Economy, Bill, Debate

What is going on with the economy?!?! Economy crisis?! Yes, it seems that the economy is in a downfall…..

While McCain was supposed to go back to Washington to address the economic issues/crisis in this country, and if the deal is not finished and decided on, the debates are over? What do the people think about that?

Though, it seems he stayed in New York for an interview….I wonder what the polls will say when they find out….

Debates seemed to be right on schedule, though. Right on time, they were. No problems with the timing. Who won? Who lost? Hurdles covered? Hurdles knocked over? What about the polls now?

Obama seems to have a hold on what should be done for the economy, Palin is very vague on what she thinks needs to be done to help the economy….

Even the current president says “We’re in the midst of a serious financial crisis“….

Yet, they didn’t pass the bill, had a bad reaction to it, rejected it. Reasons behind the rejection? Who knows…

-Mojo Jojo

On Magic

We all know magic is nothing but smoke and mirrors. A little abracadabra and a magician can appear to saw a woman in half or pull a rabbit out of a hat. The same can be said of politics where the best politician is one who can control the audience like a magician. With a little magic even the worst politician can seem like a hero.

Many liberal bloggers have quipped John McCain’s attempt at disrupting the first presidential debate as nothing but a stunt. I have to agree with them if for no other reason than McCain didn’t handle his audience well. Every magician knows it’s easy to divert attention and make it look like things are happening, but McCain simply blundered the whole thing (it took him 22 hours to take a 1 hour plane flight). McCain could have easily flow to Washington, “disappeared” for a period of time, claimed he was working on the bailout plan and no one could have said any different.

Rumor has it that McCain’s next big trick will be to use Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol to pull another hocus-pocus act and once again disrupt the presidential race. The marriage of Brisol Palin to baby daddy Levi Johnston “would be fantastic” to quote a McCain insider in this post.

I would be suprised if McCain actually tried this one because too many people would look at it as another political stunt instead of a genuinly important event. He already gambled once and lost, he’d be really going all in with that one.

But then again what would McCain have to lose?

-Harry Houdini

And the Winner Is…

After the presidential debates Friday mant people weighed in on who won the debates. As expected, Left leaning blogs claim Obama won while the right retorts the win goes to McCain.

Neither of these opinions matter as Joshua Trevino points out on his blog,

If you want to assess the “winner” of a campaign debate, the only data that matters is the post-debate polling — not the pronouncements of the pundits.

What really matters are the undecided voters and what they have to say about the debate.

Let’s crunch some of those numbers:

Image

Obama 49% Better – 8% Worse = +41%

McCain 32% Better – 21% Worse = +11%

Prepared to be President

Obama 60% (Post Debate) – 44% (Pre Debate) = +16%

McCain 78% (Post Debate) – 79% (Pre Debate) = -1%

Understands Your Needs and Problems

Obama 79% (Post Debate) – 58% (Pre Debate) = +21%

McCain 41% (Post Debate) – 36% (Pre Debate) = +5%

Overall, it seems like Obama gained more from this debate than McCain did. What do you think Dave?

-Hal 9000

Liveblogging Debate 2008

7:59 PM (All times CDT)

Getting ready to liveblog the debate. Hopefully there won’t be too much commentary.

 

 

8:03 PM

No sound at all? Now that should be interesting. Oh, financial question first. Here we go!
Main Street vs. Wall Street. Good start. College. Very important point. Fast, but not too fast, addressing that $700bn is a lot of money. Measuring the economy by the middle class, thank you, Mr. Obama.

8:06 PM

Someone tell McCain that Sen. Kennedy is out of the hospital now. Whoops! McCain speaks a lot slower… and therefore says a lot less. And ha, five minutes is enough time to work out an agreement! Truth!

8:11

A Twitterer points out that McCain has already said that he is tired as a defense of his condition and whatever may happen. Interesting idea. And many people are already addressing McCain’s lack of a flag pin. I am amused.

8:15

McCain has just attached himself to “No earmarks”. This could be dangerous if Obama uses it well. Ah, the no-lobbyists-here card. And turning it on McCain. Back to working with for the people, not the corportations. McCain… Only $18bn? Only?

8:22

Obama uses the word “sometimes” followed by bringing up the healthcare issue that needs more attention anyways. McCain, we have to move on. And I think Obama does well looking back and forth between the audience there and the audience at the debate watching parties. It’s not just about who is there, it’s about people around the country!

8:27

Sen. Ted Stevens was the one to call McCain “the sheriff”. – From Politico’s Jonathan Martin

8:31

Transparency with spending projects. This has been very useful so far this campaign. And good job, Lehrer, don’t let McCain control you in this debate. “Hatchet” vs. “scalpel”. A very graphic statement.

8:37

Still haven’t seen McCain’s eyes yet. Hey, the people are out here! “Orgy of spending”? That’s… a bit risky terminology Senator Obama. Be careful. And McCain, you’re not “Ms. Congeniality”, but your running mate is may be! (FactCheck.org may need to be checked on this statement. Apologies for assumptions.)

8:41

Not sure if everything Obama has said just now is accurate, but it certainly sounded good, and for the next 24 hours, that’s all that matters. Let’s hope, for his sake, that most of it is the truth.

8:53

Wondering about the fun-o-meter of the audience, and finally! Foreign policy! But be careful of using charged words, McCain candidates. Lopping people together would be very bad. Here goes Obama, telling McCain that he is wrong, and explaining why. “No one said anything about attacking Pakistan.”

“Threaten extinction for North Korea”? Really? Where was this? I am genuinely interested.

9:01

My, there is a lot of information to keep track of at once. This is exciting. And we’re running over on taking only five minutes. I am not surprised. Oh… a long pause? For the first time in this debate. This “League of Democracies” sounds similar to the United Federation of Nations United Nations. Probably has more authority, at least in Senator McCain’s mind, but I’m not sure if that’s really a good thing.

9:08

McCain, it’s a bad idea to obviously struggle over a word. Even one that difficult. Oh, I think I just saw McCain’s eyes! One hour later!

9:14

McCain, Israel is not the United States, and you’re making your party sound more and more set about bringing about the… I cannot continue this train of thought. McCain just… Okay. Republicans seem to want to bring about the Biblical Armegeddon. How about we not set our goals on that? And thank you Senator Obama for clearing up what no “preconditions” means.

9:28

Suitcase threat right after talking about airport security. It’s a good mental connection for people. Very easy to imagine. And a shift to terrorism, and in Afganistan and Pakistan, not Iraq.

9:33

Obama’s on a committee that focuses on Veterans… and McCain is not? An interesting twist there. McCain almost used what seems to be a dangerous word, “invasion”. McCain’s trying to connect disconnected parts, but I’m not sure if he’s really explaining how that’s supposed to work.

9:37

And there ends the debate. Should be interesting to watch the reactions, and to get all of the information that has been gathered from this evening. Ah, and a last thing! Sen. Obama was the first to approach the other candidate to congratulate him on a good debate. Points there.

9:52

After a short break, I have to say that this debate was near even, at least in general affect on the population. Sen. Obama did a much better job of being focused, clear, and speaking as if he was talking to many more people than were actually there – which is what he needed to do. Sen. Obama also hit many of Nate Silver’s key debate points, but so did Sen. McCain. I think it will be very interesting to see the verification/debunking of statements on FactCheck.org when they finally get through everything that was said tonight.

 

Thank you, candidates, for the debate. It was entertaining, and I am looking forward to the debates still to come.

-Lelouch Lamperouge

On Multitasking

You know, I’m just trying to figure out what Sen. McCain is doing. I know that, politically, it’s both a brilliant and moronic move, but really? Suspending his campaign to go “work” on a bill that neither he nor Sen. Obama actually have any more than a yes/no say on? (The Senate Banking Committee Members will be doing most of the work on that.)

 

Any hero knows, you’ve gotta multitask, and anyone who can’t do that doesn’t deserve to be President of this nation.

-Mr. Incredible

Agreements, kupo?

Eh, kupo? Are we going to have both candidates agree on something, kupo?!

Though they probably both have different ways of wanting to deal with this proposed plan, kupo, it should be amazing that both don’t want that bill to pass through, kupo!!

If both of them are agreeing on that topic, then perhaps the government people should listen to them, kupo!!

-Mog the Moogle

The Battleground

I have to say that this election is turning into one of the most interesting and strangest set ups I have seen. See, I’m pretty sure that it is John McCain who is running for President, but it seems as though Palin and the media don’t think so. They seem to enjoy pitting her against Barack Obama, instead of her equivalent on the rival party’s ticket, Joe Biden.

There are several other battles going on here. The first and most prominent is, of course, Obama vs. Palin/McCain McCain/Palin, which seems to continually focus on Obama vs. Palin.

We’ve also got what should be the main debating point, Obama vs. McSame, as well as Now we get to some interesting ones!

McCains vs. McCain – his own family doesn’t support him!

Oh, and don’t forget Media vs. Palin: (We’re at 36, as of 9/22)

And there’s one particular match-up that I find extremely interesting:

McCain vs. Palin.

Seems the Republicans combat themselves as much as the other party.

-Han Solo

More debt?!?! My Money!!!!

Let’s see…a five-letter word for ‘happiness’…’Money’. Counting me money. Money sweeter than honey. Money money this, money money that. Profit will make me wallet fat! Ever wonder what the national debt is? Accordin’ to the debt clock, our debt is $9,733,598,354,817 and growin’ every minute. It’s about $9.7 trillion dollars….How do we have any kind of money? The government needs to run a tighter ship!!!! And look what’s going on with the economy and government:

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pushing for a “clean” bill to be passed quickly and not be loaded up with provisions that would deter companies from participating.

“[T]he whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to our capital markets, businesses, our housing sector, and retirement accounts,” President Bush said.

Three cheers for feeling sorry for ourselves! Though it is true we need to pick up our economy, is this proposal really going to do the trick? A $700 billion financial rescue proposal….That is what they are plannin’ on tryin’ to pass. The government must love screwin’ up the economy…’Course, Bush and his crew have already done that so much, with the Iraq war and all, so perhaps it’s to be expected….

Honestly, though, has anyone looked at what is to be proposed in that proposal? Not only is it wastin’ two thousand dollars from every man, woman and child in the United States, no one can review it….

Basically, the government is handin’ over a blank check, handin’ it over and then closin’ their eyes and turnin’ their backs on what is going to happen with that money. And if someone finds out there’s a problem with it or notice that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is usin’ the money in any kind of way that he’s not supposed to or something, no one can do any thing about it….

How’s that legal? Rather, if they pass it, it’ll be legal, but can we already let our screwed up government squash our economy any longer? That’s me money walkin’ out the door!!!!! First, by the Iraq war, and now this, especially if it’s passed….

There’s gonna be some changes around here! Gonna and gotta, and the next president is goin’ to have a hard job…..

-Mr. Krabs

Back to the Future (Part Deuce)

Now that the flux capacitor has cooled and I’ve refueled the DeLorean (great scott that was expensive) we can resume looking at the Palin Phenomenon and how McCain’s vice presidential choice was nothing more than a political stunt.

As we rev up the engine to 88 miles per hour I’ll set the course back even further than last time to see what would happen if Hillary Clinton was chosen as the presidential nominee for the Democratic party.

Now, as you well know, Hillary’s absence from Obama’s ticket has been cited as one of the primary reason for McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin, which is out maneuvered if Obama chooses Hillary to be his VP. On this trip I shall go back and place Hillary in the presidential candidate position giving McCain more to loose if he chooses Palin as his VP.

Instead of focusing on what Palin brings to McCain’s ticket that Hillary trumps, as we did last time, I’ll instead focus on the stance McCain would need to take to oppose Hillary Clinton’s ticket that Palin would not contribute to.

• McCain would need to try and garner the support of the disgruntled Obama supporters by trying to show them McCain is more about change than Hillary. McCain would not have to worry about Hillary choosing Obama has her VP since it would be viewed as too radical and would dissuade more voters than it would bring in. Regardless, Palin is not the person for the job since she’s not a radical reformer (no matter how hard McCain’s camp tries to make her).
• McCain would have to be very careful about sexist remarks towards Hillary, which we’ve seen take a hit on the Obama/Biden ticket. Adding Palin to the mix might help, but would negate any chances of McCain pushing the “not emotionally ready” if Hillary ever brakes down again.
• Hillary’s healthcare revolution would need to be dealt with. McCain needs to push the failure of a socialist healthcare system. Palin has a better idea about health care than McCain, but her record would speak otherwise.

Simply put, McCain would need a strong VP to help him stand against a strong woman like Hillary Clinton. Palin is just not the person for the job when McCain has choices like Mitt Romney.

Besides, Sarah Palin’s political half life seems to be reaching it’s peak even as we speak.

-Doc Brown

Pay-lin? Pal-in? Pal-Cain?

So, one thing I’ve been wondering since Gov. Sarah Palin was announced as the running mate of Sen. John McCain is…

How exactly do you say her name?

We’ve heard a lot of things about this woman from Alaska, half of it false, half of it misconstrued, and most of it unconfirmed. One thing (among MANY) we have not gotten a good answer on is how we even say her name.

I guess since the name of one of her kids is supposed to rhyme with “Van Halen” we can guess that it would be “Pay-lin”, but even I wouldn’t put any money on it. I mean, with all that’s happened in the last month or so, how can we trust them with anything?

-Lelouch Lamperouge