finknottle

I'm going by the conclusion in the article you cited.

Very heartening. Nobody agrees 100% with any candidate, and a candidate will neccessarily only push a few issues, despite having to take a position on everything. The trick is to know what their priorities will be in office. It is reassuring to know that she has not pushed her social beliefs (where I disagree with her) while she was governor, and focused instead on smaller government, corruption, and energy (where I do agree). Not that it matters - it's the VP we are talking about, who really only gets one signature issue if they are lucky.

Ron Paul likes his earmarks. He's been evry good to Texas.

It pains me to say it, but Molson is right - he's only saying that Carter would have embarked on a much different course. He wasn't being judgemental. Nevertheless, I'd point out that a Republican *would* have eventually embarked on his own version of the Neal Deal if he were to last more than one term. And I'd also argue that we might very well have found ourselves at war with Iraq under Gore - we were in a low-grade aireal conflict when he was VP. Given the same intelligence, continued provocations, and the pending lifting of sanctions, full-blown conflict is not inconceivable (though probably not with the overthrow of Saddam in mind, and not so quickly). The currents of history run deep. Missteps are why we have one-term presidents.

It goes beyond buying more than you can afford - it's about buying when you shouldn't at all. It has been bipartisan doctrine that improving the rate of home ownership is 'good.' Congressional pressure has been consistently applied to improve those rates, especialy the rates for minorities and the poor. (In case you are wondering, about 69% of homes in this country are owned by their occupants.)

I read somewhere that 35% of households pay no federal income tax (after credits and deductions), and that that number rises to 50% under the Obama plan. (1) If anybody can give me a reference (or shoot it down) I'd be appreciative. I couldn't find it again, and couldn't find statistics broken down like that anywhere... (2) Does the threshold of 50% bother anybody else as it does me? It's one thing to say 'they are less fortunate, let's pitch in and help them out' which is the situation at 35%. But when every other household contributes nothing to paying for the country's services, it seems manifestly unfair to the minority who foot the bill for everything.

I'm not so sure. As Pastor, ok - that's a distant relationship. But wouldn't you be closer than that to someone you chose to be the godfather of your children? Obama's earlier accounts painted the relationship as that of a close family friend and mentor.

So you are ok with somebody hitching his political fortunes to an ideology purely out of self interest. Nice agent of change you have there. Would it be ok to embrace a white supremist church if you were only doing it to make usefull connectuons in the community? Would you make them the godfather of your children?

Yes, it would reflect badly on us if we were part of OJ's personal posse and turned a blind eye to trouble over the years, only disavowing him after it became convenient. Because it's not about him associating with him now. It's about his long association with him in the past. Obama has made a point of saying that Wright was an important mentor of his and helped shape many of his core beliefs. Obama thought him a suitable godfather to his children and made him a close family friend. For those of us still trying to understand what Obama's core beliefs are, that makes his mentor fair game. It was Obama who singled out Wright's influence in his biography, not the media.

The (according to Barak) mentor and spiritual advisor, and godfather to the children, does keep busy!

Keep flailing away with tenuous innuendo - all you are doing is encouraging a comparison with Obama's pastor, which I suspect was the McCain camp's plan all along.

Obama changes his tax plans? Maybe... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1220918513...ew_and_outlooks But take away those tax increases and his draft deficit goes through the roof.

Yes, that's the summary, but there are no details, certainly not something you could construct the Post's table with. For that they used http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF..._candidates.pdf But it is still not at all clear how you take the data in the report and get the Post's table. If I take an unmarried 120k income, for arguments sake, and apply Obama's changes in table R2 from the summary, the taxes seem to go up a heck of alot more than the Post suggests.

Didn't we already discuss this in another thread? I traced the Post's summary back to the source document, and I couldn't see where the numbers came from. Not saying they are wrong, just noting that there seems to have been an extraordinary amount of handwaving between what the original report said and what the Post say's. And I'm pretty skeptical about the Post's conclusions about the 160-600k range. Also, note that the Post's table has as a baseline assumption the expriation of the Bush tax cuts. Thus McCain's 'tax cuts' are really the present situation, while Obama's more modest cuts for those 111k+ should be read as an actual increase in taxes from the present. And the +8.7 and +11.5% increases at the top are *in addition* to the repeal of the tax cuts - they are more like 12% and 16% increases over todays rates.

There is a difference between a politician supporting something and his actually giving a rats ass about it. That has always been the knock on McCain in religious circles. Great voting record (conservatively speaking), but never pushing the agenda. I simply do not believe he will expend an ounce of political capital trying to drive social issues - he cares about national security, and fighting corruption and waste. That's it. He will have his hands full with a democratic congress as it is. IMO the only legitimate concern lies with judicial nominations, which will be a huge headache for him. It will be difficult to ignore the base, but impossible to brow-beat congress, especially since he needs them on his side for the other issues.

Lose the conspiracy theories. It made perfect sense not to give interviews between the announcement and the convention - those are *the* critical events in which to initially set her public image. I'm sure there will be plenty of interviews in the weeks ahead, and I have no doubt that had they been in that situation the Obama camp would have done the same. It's common sense, politically.

What if the phrasing were "candidate B who, despite being at the very bottom of his class at Occidental for two years, managed to transfer to Columbia; and despite not graduating with any honors or distinction, was somehow admitted to Harvard Law." Of course, we don't know his grades because he won't release any information about them or his class standing.

I thought Jesus was a Carpenter. Oh, and a community organizer, just like the other messiah.

I was watching the PBS version. For what its worth, the commentators are unanimous is saying it was a great speech, most commenting on the success at transforming the party's image and priorities, with at least one saying it was the best speech McCain has ever given. EDIT: Mark Shields just chimed in to disagree. He says McCain gives better speeches when introducing others. He also calls the speech that of an insurgent throw-the-bums-out speech tather than that of a nominee.

Maybe you were watching the MSNBC version where the applause was scaled down.

I agree - he got stronger and stronger as he went on. By the end of it, I thought it was perhaps the best acceptance speech I had ever heard. Totally surprised me. I've always thought of him as a stiff.

That assumes Hispanics are monolithic about illegal immigration. There are alot of 3rd and 4th generation families in the southwest that are furious about the porous borders, increasing crime, dcaying social services, and are extremely worried about the drug wars moving north.

Bingo! I couldn't put my finger on it.

They will be critical in states currently in play: New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. Might be factors in NC and Virginia too.

Nobody ever said McCain' academic background was superior. The question is whether one can ridicule Palin's educational background through comparison to Obama, while refusing to aknowledge that Obama has released on no information at all. For all we know he flunked out of Occidential and was dead last at Columbia. Or maybe he was kicked out of Occuidental for drugs, or sleeping with the Dean's daughter. Who knows? Who cares???