Y'all better vote for Obama!

Did that 2 weeks ago with early voting. *Smile*

America is full of morons with a very limited world view, and a lack of ability to think for themselves. Thank God they have people to think for them.

The original post is one of the dumbest things I have ever read, well other than reading about Obama's dear auntie living in poverty, that was pretty dumb too...

Let's not reduce our views of the world around us to a bunch of people who need to be told what to do and if they disagree, too bad. For Pete's sake man.

An Obama Presidency is not going to be reform in Washington, at the very least it is going to less than you expect, at most, it is going to be a giant leap in the wrong direction. There has already been enough lies in the Obama campaign to be quite alarming. There is no "too bad" here! We will go out and vote for who we damn well want to vote for, ignoring shit like this from people like you. We will vote, and who we vote for is our business. Then, after the election is over, that is the time for somebody to speak the words "too bad." Not before! Get off your high horse and stop pushing your views on others. 

A message to everyone else: Get out there and vote! It is important! Vote for who you want, and don't let anyone tell you who to vote for! If you haven't already, do some research on your own into each candidate to help you decide, you should have been doing this long before now, but it isn't too late to spend a few hours on the internet reading the good and the bad about both candidates before voting. Don't let the people on TV or FF tell you who to vote for, you decide on your own. Don't vote for someone just because it is the "hip" and "cool" thing to do. In the end the most important thing is that you vote!

As for fiscal responsibilty? Let's compare how much McCain spent campaigning compared to how much Obama spent campainging... if that is a shadow of things to come... then, uh, wow!

Well, I am from Germany, and my personal opinion is that Obama seems to be a better decision than McCain.

I never would try to tell someone to vote for Obama, but, maybe I may try to express my opinion.

First of all, I don't care or judge any skin colorization, so I see no problem in someone with a really good tan in the White House. the only people seeing a problem there are racists, and racism is very close to facism, which is extremely close to nationalism (nazi for short).

The "argument" that a "black president" is not a good president is just like a argument by a nazi. Why judging about such thing? Does the region were some ancients come from, really make someone better or worse? I think: no.

The Republicans tried to get Obama into combination with Osama. Because of his name. Well... this seems a very thing argument for me. Instead of focussing on political relevant things they hardly tried to make Obama look worse. Would I like to have a gouverment facing not the real problems, but trying to distract from real neccessary political things? What would the politic the next 4 years look like? "Hey we have about 25% people without work!" .. "yeah, but look at this country, called ***.. they have 30% people without work, and more poverty... so we are better."

Obama knows how to use media... he is charismatic, I would say.

But the most Important thing instead of vote for someone IF you are voting, it is, in my opinion, more important TO VOTE. This is the most important weapon for a person in a country: his voice.

by the way: I thing every kind of political system could work or fail. It is just a question of the people or person who holds the power in a system.

As for fiscal responsibilty? Let's compare how much McCain spent campaigning compared to how much Obama spent campainging... if that is a shadow of things to come... then, uh, wow!

Are you telling me that McCain wouldn't love to have the same amount of funding Obama had? Why do you think McCain wanted Obama to stick to federal funding?

Not to mention the fact that the Republican Party has historically outspent the Dems in past decades. Your complaint is not only completely off-topic, but it completely ignores reality as well. In fact, not a day after McCain derided the amount of money spent on Obama's 30-minute infomercial and accused him of "buying the vote",  McCain's camp announced that they would OUTSPEND Obama.

Senator John McCain’s campaign advisers pressed their argument on Friday morning that no one should write off their candidate and said yet again that their own polls showed a tightening race.

“We’re pretty jazzed up about what we’re seeing as movement in this election,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, told reporters in a lengthy morning conference call. He added that “we are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks that you’ve seen since John McCain won the primary.”

As Mr. Davis spun it out in the conference call, McCain campaign polls show a “dead even’’ race in Iowa as well as competitive positions with Mr. Obama in battleground states. Mr. Davis also asserted that the McCain campaign would outspend Mr. Obama on television by $10 million in the final days of the race.

So, tell me......is this still a "shadow of things to come?" Before you make your decision, consider this:

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - A week after the Obama campaign booked $5 million worth of advertising time during NBC's upcoming Beijing Olympics telecasts, the rival McCain camp said it has ponied up $6 million for summer's biggest TV event.

It isn't clear how much the Republican presidential candidate will be spending per spot. A primetime 30-second spot for a regular advertiser is going for as much as $750,000.

McCain's buy includes multiple dayparts on NBC, including primetime, as well as cable for the 2-1/2 weeks of the games, which begin on Friday.

The buys by Obama and McCain are the first national broadcast TV spots by a presidential campaign since Bob Dole bought a single national TV commercial in 1996.

(Guess what - Dole was a REPUBLICAN! He did it first, and Obama's just copying him. Still think it's a "bad" idea just because a Democrat is doing it? ;) ) 

MrBrown said:

Well, I am from Germany, and my personal opinion is that Obama seems to be a better decision than McCain.

I never would try to tell someone to vote for Obama, but, maybe I may try to express my opinion.

First of all, I don't care or judge any skin colorization, so I see no problem in someone with a really good tan in the White House. the only people seeing a problem there are racists, and racism is very close to facism, which is extremely close to nationalism (nazi for short).

The "argument" that a "black president" is not a good president is just like a argument by a nazi. Why judging about such thing? Does the region were some ancients come from, really make someone better or worse? I think: no.

The Republicans tried to get Obama into combination with Osama. Because of his name. Well... this seems a very thing argument for me. Instead of focussing on political relevant things they hardly tried to make Obama look worse. Would I like to have a gouverment facing not the real problems, but trying to distract from real neccessary political things? What would the politic the next 4 years look like? "Hey we have about 25% people without work!" .. "yeah, but look at this country, called ***.. they have 30% people without work, and more poverty... so we are better."

Obama knows how to use media... he is charismatic, I would say.

 

Where are you getting this information from? Sure, there are some stupid bastards in America who won't vote for him because he is black. That is obviously racism, and that isn't cool. But we have gotten to the point where everyone is too obsessed with skin color, now I end up with people calling me a racist just because I am not an Obama supporter. Don't buy into this shit Mr. Brown, there are plenty of people not supporting Obama that couldn't give a damn whether he was white, black, or green. Not sure who is making the argument that a "black president" wouldn't make a good president, I am sure some lame white supremicy groups probably believe this, but nobody really cares what those facist idiots say, but no serious person would make such an argument.

When you say, "the Republicans tried to get Obama in combination with Osama" what do you mean? You mean they tried to smear him because his name sounds like Osama? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I'd need some evidence for that. Who did that? When, where? I don't think the "Republicans" did anything of the sort.

Sounds like the news reporters in Germany are about as worthless as the ones in America.

Obama knows how to use the media, sure, they are all sided with him anyway. He is charismatic, he sure knows how to say a bunch of nothing in ways that seem to get people excited.

As for Jay regarding Obama's spending, my point wasn't that it wasn't the guys money to spend, my point was HOLY SHIT THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY TO SPEND ON JUST A DAMN CAMPAIGN!!! Especially for the guy who has already technically won this election by a landslide. Seems like if this was an inevitable change and the wisest decision for people to make, it should not have taken over 600 million dollars.

Things like this bother me quite a lot as well, http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-ticket2-2008nov02,0,2691635.story

I have not been impressed with the Republicans at all over the last several years. Both parties suck. It is infuriating how little people care to know or learn about Obama before whole heartedly backing him just because he isn't a Republican. I really don't want to vote for McCain, but Obama is one huge fucking mistake that we may very well be about to make.

C3PX said:

It is infuriating how little people care to know or learn about Obama before whole heartedly backing him just because he isn't a Republican.

It is the same on both sides.

About the budget spent on the campaign, it seems to me usually the candidate with the biggest budget wins. And yes, the ammounts spent campaingning are rediculous.

Janskeet said:

. . . we need reform in washington and only Obama has the determination to make it happen.
. . . he is the best chance we got.

Poor, poor Janskreet. :)

Arnie.d said:

It is the same on both sides.

This is what I have been bitching and moaning about for quite a while, I absolutely hate McCain, I hated him from the beginning and I hate him now. I really don't want to vote for the guy. The alternative is a far leftist Marxist! Bill Clinton was a middle of the road liberal, Hilary is a middle of the road liberal. If I had the opportunity to vote for a middle of the road liberal over McCain, I would do so. McCain himself is just barely to the right of being a middle of the road liberal. I hate that people would vote for McCain just because he is a Republican (that looks and smells like a Democrat), I also hate that we are forced to vote for McCain as our only alternative from getting a president that is so far from middle of the road that you can barely see him from the road. I know Democrats that are going to vote for McCain, because they feel Obama is way too much of an extreme to the left. This isn't about Republican vs. Democrat, this is about keeping the governments big dick out of our asses as much as possible. An Obama government is frighteningly large, a country like America is a place that needs as small a government as possible. I don't care if the president is white, black, red, or yellow, I don't care if he is a Republican or a Democrat, just so long as he upholds the constitution and does his duty as commander and chief of the armed forces. 

We stand to loose a lot with an Obama win. Any of us old dinosaurs clinging to our guns and our religion are at risk of loosing a lot of liberty. Hell, everyone is at risk of loosing a lot of liberty, they just don't give a damn about that liberty because they don't see it taking away anything they feel they need, not yet anyway.

It is amazing to believe that there are "true conservatives" (not this new use of the word "conservative" that has very little meaning and somehow includes spending money faster than you can piss) and libritarians that are actually going to vote for this guy! I agree, we need change from the last eight years, but these guys want change so badly, they are willing to jump right into the arms of an extremist.

I try not to get involved with the Politics thread (although I do read it frequently), but this thread just reminded me how irritating a lot of Obama supporters are, and I hope that's not a reflection on Obama himself.  The most irritating example I remember happened a few days ago.  I was going for a bike ride, and this car with a window rolled down drove past me, and a voice yelled out, "Obama!"  After a few more seconds of observation, I realized that this guy was yelling out Obama's name to every car, pedestrian, and bike he passed on the road.  I can't argue that it's bad to have enthusiasm for the presidential candidate you're supporting, but I agree with C3PX in that it seems like a lot of people are just yelling, "Obama" because it's the trendy thing to do.  Hopefully I'm wrong in that observation because I have a feeling that by the end of tomorrow, Obama is going to be our new president.  And hopefully that will work out well.  But in the meantime, it'd be nice if people like Janskeet didn't command strongly suggest us to do something.

When you say, "the Republicans tried to get Obama in combination with Osama" what do you mean? You mean they tried to smear him because his name sounds like Osama? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I'd need some evidence for that. Who did that? When, where? I don't think the "Republicans" did anything of the sort.

I guess you don't watch the news much then. Take a listen the next time you hear someone on TV explicitly mention his middle name HUSSEIN, and then take a little gander at what party they claim to belong to.

And as for the amount of spending being any kind of indication as to the candidate, I remind you - AGAIN - that Republicans historically outspend democrats (proving the inverse of what you are attempting to insinuate), and the amount of spending in presidential campaigns on these campaigns goes up every four years.

Then again, it's becoming more and more clear that you aren't paying attention to news reports, choosing rather to focus on meaningless minutia to make questionable points.

We stand to loose a lot with an Obama win. Any of us old dinosaurs clinging to our guns and our religion are at risk of loosing a lot of liberty. Hell, everyone is at risk of loosing a lot of liberty, they just don't give a damn about that liberty because they don't see it taking away anything they feel they need, not yet anyway.

More FUD. Give it a rest...

I haven't heard anyone call Obama by the name Osama except for Ted Kennedy. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwpfdbbrsvM

Here's a simple Youtube search for "Obama Hussein". Notice how most of the videos are targeted against him. Interesting that they use the name "Hussein", even though "Barack Obama" (or simply one or the other) would be more than enough info to make it clear who they are referring to.

But no...."Hussein" keeps popping up, as if it's a clue to something nefarious...

Goin' tomorrow to vote..........FOR MCCAIN!!  Muah ha ha ha!!! :-P

MeBeJedi said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwpfdbbrsvM

 

Here's a simple Youtube search for "Obama Hussein". Notice how most of the videos are targeted against him. Interesting that they use the name "Hussein", even though "Barack Obama" (or simply one or the other) would be more than enough info to make it clear who they are referring to.

 

But no...."Hussein" keeps popping up, as if it's a clue to something nefarious...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YaRpx3LphI&feature=related

Kennedy's is much better, instead of just half a syllable (like Romney) he practically calls him the full "Osama Bin Laden."


But, uh, yes, your main point about the nefarious, underhanded tricks of people like Romney is now well proven. ;)

otherwise, I don't like the attacking Obama on his middle name thing, but I understand why some political types might do that. Politics is messy. If Obama is bad on the issues in their mind, of course they'll be suspicious of things involving such an odd name.

MeBeJedi said:

Interesting that they use the name "Hussein", even though "Barack Obama" (or simply one or the other) would be more than enough info to make it clear who they are referring to.

But no...."Hussein" keeps popping up, as if it's a clue to something nefarious...

Being as his middle name actually IS Hussein, seems like it is fair game. Anybody with half a brain knows that it is just a middle name, something his parents gave him and has nothing to do with him as a person. Barack Hussein Obama. Seriously, no matter what implications these people are trying to make with his middle being Hussein it means nothing. If they want to use it why not? William Jefferson Clinton, George Walker Bush, Barak Hussein Obama. Come on, let's not be afraid of middle names. When some one tried to use Hussein as a bask against Obama, just tell them to shut the hell up, because they are being retarded. 

Anyway, the accusation that I said I needed evidence of were the "Republicans" trying to use the fact that his name rhymes with Osama as a smear. Your response was that I was obviously out of touch because so many people are using his middle name. I've known that the Obama supporters throw tissies when his middle name is used (Democrats have also used his middle name just for the hell of it), I am perfectly well informed of that. Still don't believe anyone in the Republican party decided his name rhyming with Osama was any sort of an argument in anyway (as Mr. Brown suggested was one of the Republican's primary arguments, right after our prime argument that he is black and a black guy wouldn't make a good president, lol).

Being as his middle name actually IS Hussein, seems like it is fair game. Anybody with half a brain knows that it is just a middle name, something his parents gave him and has nothing to do with him as a person.

This......coming from the guy claiming that the amount of money Barack has been spending somehow reflects negatively on his campaign?

I don't know why you are pretending that Reps aren't deliberately using his middle name as a code word for their core constituents. There have been interviews on the street with people mentioning their dislike of someone running for president with the name "Hussein", not to mention the resemblance of "Obama" with "Osama". You go right on ahead and plead ignorance, but the Republcans are trying to smear Obama in any way possible, and there is absolute and deliberate intent when they pronounce his name with emphasis. Joe Six-Pack can be swayed by such subliminal suggestions.

Oh, and back to the amounts of money being spent on presidential campaigns...

Filings Show Democrats Catching GOP in Funds

Listen Now add to playlist

All Things Considered, July 24, 2006 · For years, the GOP has enjoyed a comfortable fundraising advantage over Democrats, especially in Senate races. But the latest federal election filings indicate that the Democrats have closed the fundraising gap.

Michele Norris talks with Stuart Rothenberg, of the Rothenberg Political Report.

Rothenberg says that the margin is still slim for the House campaign committees. There, Democrats raised $9.8 million compared with $9.5 million for Republicans. But in Senate campaign committees, Democrats took in almost twice as much as Republicans -- $8.8 million compared with $4.8 million for the GOP.

Still, the Republican Party maintains that, on the whole, its candidates are better-financed than Democrats, especially the incumbents. The Republicans are defending 35 competitive seats in the November elections, compared with 10 seats for the Democrats.



Public Choice and Campaign Finance

Campaign finance reform has been a heated topic with John McCain’s nomination to the Republican Party. Fred Thompson even before the nomination was tied up had the problem of supporting campaign finance reform when he was a senator. In order to educate myself I took a look at a Public Choice article that is about campaign finance.

It is called “A Public Choice Perspective on Campaign Finance Reform,” by Burton Adams and Russell Settle. They begin by giving a brief overview of the history of campaign finance. It began with the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and was later amended in 1974. This is where the idea of public funding for campaign came in and a restriction on campaigns spending crazy amounts of money and getting lots of money from individuals. This did not work so then came the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. This tried to rein in some soft money contributions. Those who do not know “soft money” is money that can go to political parties for “party building” while hard money is money going straight to the campaign. Soft money was being limited in this case through individuals, unions, businesses, and PACs.

Some ask why is this important and is money important in campaigns? The answer is yes. The correlation between voter turnout and amount of money spend is positive and of course in most cases turnout equals good outcome. Also since 1960 to 2000 campaign spending has increased by 400%. Other interest bits are that it was also found that the greater the office the greater amount of money that is needed. This may seems to be obvious but what is interesting is that the greater office is a function of how much political appointment power and how long you are there for. Obviously, the more equals more power which means you need more money.

Capping money for campaigns would like most economists would allow the marginal benefit (MB) and marginal costs (MC) to be below and equilibrium. This is of course the benefit and costs of raising money and getting the office. The model shows an interesting point is that if we were to cap private funds and meet them with the exact public funds the equilibrium would still be lower. This is because you have eliminated the time spend raising money and now the candidates can substitute time getting more voters. There is also another fundamental flaw with campaign finance reform is that the caps are not inflation adjusted. The cap used to be $1,000 for an individual but that was in 1974. In 1994, that same money was only worth $250.

What have the candidates done to counteract this and has this actually accomplished anything? The answer is no. It instead has the campaigns try to figure out a way around. The most obvious is that donors now give to parties and they no longer use the money to “party build” instead they run commercials and funnel money for the campaigns. Noticed I used the word “for” and not “to.” This is because when you would set up a phone bank or a commercial it would be to bash the other candidate and can be ran by staffers paid by the GOP or DNC and not John McCain or Barack Obama. Bill Clinton was one of the first to figure this out and it was truly entrepreneurial.

The empirical work that was done was to see who benefited the most from the legislation. It was obvious that in general Democrat benefited because the GOP in the last six cycles has outraised the DMC by 16%. The bill was in now was “Bipartisan” like the title suggests. In the House, 94% of Dems voted for it while only 19% of Repubs did. In the Senate, 96% of the Dems voted for it while 22% of the Repubs did. The last interesting find was that years in office didn’t matter when it came to voting but the margin of victory did. The closer the margin the more likely the person was to vote for it. That is because they were probably scared of soft money being thrown their way next time.

My Thoughts: Campaign finance reform doesn’t seem to be doing much good politicians and parties seem to be getting around it. The Public Choice aspect is that initially the vote was seen to help safe up districts for those congressmen who are really worried. It somewhat limited the soft money through those organizations mentioned above, but that is about all it did. Bill Clinton’s campaign was an entrepreneur in their design to funnel soft money to the campaign. This model has been and will be used in future campaigns. We might as well as get rid of campaign finance legislation. It is a waste on society to try to get around the rules and doesn’t do anything to rein in spending.

Not only have Republicans historically outspent Democrats.......THEY ARE ALSO THE BIGGEST OPPONENTS OF CAMPAIGN SPENDING LIMITS!!! No big surprise, since they've generally been able to get more money than the Democrats. Of course, now that the Dems are beating them at their own game, you can be sure they're going to insist on limits in the future. ;)

MeBeJedi said:

You go right on ahead and plead ignorance, but the Republcans are trying to smear Obama in any way possible,

People smear George W. Bush in lots of illegitimate ways as well. But that doesn't mean that everyone who attacks Bush is an idiot. It's just the nasty way politics works. The use of Obama's middle name doesn't mean there's an official Republican strategy, some dark conspiracy, or a specific intent to mislead people by specifically mentioning his middle name. The few people I've heard talk about Obama's name have doen so because they believe it is a legitimate issue (I believe they're being illogical and silly, but that's their belief). You have no proof of anything other than misspeach, stupidity, and nastiness.

And the "Osama" thing is the most ridiculous part of your conspiracy theory. It's so far-fetched that its not worth even talking about any further. Nobody would use that as a deliberate strategy to affect dumb "joe-six-packs." Might as well believe that Obama's parents were the key planners of your conspiracy if that's the case (they gave him his name). Heh, and that Ted Kennedy was the willing point man (for the most memorable audio clip).

Jay said:

C3PX said:

As for Jay regarding Obama's spending, my point wasn't that it wasn't the guys money to spend, my point was HOLY SHIT THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY TO SPEND ON JUST A DAMN CAMPAIGN!!! Especially for the guy who has already technically won this election by a landslide. Seems like if this was an inevitable change and the wisest decision for people to make, it should not have taken over 600 million dollars.

And the Republicans are just as bad, so I'm not sure it's even relevant.

MeBeJedi said:

And as for the amount of spending being any kind of indication as to the candidate, I remind you - AGAIN - that Republicans historically outspend democrats (proving the inverse of what you are attempting to insinuate), and the amount of spending in presidential campaigns on these campaigns goes up every four years.

Oh come on guys.  Obama has raised the most money ever of any candidate.

Years ago the Democrats bitched about how much money the Republicans raised.  Now, suddenly, it's no big deal because their guy has managed to raise an absolute shit load of money.  This is the same guy that said he'd sit down and talk with McCain about only accepting public financing...until money started really pouring in.  Then it was suddenly ok to take campaign contributions from private donors.  $150 million in one month.  McCain got $40 million for his whole campaign (I think that's the right number).

Obama is not a saviour.  If you're lucky, you'll get a full 4 years of policy out of him.  If he's to hard left though, and I have no doubt that he is, you'll get 2 years of policy out of him before the People turn Congress over to the Republicans as a way of controlling Obama.

MeBeJedi said:

Not only have Republicans historically outspent Democrats.......THEY ARE ALSO THE BIGGEST OPPONENTS OF CAMPAIGN SPENDING LIMITS!!! No big surprise, since they've generally been able to get more money than the Democrats. Of course, now that the Dems are beating them at their own game, you can be sure they're going to insist on limits in the future. ;)

I doubt it.  What we'll want is the "Campaign Finance Reform" to be repealed.  Why should there be limits anyway?  What we need is full disclosure, not limits.  I already stated that I don't really care that Obama raised so much money.  What bothers me is that he said he was going to take public financing and then changed his mind once the money started rolling in.  This is the same complaint that I've heard from many of the Conservative pundits.  Obama was claiming that campaign finance reform was the way to go back in 2007, but then change his mind in 2008 when lots of money started coming his way.  So which is it?  Is he for campaign finance reform or against it?  He seems to be against it judging by all the money he's raised.

Oh, about the spending topic, I don't know what C3PX would say, but I'm guessing he doesn't like all of the spending our country is diverting for political elections. I don't think he has a problem with one political candidate legitimately accumulating more support than another.