US General Election: McCain vs. Obama

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Oh, and since I'm linking to the Economist again: Surprise! Economists prefer Obama.

 

Wow, talk about spinning a report. Out of 142 70% prefer obama yet 530 have signed statements endorsing mccains plan & they say that economists prefer obama?

As far as the obama-ayers "i barely knew him" thats funny as he was hand-picked by ayers to give out the $50 million from the chicago annenberg challenge for 5 years, which went not to the schools but to groups like ACORN.

Also what changed obama's mind from when he was elected in 04 & stated he would NOT run in 08 as he didn't have the experiance needed?
For those who doubt here is the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BnLozS-TnM

Ragusa, i figured you would be against obama by now as he has stated that georgia needs to be in nato as soon as possible(from what you have said about pushing russia over in the georgia thread)

 

Martaug, you're familiar with how polling works, right? When you take a poll, you only ask a small sampling of a given group of people. Given that our country has just a little over 15,000 economists, 142 respondents adds up to quite a large statistical sample, nearly 1% of all economists. By contrast, a Zogby poll usually samples about 1200 people -- out the over 200 million people who are registered to vote -- a whopping 0.0006%. The fact that 532 economists signed on with McCain will help him, but it does nothing to discredit the poll results, since out of 15,000, 532 people still adds up to quite a bit less than 30%.

 

drew, they sent out 683 & only 142 responded, so less than 25%. So 70% of less than 25% prefer obama, that kinda puts it in perspective.

Ayers just keeps coming up as obama has blalantly lied about his association with him. even cnn says so. http://patdollard.com/2008/10/cnn-ayers-investigation-obama-lied-in-debate/

 

Not that I've heard. The only thing I've heard in regards to it as an issue that "keeps coming up," is that it's a blatant attempt to change the subject from issues of substance, to a desparate attempt at a smear. It wasn't even mentioned in the debate. But it was commented that McCain did not like bringing it up; it's more Sarah's deal. And sorry, I don't pay much attention to much she says anyway.

 

he stated that "he was a neighbor that i sometimes saw", when in fact he served on 2 boards with him, the woods for over 3 years & the CAC for over 7 years. Even when ayers stated in 2001(2003?) that he was unrepented about bombing american government buildings & was phototgraphed standing on a american flag, obama continued to assoiate with him. Just another in a LONG line of disturbing people who provided support(i hate to use the word mentor) him as he came up politically.
In fact the appointment to the CAC chairmanship has been credited with proplelling him into the spotlight from being a small-time organiser.

Also, how did obama go from saying when he was elected in 04 that he lacked the expertise to run in 08 to doing just that less than 6months later?

 

I somehow doubt that a paper which essentially endorsed McCain as far back as December 2007 is spinning things to benefit Obama.

 

It still spun the report, of course this was probably the author of the articles fault not the entire magazine.

 

As I've been saying, and I'll say it again, no one except the Republican base gives a flip about any of this. It's called a diversion - and a very lame and transparent one at that.

 

No chandos only elitist dems don't care about it. Or the fact that he has ties to a group that is being investigated for voter fraud in a dozen states(ACORN)

 

martaug, I reply to your post here.

 

I think David Frum over at National Review has the right take on the Ayers business.

I think if people want to spend the next month whipping themselves into a fury over this, I say have at it. It's a dud of an issue. But I tend to think two things will happen as a result.

1) Obama's win will be even more certain than it was after the results of tonight's debate.
2) It increases the chances of Obama being assassinated, and I don't think anyone wants that.

That's what worries me more than anything. Some fool getting it in his head that he's protecting America from some horrible terrorist connection that isn't actually there. I can see it being a stronger motivator than mere racism alone.

 

What stuns me is that in the midst of a developing recession, multiple wars and mortgage defaults left, right and centre, some people are more concerned with peripheral questions and distractions that can be demonstrably proven false. And how at the same time, the same people can ignore more substantive questions about the candidates and their positions, as well as the people who are drawing their attention to these asides...

...for instance, the reasons why they want to inflate these matters to divert attention away from other things that they have less control over, or no idea how to address.

I'm just glad no-one's chasing my vote in this election.

 

Wow. You really don't know how polling works. Martaug, they always contact more people than they get respondents and a 25% response rate isn't unusual. That said, numerous studies have been conducted on response rates, and no major differences have been turned up between high and low response rates. A low response rate does not translate into lower data quality, so your point is moot.

 

Wow drew you really suprise me with your trys to spin things

Let's see, issues

Obama wants to provide each household a $1000 to be gotten from a "windfall profit tax" from the oil companies. You know the businesses making 10% profit, those HUGE windfalls(hmm, my average profit margin is 30-35% so should i have to pay extra?)
Hmmm, 100 million households x $1000 = 100 Billion dollars. Now what do you think companies are going to do if you take 100 BILLION dollars from them?
1) move to other countries & 2) raise their prices.
You like $4 a gallon gas what are you going to do with $10 - $12 a gallon gas.
According to his website "This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief. " So thats another $100 billion less in money to the government each year to fund there projects

Threatened to withdraw america from the NAFTA agreement in a debate before the texas & ohio primaries then sent his economic advisor Austan Goolsbee to meet with the canadian consul general in chicago where he explained obama's rhetoric was "more reflective of political maneuvering than policy"

Supports the Employee Free Choice Act - which would restrict the employers rights if they failed to agree to tems in the first 90 days & would allow the government to impose mediation that the company can NOT turn down.
It also went further with the intention of eradicating non-unionized labor by repealing states rights to declare themselves "Right to Work" states, as set-up under the Taft-Hartley Act.
Right to Work states have regulations that keep membership in an organized labor union from being required for employment. So most new manufactoring jobs have been created in the 22 Right to Work states in the US.

Says he will help strengthen the military, funny as the last democratic administration did its best to gut the military.
Says we need to redo the military for the 21st century yet opposes the development of the future weapons systems.
Hmm, we need to advance our military but we can't have the new advances?

Has the standard liberal "oh all nuclear is bad!!" rhetoric whereas mccains plan would allow 45 new plants

Georgia/south ossetia : he stated "I wholeheartedly condemn the violation of Georgia's sovereignty. I think it is important at this point for all sides to show restraint and to stop this arms conflict. Georgia's territorial integrity needs to be preserved and now is the time for direct talks,"
Didn't georgia start this mess by attacking russia first? more good ol' democratic revisionist history.

Wants to fast track georgia into nato, a move sure(designed even?) to antagonize russia.

Basically is promising to reduce taxes but wants to spend hundreds of billions more money on new projects. Where is it going to come from?

Personally, i think we need to go back to the gold standard. That way we can't just print more money when we feel an urge. You have X amount of money & thats it, learn to live within your means.

 

I watched the debate last night -- I didn't think the format was very good, nor did I think Tom Brokaw chose the best questions (perhaps he did and all the questions were crap).

My general feeling:

Obama failed to put the nail in the coffin.
McCain failed to cast doubt on Obama.
McCain had more substance to his answers.
Obama looked more at ease and was able to pivot better.
McCain passed up too many opportunities to hammer Obama.
Obama was ineffective at attacks on McCain.​

The real jaw dropping comment for me was Obama's:

Obama just told a country with nuclear weapons he was willing to cross their borders and commit an act of war. Wow. I was stunned -- that was the single most irresponsible statement I've heard in this campaign. Don't get me wrong here; I think such an act may be necessary, but a president (or nominee) cannot go out and publicly announce those intentions.

 

Indeed! OPSEC! Had he shut up nobody on earth, let alone in Pakistan or the recently raided and regularly predator-ed tribal territories, could have possibly ex- or suspected a US president to consider or even do such a thing!

 

So mentioning that a 25% response rate for a survey is actually normal, and that a high or low response rate doesn't really have anything to do with whether the data is good or bad is spinning, now? Get over yourself. The rest of the crap that follows has nothing to do with anything I've previously brought up, so I don't really feel like addressing it, especially given the source.

 

The "crap" as you call it is obamas' position based on what is on his website. Get over yourself, mr holier-than-thou.

How about refuting 1 point i made, instead of saying "oh i don't like the source so it's all bad. boohoo!"

@ragusa, what would you have said if the country he threatened had been russia? He has stated that we (the us) will do everything in our power to protect allies like georgia. Kinda scary huh?

 

martaug,
the point is that he did not say that. And the point is that McCain iirc has said about the same thing.

Obama said he would attack al-Qaida in Pakistan unilaterally, if necessary (nothing really new in US politics actually). You make of that that "Obama is threatening to attack Pakistan" which is, like, a stretch.

McCain said this when he was a nominee:

Palin said this:

Both statements are a year apart; amusing how ... similar the wording is. Talking points anyone? How does that sound all that different? It certainly doesn't exclude attacking, it merely stresses making a cost-benefit analysis before doing it, much like 'if necessary'. Is that an implicit threat? It certainly can be read as that.

The positions of the two are in fact identical. Fancy that. I told you something about a bi-partisan foreign policy consensus - this is such a point. But don't let that stop you from getting very upset.