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Posts Tagged ‘Senator Mccain’

Senator Barack Obama Wins the 2008 Election!

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

Senator Barack Obama has won the 2008 Presidential election! Congratulations go to both Senator Obama and his running mate Senator Joe Biden. The Obama/Biden ticket absolutely dominated the Electoral College map as you can see by CNN.com’s great interactive tool at this link.

Senator John McCain gave one of the noblest, most honorable concession speeches that I’ve ever heard and congratulations go to him for running a tough campaign. The awesome nature of Obama’s win will overshadow the rest of the 2008 results, but it is worth mentioning that while Obama/Biden dominated in the Electoral College, McCain/Palin received approximately 48% of the vote. That’s no small potatoes. In previous years, liberal extremists would have been picketing all over the country calling for recounts. I guess we’ll see if conservative extremists push the same buttons, though I doubt it.

I’m glad that the Presidential contest is now over and I’m glad that the candidates both addressed the nation tonight was in nonpartisan tones. President-Elect Obama has a huge job ahead of him (as all Presidents-Elect do) and I agree with Senator McCain when he says that all Americans should be ready to help.

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Reviewing the Vice-Presidential Debate

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

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?

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The RNC Ends And The Real Campaign Begins

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Thursday night was the final night of the Republican National Convention and Senator John McCain gave his acceptance speech. While his speech was not as thrilling or electric as any of the other main players in this election, I thought he performed well. Senator Barack Obama’s speech was more emotional and Senator Joe Biden’s gave a great attack speech. Governor Sarah Palin gave a more exciting, electrifying, and attacking speech than McCain, but I think McCain telling the story of his Vietnam experience made his speech much more personal than the rest.

Still, his speech would rank fourth of the speeches listed above. But not a generic fourth, more like an Olympic fourth – you know, where everyone finishes the event within the same half-second.

Both the RNC and the DNC were good events. However, aside from the tradition of holding these events every four years, I think we’d all agree that there isn’t anything really “big” decided at Conventions any more. In fact, one of the biggest highlights of these events is that they signal the impending end of the Presidential campaigns!

America is tired from a far too long Presidential campaign. We had people putting themselves into the exploratory committee process as far as two years ago. Yuck! Whether we get McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, I do not think we are getting the best that America has to offer. That said, let’s hope that we get the best this campaign has to offer and that this campaign is out of our heads soon!

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McCain Suggests $300 Million Prize

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

A few days ago I posted a review for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s new book, Real Change. Somewhere in this book Speaker Gingrich talks about the need for large monetary prizes from the government which will spur an innovation revolution. It would appear that Senator John McCain read that chapter as he is proposing a $300 million prize for the first person who develops, “an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology.” From the article:

The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

I think everyone in America would be willing to pay $1 for such technology to be created. But why stop there? Why not make the contest aspire to even greater heights and look for a battery that can be mega-mass produced not just in America, but around the world? This type of engine could breathe life back into Detroit and make GM the number one name in automobiles once again. In fact, if every American is willing to pay $1 for McCain’s competition, then wouldn’t we all be willing to pay $3.33 so we can create a $1 billion prize? I’d be down for it.

This is the type of innovation that will put America back on top of the leading edge of science and technology. We will, however, have to rely on foreign scientists and immigrant scientists to make these discoveries, but that’s another topic for another time. Hey, maybe if we can figure out this type of automobile technology we can figure out how to make math and science interesting in our schools again!

Posted in Money, Jobs, & Finances, United States Politics | No Comments »