Comments on Realpolitik -- Practical politics for the modern age: McCain’s roll of the dice, , the media goes bat-sh...

Give it time.Frankly, I don't think anyone knows a...

2008-09-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

Give it time.

Frankly, I don't think anyone knows anything about her; this is part of the reason McCain's campaign has restricted access to her (apart from a fluff piece in People - it's been 13 days that there has been no media access to her, representing 19% of the time she will be a candidate). But that being said, its obvious the media's pretty infatuated with her and shes getting a lot of buzz. As soon as her positions and policies come out, which ultimately they should as shes a possibly VP, I doubt you find many women in her camp. I know I'm using alot of generalities here, but if she was a man theyd be calling her anti-woman.

Thanks again alex. I don't have time to read thos...

2008-09-11T03:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks again alex. I don't have time to read those, as I only have limited internet access (dial up) here in the wilderness.

Also, I heard that McCain is up as much as 20 points in some polls with women. So, saying palin will bring in the women vote; Sexism or reality?

Here is more on Obama's legislation:http://obsidia...

2008-09-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here is more on Obama's legislation:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/dear-chris-matt.html
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html

While I definitely think that McCain made a good m...

2008-09-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

While I definitely think that McCain made a good move with his VP pick, as far as furthering his chances of getting elected, there are few things I find more annoying than the far right views. Creationism in schools, no gay marriage, and opposing environmentalism all reek of someone willing to put their religious beliefs before common sense. I mean, do we honestly want a VP who completely ignores all of the science going into these fields because it contradicts what some old book says? If she can't trust the massive amounts of scientific evidence there is for evolution then why trust anything else scientists say? Or anything ANY experts say for that matter.

In my ideal world science and politics will work hand-in-hand. Leave science to uncovering the facts and politics to deciding what to do with said facts. But to have someone in office who will stick their fingers in their ears and sing just because they don't like what experts have to say about a subject? That's just nonsense.

Hey, thanks for the info on that bill -- I was sin...

2008-09-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

Hey, thanks for the info on that bill -- I was sincere in that I could not find legislation by Obama, so thanks for pointing that out to me. I left out the law school on purpose because I personally did not feel it equated to any sort of governmental experience. I guess the female vote is a matter of opinion, you could make the argument either way. They were essentially even before the convention, you are correct, but my main point was that democrats usually receive a boost after the convention season, and that does not seem to have happened here.

I agree with you on the fact that fox (faux) news is conserviatve, and I pointed that out as well. 50% of people may get their news from fox, but I doubt they get it exclusively from fox. Most of the media outlets are liberal leaning.

In responce to your qualms with the experience thing, I agree that Obama delt with more people than Palin, but he was not exclusively (or at least majorly) in charge of these people unlike Palin. My main point here was that people are bashing Palin for the experience thing, but she has about the same (if not more) experience than Obama. Neithor of them are qualified to be VP or P IMO.

Thanks for reading.

Holy Shit is that a huge post.I have much to say a...

2008-09-07T10:20:00.000-07:00

Holy Shit is that a huge post.

I have much to say about some of it.

In regards to Palin being a woman and thus getting the female vote. I think that reeks of sexism. Apart that women voters tend to make their mind up late and go on issues, there hasn't been a big push towards Palin from women, as she doesn't really represent the large block of women voters. Many women of prominence have come out strongly against her (not the least of them being Heart the sister rock band and Gloria Steinheim). I doubt there is much to the constituencey of women who only vote for women if and only if they are a women.

I'm not entirely sure of her history of outing corruption and honesty, Alaska is notoriosly corrupt. She supported Ted "Series of Tubes" Steven's bridge to nowhere before she was against it (quite sure of that). In fact Alaska has the largest amounts of earmarks per capita thanks in large part to people like Sen. Stevens, whom she was a supporter of. It's only since she hopped on McCain's anti-earmark ticket that shes been vocal against them.

There's been no significant boost in polling IMHO. They were essentially even before her and after.

I think there is really no comparison between her and Obama in the matters of experience. Obama is fully vetted for one, and Palin isn't at all. In fact they are restricting access to her for the next 2 weeks, which is about a fourth of the remaining time before the election.

But before I talk about their experience, I'd just like to say something vis a vis the news. The so called liberal bias you talk about isn't anything special. Last I heard more than half of people who get their news from cable get it from fox; which more often than not, lies far worse than CNN or MSNBC, but yes those stations are more liberal. The reality of the matter is that most people just look for evidence to back their political model and its really hard to be impartial (as a viewer, I think PBS does the best otherwise).

Insofar as Obama's previous experience, you left out his history of civil rights litigation and his 12 years of teaching (during the time he served in state sentate) constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School (which happens to be, a really fucking good law school) so I think you have to assume he knows something about our government; I know its not respected anymore, but the constitution used to be the lay of the land here. Also Obama was editor of Harvard Law Review, which is no doubt as prestigous as the 'Alaska Community Organizer Conference of Mayors.'

The military experience is a joke. Do you automatically give military experience to every governor? She's done nothing except recently deploy a C-120 (in response to this very issue). When any national guard is called up for overseas duty its mustered into the federal army.

Insofar as Obama being reaching across the isle and authoring major legislation, I present the The Lugar-Obama Bill. There are many Republican's willing to work with Obama and he is reasonable. His voting record is much better than McCains.

And insofar as experience legislatively / executively. Obama at every level of service has been responsible for more people legislatively than Palin has executively. Wasilla - 9,000 people. 13th District of Illinois 781,037. Alaska 683,478 people. Half of Illinois - 6,400,000. I'm sorry, the numbers are orders of magnitude higher. Besides that, most of the great things she accomplished for Wasilla and Alaska were completed with federal money, a system she is now campaigning against.

All I'm saying is that, in reality, hes got a much better pedigree than she does.