Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

[Leroy]

I fit in at an Applebee's salad bar, and hate myself for it.

[GatewaySnayke]

I fit in at an Applebee's salad bar, and hate myself for it.

Why the hell are there salad bars at your Applebee's?

Barack hit back tonight on how McCain doesn't care about the cost of the war. While I can accept that McCain probably misspoke when he said that the time for bringing the troops home "isn't important," he's yet to provide a good reason why we should be spending kajillions of dollars on the war.

[Leroy]

I fit in at an Applebee's salad bar, and hate myself for it.

Why the hell are there salad bars at your Applebee's?

Trust me, it is the last place you'd find me.

But I would look like I belonged.

[GatewaySnayke]

Me too.

[ghostrunner]

Either way, he's ticked off a lot of conservatives on big issues at some expense to his candidacy and he can hardly be charged with marching lockstep. He also happened to mostly agree with Bush on how to approach immigration but that's again a coincidence and not uncommon for lawmakers in that region.

But he's winning them back by doing things like siding with the Democrats in opposing Bush's tax cuts then turning around and making them a big part of his campaign and pushing to make them permanent.

That's fair. I just think the lockstep thing is way off.

[GatewaySnayke]

Yeah, I think so, too. I don't think McCain has been pushing for a constitutional ban against gay marriage and there are probably a lot of homophobes throughout the party that would like to push that again.

[AdmiralKird]

I fit in at an Applebee's salad bar, and hate myself for it.

Why the hell are there salad bars at your Applebee's?

Barack hit back tonight on how McCain doesn't care about the cost of the war. While I can accept that McCain probably misspoke when he said that the time for bringing the troops home "isn't important," he's yet to provide a good reason why we should be spending kajillions of dollars on the war.

You can't lecture voters as a candidate.

[planet planet]

Not that I have any say in it, but I can't decide how I think Obama should campaign. In a way, I want him to take the high road and run a fair and eloquent campaign as he has to date, but on the other hand, I want him to go on the attack, thinking that's the only way to fight the Republicans. They have a ton of weak points.

[clement]

Obama can take the high road. He can (and should) go on the attack on issues, McCain's record, and substantive differences in policy, while still being able to stay out of the gutter. That means not going after McCain's rich wife and the advantages that she has given him in life, not trying to denigrate the record of McCain's military service in Vietnam, not trying to make an issue of the suspected inappropriate relationship he may or may not have had with that lobbyist, etc. Honestly, I don't think McCain will engage in those kinds of attacks either, but nothing will stop a Swiftboat for Veterans type group to make issues out of one sentence Michelle Obama has made, or for a moveon.org type group to make an issue out of free airplane rides that McCain has gotten for his campaign by using his wife's private jet.

[AdmiralKird]

Obama needs to stay as distant as he can from McCain. Obama's biggest asset is his message of hope, and the more direct and issue based debates he gets in with McCain, the more his overall message is going to deteriorate, since its harder to hold up an overall vision behind facts when under srutiny. The Republicans don't have as many holes as you might percieve, Planet. The problem is they take longer explanations that people have to be open to hearing, based more on long-term consequences & solutions than just thinking 'I want X now'. Such thinking in the short-term is going to lead to the mistakes of history that has repeated itself over and over again. While the campaigns are seperate, and butting-heads from afar, its easy to see how Obama can attack McCain on this like "staying in Iraq for 100 years is bad" because that crowd is likely to only hear one side of the story, and what they want to hear, but here's the answer:

While I can accept that McCain probably misspoke when he said that the time for bringing the troops home "isn't important,"

He's been saying that we have had troops in South Korea, Japan, Germany, etc for sixty years and they are all relatively safe, and it should be a basis for our plan in Iraq. I know you generally believe in military isolationism, Snayke, so I'm not expecting to you agree with this policy, but its been consistent with our policies for the past 100 years and it hasn't failed any of the countries in which it has existed. Its actaully the best peace keeping solution there currently is, as no foreign nations want to overtly shoot at U.S. troops. The three of our largest former occupations+current established bases, Germany, Japan, and S. Korea, are all generally listed as ranking somewhere around #5-9 as the most powerful nations in the world. He's saying we shouldn't be looking at how fast we can leave, as how fast we can get the casualties down to null. If we can get them down to zero, remove most of the troops but keep several long-term bases, like we have before, perhaps they will have a chance at the prosperity that their formers have achieved, and in fifty years, we can say Iraq was overall a success. It's much easier to say, look, we have soldiers over there for five years and they have been getting killed, we want to have them home, we don't see the purpose for them to be over there anymore, so lets just leave.

But My God, I mean, if you just look here: http://icasualties.org/oif/ during the past 2 months we have not had as low of troop casulties for May/June, EVER, even since 2003. Last year, in May, over 4 soldiers were dying a day, and about 3 and a half in June. This year, it was less than soldier a day in May, and 1.15 in June (although this month isn't over). But just look at the changes, its remarkable. I don't like to play the numbers with peoples lives, but the its the only easy way for us to fairly evaluate the situation, and it has been going a lot better than what people probably know. You can debate going there all you want, Bush is terrible, etc, but a solution for the current situation is insurmountably more valuable than political red vs blue bickering.

Also you're going to hear about this latest block by the Republicans to stop the Democrats from removing the tax breaks for all the Oil Companies with record breaking profits. On the surface, it looks to be a no-brainer, that the republicans are evil for doing this, but if you look at the hard economics, this is just going to raise current gas prices. These Oil companies are reinvesting their profits in alternative energy for the future so THEY are able to continue to be a solvent energy company in the future when oil is no longer the major commodity. Also they are experimenting on trying to extract oil in our country that is/was previously unextractable, as its also costing record breaking amounts to squeeze every last drop from the drills. Cutting these tax breaks was going to cause oil companies to raise prices to offset the effect of their tax increase, its macroeconomics. Consumers would have payed for about 30-40% of whatever the effect of this tax is no matter how you look at it.

Of course you're not going to get this message on the campaign trail, because its too hard for the common voter to understand, and takes too long. Plus, staying in Iraq, giving tax breaks to oil companies is not what people want to hear. Obama has already shown people more than anything else want to feel good about the future with no qualms and hope, telling them the tough answers isn't going to make them feel better, and feel they should vote for you. The most interesting part of this election is going to be the last few weeks. Those undecideds are going to be those who have taken the message of the young Illinois Senator with skepticism and are going to be alert and looking for some solid answers which 'just make sense'. Some dubbed down form of what I have posted is going to come to light, and make the last impact in the election.