The Political Parties Battle Over Themes

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BE CAREFUL AMERICA,,4 MORE YRS OF BUSH WILL BE DISASTROUS FOR THIS COUNTRY...MC CAIN HAS A TEMPER & DEMENTIA ..HE WILL REINSTATE THE DRAFT..PALIN WANTS WAR W/RUSSIA..A DISHONEST TEAM...MC CAIN WAS @ THE BOTTOM OF HIS CLASS @ ACADEMY..OBAMA WAS @ THE TOP OF HIS CLASS @ HARVARD..H CLINTON WAS @ THE MIDDLE OF HER LAW SCHL GRAD CLASS....I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS COUNTRY IN SUCH BAD SHAPE & I'VE LIVED A LONG TIME..PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD HATE BUSH..THEY & WE ARE WAITING FOR SMTHING FRESH..OBAMA/BIDEN WILL BE HONEST & DO THEIR VERY BEST...COME ON DEBATES...MC CAIN WILL SOUND LIKE BUSH...& CHENEY & ROVE....

SONDRA of MN 8:59PM September 17, 2008

Can Sen. McCain get inside the minds of the "greenpeace" generation?

John S Boyd

John S Boyd of CA 2:19PM September 17, 2008

This article is only another example of the struggle we face as a nation. The two parties will exploit anything they can to try and get that small group that will in the end settle elections. People of FAITH can be a strong group that a minority desiring control can user to build towards a small majority. Christians today have been found as necessary for the otherwise smaller Republican party. There is not likely any way the small number of wall street high income folks and corporate people could win elections with out adding other groups . They have learned to attach people of FAITH to them by using their platform as the draw. Also noone desires to pay taxes so another group can be added.

The abortion issue is a difficult problem for Christians to deal with. I am PRO-LIFE in every situation except when medically both mother and child will die anyway if the baby remains, and even then every attempt to save the child when delivered (in what ever way it can be delivered) should be done. The truth of the abortion issue is that the Republican establishment will never let it go away. If abortion was outlawed, the most faithful supporters of their party might then look elsewhere at other issues as to who to vote for. If you faithfully vote Republican now because of their pro-life platform they will never allow that to change. Unfortunately abortion is too good politically to lose as an issue. Once again the sheep are being sheered. Things being what they are I think improving the lives of women to the point none would ever want an abortion might be the best hope we may have to stop abortions from happening.

This business about which party will bring the most change kind of brings to mind the book "Animal Farm,” where all the barnyard animals want to get their freedom from the human farmer. The farmer somehow was removed and they were working (so they believed) for the benefit of themselves collectively. Before long, the story was about the Pig then living in the house and getting most of the benefits from the collective efforts of all the animals on the farm. The Christians that have become for the most part Republicans are like the animals in the barnyard believing voting Republican will help stop abortion, make the country more moral and create a better world to raise their children. The sad truth is like the Pig in Animal Farm the benefits go mostly to high income folks on Wall Street and International Corporations that move the very livelihoods these grass roots families need disparately to be able to provide for their children. McCain/Palin seem hopeful at first glance but does anyone actually believe the Wall Street group that has controlled the Republican Party for at least one hundred years are going to give up that control to anyone. I doubt it. The Republicans has been in control for at least the last eight years so any REAL CHANGE has to come from somewhere else.

allen charles of FL 2:00PM September 16, 2008

Well, Obama started the change mantra and now it seems that McCain and Palin are going to capture it. It seems that a dumbed down electorate looks at it (change) as some sort of magic panecea. Everyone thinks that they want change, but noone seems to know exactly what change they want.

One thing remains true though, a vote for Obama is still a vote for real change. Unfortunately, that's about all you would have left in your pocket if he is elected.

Doug Price of VA 9:10AM September 09, 2008

A wonderful tour of downtown Juneau and the Alaska governor's mansion...

http://alaskapodshow.com/index.php/2008/02/20/my-visit-to-juneau-alaska/

Pepe of CA 11:42PM September 07, 2008

I believe the pendulum is swinging, but towards the center, not to the far left. By failing to broaden his ticket, Obama signals that he will govern from the far left and this is a straight liberal ticket, while McCain, a center right candidate, moves both to the right and the center with his Convention, both reving up the right, and appealing to the center with emphasis on servanthood and high-minded appeals to non-partisanship.

I'm not yet convinced that putting an inexperienced candidate on the ticket isn't actually brilliant. Obama has three things going for him: (1) an unpopular president; (2) personal narrative; (3) charisma. Clinton worked for a year to make the inexperience argument, and didn't make a dent. By saying to people--hey, you want a rock star, I'll give you a rock star, McCain has provoked that side by side comparison in millions of homes in America, which may cause people to conclude that neither Obama nor Palin have sufficient experience, and leaving McCain looking like the only adult in the crowd. He fights fire with fire, causing people to seriously question whether Obama is up to the top job. Also, Obama left a huge opening by giving an angry acceptance speech, doing the work of the Vice President. By having Palin land the hits, and allowing McCain to give a speech devoid of partisanship, McCain again looks the most Presidential and the most acceptable. McCain's speech may not have been charismatic, but it was riveting because of it's personal revelations. He needed to hurdle three barriers: (1) not look to old and seem vigorous enough for the Presidency; (2) not be Bush; and (3) appeal to the center, and I believe he did all three.

Palin counters Obama in so many ways it's brilliant (although I do wish she had more experience). Ultimatley, however, she says to Obama: you are a narrator, I am a person of action. You are the historian, I create the history. She reinforces the theme that Obama is the community organizer who didn't reform, the lawyer who didn't make partner, the professor who didn't seek tenure, the constitutional scholar who never wrote an article, the legislator who never authored a major bill. Her accomplishments might not yet rise to the level of those we expect in a President, but Governor Palin succeeded at running a small business, succeeded as a small-town mayor, and is succeeding at governing a state. She is leaving a tangible record. Ultimately, I believe people will prefer the Mayor of Main Street to the Pied Piper of Camelot, and wake up to the fact that only McCain is truly ready to be President.

Chad3337 of VA 4:06PM September 06, 2008

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam and to demonstrate his commitment to family values.

The true is somewhat different. The first Mrs McCain casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children. She is Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter. When John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

She says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce. ‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

McCain was then earning little more than $40,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUY9S6iCvk

Now lets see what his vet buddies confirm about McCain the hero.

And Sarah Palin how is she going to defend the country if she can't defend her children against pedophiles?

basementfrog of CA 7:38PM September 05, 2008

How about this one. No moose blood for oil!

Foghorn Leghorn of TX 5:05PM September 05, 2008

When was the last time the American people elected an unabashed liberal to the Presidency?

LJP of CA 5:04PM September 05, 2008

The theme at team McCain WAS straight talk. You either get that from them or you don't. Now you don't. It's all Sarah spin. Run away, or end up yourself like one of Sarah's moose, hung in a tree and bled out.

of 4:24PM September 05, 2008

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Michael Barone

Michael Barone

Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. He has written for many publications—including the Economist and the New York Times.

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