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Another Debate with More of the Same

October 8, 2008 by Joe Leave a Comment

Last night we had another debate between Senators McCain and Obama and it was pretty much more of the same. If you have to declare a winner, I’d have to go with McCain because the format really allowed him to engage with a national television audience in a way that he hasn’t been able to yet. Plus I thought the format really worked against Obama’s strength as a talking point reciter (not that being a talking point reciter is a bad thing, but it’s essentially all that Obama does). But everyone knows how these things go – the media will list Obama as the winner and cite McCain’s inability to slam a homerun during one of the debates.

Thank God I have an independent mind of my own to make up my own decisions! The amount of bias in the media these days is scary.

Anyway, if you really want to declare a winner last night it might have to be Tom Brokaw. Talk about a guy who managed to annoy almost everyone watching by being the only one who was doing his job correctly! That’s got to be a tough position for someone to be in – the straight man between two candidates for Presidents. And was it just me or did Brokaw look extremely white, pale, and aged?

All in all the debate was more bore than anything else. Neither of these candidates is going to put themselves out there and make a major statement during the debates, though McCain almost did with his statement regarding the Treasury buying up all of the bad mortgage debt out there. I am not a fan of this at all – nor am I a fan of this ridiculous bailout (which has so far led to the market falling further).

The real shame of our times is that neither McCain nor Obama have what it takes to fix the economy, yet these are the two choices that we are given. Third party anyone?

Anyway, check out Jersey City Locksmith for the best locksmith service in the Garden State!

Filed Under: United States Politics Tagged With: Bailout, Barack H. Obama, Bore, Debates, Debt, Garden State, Homerun, Jersey City, John McCain, Liberals, Locksmith Service, Presidential Campaign, Shame, Tom Brokaw

Reviewing the Vice-Presidential Debate

October 5, 2008 by Joe Leave a Comment

Here we go again… You guys know the drill. The biased media has already claimed that Senator Joe Biden won this debate in a landslide. And, in a weird twist, they’ve decided that by not goofing up, Governor Palin “won” her end of the debate. In other words, by not being bad she was being good.

Does that make any sense?

Yet another reason why you can’t trust a damn thing you read or hear from the media these days. I had a different view of the debate altogether.

First, I think that each candidate won, but in different areas. For example, Palin was much more likable while Biden was much more of a diplomat. Palin was more down to earth while Biden was more or less the typical Washington insider. Yet Biden appeared to know more on the issues while Palin appeared to only look at the big picture stance on them. What the biased media cannot understand is how each of these stances is a win for the respective candidates.

Palin needed to appear informed on the issues in order to rally the Republican base. She did that. Biden needed to stay away from him common gaffes to energize the Obama campaign. Mission accomplished. That’s not to say that everything Senator Biden put out there was fact, because it certainly wasn’t, but he did manage to stay away from sticking his foot in his mouth.

All in all, I thought the debate was oddly reserved and yet pleasantly collegial. There were no severe barbs thrown between the two candidates as each was carefully treading historic ground. A bit too bland for my liking. Hey, did you know that nearly 70 million people watched the debate the other night? Amazing. Now the stage is set for McCain vs. Obama 2 on Tuesday night. McCain won the first debate and he needs to hit a homerun in order to move the polls in his direction.

Yet at this point with Obama up in all of the polls one has to wonder whether or not it even matters how well Senator McCain performs in the final two debates. He can knock it out of the park both nights and the media will still crown Obama the winner and the popular support will still go in his direction. Is this race still a winnable one for McCain?

Filed Under: United States Politics Tagged With: Damn Thing, Debates, Gaffes, Homerun, John McCain, Joseph Biden, Liberals, Liking, Sarah Palin, Vice President

Who Won the First Presidential Debate?!?

September 26, 2008 by Joe 1 Comment

Alright, you guys know the way this process goes every four years. There’s a debate between two candidates over a variety of issues and each campaign claims victory afterward. The media generally sides with the Democratic candidate and their claim of success while the internet becomes akin to the wild, wild West. From where I sat, it was McCain’s night on all fronts.

In terms of style and presentation, McCain is a better off-the-cuff speaker than Obama is – no questions there. This is why Obama refused the various town hall debates with McCain over the summer months. As a speaker, Obama is overly reliant on long pauses as well as “ummm,” “aaaahh,” and “ii…iii…iii,” sounds in between his statements. For those debaters out there, you know that this can sometimes be an unconscious reaction to an unclear mental state or a confusion in train of thought. Hell, I do it quite frequently while I teach! It happens and, unfortunately for Obama, I didn’t like the way he came off while saying it.

In terms of content, Obama had a great point when he said that McCain would give even greater tax breaks to the wealthy. On the flip side, McCain decimated Obama during the Iran discussion when he suggested that the American President would not sit down with the Iranian President without preconditions.

But when it got down to discussions of military strategy (not tactics, mind you), McCain trumped Obama on almost every point. I’m not saying that I agree with every single thing that McCain said, but he absolutely won the debate. To me, it seemed that Obama sometimes got caught in saying anything in order to win the immediate debate. In other words, I heard some contradictions in his speeches that I’m sure none of the media will bring up (as soon as a transcript is available, I’ll try to flesh some of this out in a future post).

In terms of actually putting policy specifics out on the table, Obama failed though this is par for his course. Obama never really speaks in specifics and that’s because he’s still trying to be all things to all people. He will do himself and his campaign a great favor when he starts laying out specifics in terms of his policy. Simply saying that everyone making $250,000 and above will have their taxes raised isn’t good enough. He has to acknowledge that the more you tax a business, the less chance that business has of hiring more employees and increasing the wages of its workers.

Oh, and did anyone notice that Obama suggested a few times throughout the night that he agreed with McCain’s stance on certain issues? McCain only said that Obama was too inexperienced or that he didn’t understand certain issues. Just something interesting that I picked up on.

There was another thing that I didn’t like (and this is really me scolding the country, not the politicians). At one point, Obama said that McCain was wrong when he supported going into Iraq and wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. Talk about a distortion of reality. First and foremost, weapons of mass destruction WERE found in Iraq! Nuclear weapons were not found, but hundreds of chemical weapons were found. These are also weapons of mass destruction! Second, let’s not forget that almost every national politician supported going into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003. To look back five years later and say, “What a bad decision,” does nothing to put the decision in a historical perspective.

The last thing that I’ll say about the debate is that Jim Lehrer did a decent job as moderator and I enjoyed the new back-and-forth format. Jim Lehrer is one of those old school newsmen who doesn’t realize that he’s blatantly partisan while on the air, but I thought he did a good job as moderator. Now, as for Ray Suarez who had the hosting duties on PBS – that’s another story! Talk about a biased, defeatist person…

Finally, I just wanted to point out that I tried to log-on to PickensPlan.com after the debate to be a part of his online chat room or discussion or whatever it was and I couldn’t get on his site! If you’re going to spend the money on airtime to promote an online discussion, then have the bandwidth to handle the capacity! Also, while I was flipping around the television after the debate, I found it funny that both ABC News and CNN were advertising their political coverage on FOX News. Kinda funny when you think about it.

Anyway – what do you think? Who won the debate?

Filed Under: United States Politics Tagged With: Barack H. Obama, Debates, Democrats, Flip Side, John McCain, Presidential Campaign, Specifics, Town Hall, Ummm, USA

Hilarious Presidential Debate Op-Art

September 26, 2008 by Joe 1 Comment

Just a random update for everyone… I was browsing around the New York Times website and they had Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets talking about the upcoming debates. For some reason, I got a big kick out of this and I thought that you might, too. These guys were always my favorite Muppets – just two grumpy, opinionated old men who made fun of everything around them – awesome!

Statler and Waldorf on the upcoming debates

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Jokes & Humor, United States Politics Tagged With: Debates, New York Times, Old Men, Presidential Campaign, Random, Statler And Waldorf

Ron Paul Plans Alternative Rally

July 26, 2008 by Joe 1 Comment

Failed Presidential candidate Ron Paul has planned an alternative rally to the Republican National Convention. Paul’s rally, to be held at the Target Center in Minneapolis, is supposed to focus on his message of limited government (of which I am a fan).

It’s a shame that Congressman Paul’s campaign was neglected by the major networks. The media has really shaped the current Presidential campaign and it’s disgusting. Any American out there who is looking for real “change” isn’t even allowed to hear different opinions by the American media. How many of the major media conglomerates are allowing the Libertarian or Green Party to join the debates? FOX isn’t. CNN isn’t. CBS isn’t. ABC isn’t. MSNBC isn’t. Speaking of NBC – I can barely watch their programming any more as their entire schedule of programming is so one-sided in favor of Obama that it might as well be funded out of the Obama campaign!

I know these media companies stick to some format that requires X% of the national polls to be in favor of your campaign, but they know that American masses are mostly sheep and vote for either R or D. Why not change your debate regulations to reflect the fact that there needs to be more than two views of how to move forward? Why not have regulations that allow the four political parties with the highest polling to be involved in the debate? If the Republicans get 44% and the Democrats get 44%, then the media should look to that remaining 12% of the opinion polls to see which third party candidates people are supporting.

All I know is that for a Republican and a Democrat to run around America saying “Change, change, change,” is completely ridiculous. What’s the definition of insanity? Always doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So America – keep voting Republican and Democrat and see if you get a different result…lunatics.

Filed Under: United States Politics Tagged With: Barack H. Obama, CNN, Debates, Democrats, Green Party, MSNBC, Politics, Presidential Campaign, Republicans, Ron Paul, Third Party Candidates

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