base, that I don't think that, whining aside, they would have had any choice. I thought Palin was a solid choice at first, but the more I think about it, the more I think they should have gone with Snowe, because she might actually pull some of the Dems on the fence about Obama over.

However, I'm fairly happy, because at this point in time, I'm for an Obama presidency, and unless the Left stays home in November, it should be a lock.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

As someone said above, he's decided he can't win and be himself. Who knows what he would have done as President. But after last night I don't think, he has a prayer of winning; bad speech, bad delivery, worn out message.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

As I told a friend of mine, I'm a Democrat who very well may have voted for McCain over Al Gore in 2000 had I the chance. Where'd that guy go? That guy could have been a fine president. This guy, not so much.

[scwlc.livejournal.com]

I think promises are dangerous things in a presidential race. You make too many and people wonder if you can fulfill them, or they get angry if you don't while you're in office, no matter how ridiculous the promise was. He's probably trying to avoid making specific statements so that if his position on something changes later because circumstances have changed, he doesn't get attacked for flip-flopping.

I can't really blame him for caution on that.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

You can't run as a "reformer" who will "shake things up" but then tell the audience you won't do anything different than the current president on Economic Policy, Energy Policy, Social Policies, Tax Policy, or Judicial Appointments. While hiring the same campaign staff the current administration uses - many items of which you objected to back when you gained that reputation as a "Maverick".

I don't ask for a candidate to give a laundry list. But you have to have something or you start to look stale.