Joe the Ploy that's getting old

So with the Joe the Plumber thing going absolutely crazy, along with almost 90% of the electorate, I thought I would add my opinion on the whole thing. I was fairly surprised that it lasted so long after they found out that he lied about his income, intention to buy, company profits, and job. He was worried about taxes which he doesn’t pay and was already a right-wing radio star and poster boy. Since the cost of Sara the Candidate’s-Number-Two’s maintenance came out and was reveled to be $27,000 more expensive than Joe’s house, I figured John the Candidate would drop the subject. But alas he is on a Joe the Plumber tour and driving me up the wall.

I don’t understand why Joe the lying-not-really-a-plumber is such a big deal. He is taken as an example of very American by the McPain-in-the-neck campaign. I don’t think most American’s would make a spectacle of themselves by lying to a national candidate and then not listening to his response to the lie, because, well, it was a lie. A white man in the middle class who does a job is not the quintessential voter anymore. This has long sense passed and doesn’t make McLame seem more in touch at all. In fact, it makes it look like he is even more sheltered than anyone would have thought.

This morning on NPR they were discussing race and who Joe-Sixpack was. Those who support McSame all said he was a regular guy like them, but that is not how I see it. Joe-Sixpack is a worthless, gutless wife-beater who can’t hold a job and lays about the house threatening to beat his children while chugging cheap domestic brews that taste, quite frankly, of piss. Where the idea that he is what every American is is ridiculous and it sticks to the white-man is everyone idea of the electorate. Others who talked on the idea said redneck and hillbilly and country music fan. that is more what I see and I have found that, at least among my friends (college-age, black and white, bipartisan students) this is what they got too.

The idea that in this vast society the entirety or even the majority of the electorate can be summed up in one person is ridiculous. Even a single family can have people of all creeds, races, socioeconomic levels, and ideas. Picking a single person as a representative, especially when he (it is always a he even though there are more female voters) is made up. Barak the Front-Runner has not chosen a person to be a representative because he understands the vast multicultural society that makes up the country he wants to lead. The point is that John the Coot needs to straighten up and stop playing this crazy idea of all people being Joe. I am not a Joe and never want to be.

FYI- Women’s “health” *smug smirk* is an issue and making fun f it is really not a good idea.

McCain-Palin

Oh boy. I am not sure whether I am offended, apathetic, angry, or all of the above. Alright, I can see the political motivations for this: fighting his anti-women votes, countering Obama's historic aspect, supporting the current political problems in Alaska, and getting those stray Hillary voters. Some new developments about her interferance in police jobs and getting a person fired as well as all of the pork she brought to places in Alaska show that she goes against McCain's maverick show. She falls on the strict conservative party line and is very, very socially conservative. Some people have said that it is bad that she isn't home with her 5 kids (and she does have a 17 year old pregnant daughter, which they use as evidence that she should stay home). It makes me kinda mad that McCain would pick her (an unknown and not all that helpful Governor who has not worked outside of the state) instead of many other women who are in or were in the House or Senate with more Washington experiance. It makes me madder that he then dares to claim that Obama has less experience than Palin! He record goes against just about everything I take a side on and she seems like a political puppet who will be put behind a desk or in front of cameras and really do nothing so McCain can say he is a maverick and follow the blazed trail. That's all I can think of now. It really bugs me. (By the way, what is with McCain and beauty queens with big eyes who are blonde and kinda scary?)

The Race Has Begun!

Well, the election season has officially started. Both campaigns have officially started their attacks on each other. The McCain campaign had negative supporters from the start, but the campaign went dirty very quickly. The Obama ad “attacking” McCain was, I have to say, very bland. I wouldn’t even call it an attack ad, but it has been dubbed so by the talking heads on both sides. I hope they start debating soon and all of the campaign ad coverage stops. I am getting sick of watching news shows about an ad that runs during the commercial. It is even more stomach churning listening to some of the McCain apologists trying to say that McCain doesn’t speak for the McCain campaign when he makes a gaff or flip-flops. The term flip-flopping needs to be officially removed from the political vocabulary of America before people are afraid to give any opinion for fear of changing their minds eight or more years later. That’s one of the things I have noticed some McCain supporters are annoyed by with Obama. He is very good at not giving an opinion or straddling the fence but making it seem like he’s being specific and answering whatever he is charged with or asked. This annoys me too, but it is a brilliant campaign move when the flip-flops are flying (alliteration rocks).

I was not surprised that McCain claimed Obama was playing the race card. I don’t think it applied in the way he was using it and that the term race card should go the way of the flip-flop. Obama was not using his or his opponent’s race as an issue or a way of getting votes. He was pointing out, at least in the clips I have seen, that this is an expected attack from the McCain campaign. This makes it even more ironic that he used it for this statement, especially after the third time he said the same thing. I don’t know if the race argument is going to work for or against either candidate in a significant way.

I might just be immune to it living in Memphis where there is a huge move to change our local Representative because he is white and the area he represents is mostly black. The campaign against him is trying to find everything they can to say that he is racist, even thought he has the support of many black politicians from around here and has done an excellent job, especially on the Judiciary Committee. He has the voting record of a black woman and has served Memphis well. He put forth the bill where Congress denounced the slave trade and officially apologized. I was really mad when NPR interviewed a black journalist from Chicago who made fun of him. It makes a difference here in Memphis and in the south and does not need ridicule from others. The school board hasn’t funded our schools when the teachers have already headed back and there was a serious debate about the city removing all funding from its schools. It is not needed when the last mayoral election was divided around race and economic lines and the man who won held his office hostage unless they made him superintendant of the school board. We don’t need other people ragging on one of the few very good politicians we have as more of those who abused their power are brought to justice.

That side-rant aside (tee-hee), the campaigns are heating up faster than the inside of my car in the parking lot at the airport. Through the blather, it is nearly possible to piece-meal the candidates’ platforms together. I think I support Obama. (I loath to say that because I hate being lumped into a group and people misinterpreting my motives and intentions.) I will be surer of that once they have a debate or two and have better laid out their positions. I am never going to vote for McCain. At first I took it easy on him, but he has made way too many mistakes and has terrible positions when it comes to women’s rights and constitutional matters. It irks me that this election cycle has gone so Christian, but I understand it since Obama is being called a Muslim, which I don’t see as being particularly evil, and McCain needs to win the religious right to help rally the base of his party. If Obama goes through with his “Faith Based Initiative” plan, I will probably work against him in the next election if he is anything other than an excellent president. So I guess I am an Obama supporter, but just as an anti-McCain voter.

McCain and Women

Alright. I have found that I am not alone in wondering about McCain's almost indifference towards women. His voting record is terrible. He hasn't voted for a single women's issue since he has been in senate including the Equal Work, Equal Pay bill or the bill to force those who cover Viagra to cover contraceptives too. Now they found that terrible joke about a woman enjoying being beaten, raped repeatedly, and left to die by a gorilla. It makes no sense that no one is out screaming in the streets over this. I hate to bring this up again when talking about something McCain said, but if Obama had said this, he would be in more trouble than can be imagined.

His handlers just shrugged it off. I guess this is what really makes me mad. They just said that this shows McCain being McCain. Yeah. That is what I want for president. What is he going to do next? His sad attempts at rumor never seem to get more than half-hearted chuckles from those around him. When he said that the cigarettes we export to Iran might be to kill people, that was bad enough. I could already guess from things he has said that he would be tasteless when it came to his xenophobia, but now he is turning more and more chauvinistic and increasingly xenophobic. I am just waiting for him to call Obama "Boy" next so we can all add bigoted to the list of his characteristics which are pure McCain and reasons for us to make him president. Oh yeah, and he's OLD!!

Obama the Democratic Choice

Barak Obama is the official nominee for the Democratic party in the 2008 presidential election. After discussing this with friends and pondering it since Tuesday, I have decided that I don’t like this much. Until he makes a decision on who to have as a running mate I, and several of my other democratic friends, are not planning on voting for him.

For my friends, they don’t trust him. They see him as “a republican in disguise.” I couldn’t get any elaboration on this, but one went on to say that he is not true in his speeches and he isn’t for black people (both of the friends who said this are black). One said that he will never understand what it is to be a black person in the South and, no matter where he came from is a “Starbucks.” This enmity about Obama on the part of some black people is something I have heard a great deal. At my school, while the race was still going on, we did a random, brief poll in the dorm and only one of the people I talked to (out of 15) was definitely pro-Obama. He was very... loyal. I previously wrote a blog on debate and could use him in that segment just as easily. He didn’t seem to know a great deal about Obama’s early career and attacked Clinton for associations on her husband’s part, but never Obama’s associates. He said that Rev. Wright didn’t represent Obama and it was wrong for anyone to think so, but was very cocky when the photo of President Clinton with Rev. Wright came out and used it to link Clinton to the pastor and attack her choices of friends. Eight of the rest were Republicans and held varying views of McCain, most were very pro-Huckaby.

As for the other 6, they were all female in the field of engineering, science, or mathematics and none of them could decide. I got the impression that they felt, as I did, that if they supported Clinton, they would be labeled feminists and dismissed in any argument as loons. None of them felt comfortable supporting Obama. Most, if not everything they saw, was him giving speeches in front of a cheering crowd, but nothing he said really came as genuine. This is definitely how I felt. Now I agree that his is a brilliant speaker with a great deal of political savvy, even if his supporters want to call it him being genuine. He is a politician, just like Clinton and McCain. The problem I have is that he has no credentials to present that would, in my mind, make him a great president. He strikes me as business as usual, maybe they painted and got new carpet, but nothing has truly changed.

One of the scariest things I hear from all of my black friends and acquaintances is that they are going to be voting for whoever his vice-presidential candidate is. They say that if he picks someone they think has the ability and integrity to be president, they will vote for him, but if he doesn’t, then they will stay home. One or two said they would vote for McCain, but when others said that they were going to stay home they changed their minds. I agreed that who he chooses for his VP will dictate how I vote, but they took it further. They said that there was no way he would get through his presidency without being forced out of office or, shockingly, assassinated. I couldn’t go that far. When I asked if that was what they wanted, they said that what they wanted was for him to be a vice-president or Secretary of State and then run for president. The distrust they had for Obama and the Democratic party was very suprising, but I agree that I don’t really support this candidate and the way the party has run from Clinton because of her husband. I will have to watch his VP choice closely and then make my decision, but I really want someone to defeat McCain. I hope he chooses wisely.

Pick and Choose

I hate being a female, southern, white college student in this political atmosphere. No matter whom I argue for or against I get flack. If I like Obama it is because I am young and like the change movement. If I argue against Obama I am racist. If I like Hillary, it’s because I am female (and for some because I want to get abortions). If I argue against her it is because I am taken in by the flash and flare of the newer Obama campaign. I am almost ready to scream with all of these ridiculous arguments. At this point, I don’t like either of them.

Obama is too new for my liking and seems a little wet behind the ears to be made president. I don’t even want him to be a majority leader! I have heard his arguments and they sound nice but, like most politicians, he seems to side step some tougher questions and issues and gives very inspirational speeches that when taken apart seem to only say, “Gee. We should make things better. And aren’t those guys up there all stuck in their ways?” The problem I have with his youthfulness in the national political scene is that we don’t know how well he will follow through with some of his campaign promises. I worry that if we do elect him, thinking we will get something “new,” we will all be very disappointed. I think I am the only person who doesn’t see him as anything “new.” He still has lobbyists and everything everyone else has. The only difference is that it takes a great deal for him to attack someone, but that’s okay because he has people to do that for him.

Clinton is set in her ways and okay off politically. I, however, don’t see her time in the White House as training to be president. After going through her senate votes (as well as Obama’s) I agree on her with most things and her service on the Armed Services Committee is very great at this time in our nation’s history. The problem I have is some of her choice in staff and attacks. Granted, she wasn’t expecting to have to fight, but some of the shots she has taken are far below the belt (way *hee-hee*). The tone did become rather bothersome for me because it took away from real issues that I wanted to hear discussed. With the reconcilliary tone she has come to take now, I find it better, but wish she’d used it before this point. Now we get to hear more about issues and John McCain is getting attacked for the ridiculous things he says. (American troops are being welcomed home... well... those we still don’t have there.)

With the turn in the campaigns to the general election, hits on John McCain are growing and people do not like some of the attacks he is leveling against Barak Obama. If the head of the KKK said he wanted McCain to be president people would not say, “John McCain is prejudice and against the rights and solving problems in Sudan.” It doesn’t work either way and he needs to stop saying these things. He sounds like Bush when he swift-boated McCain in 2000. Now he is backing the president and ensuring the cry of duplication of the Bush presidency in his own workings. He is no maverick, he is not a straight talker, and he is a charlatan pulling the wool over the eyes of people looking for security in the future. He is the boy-who-cries-wolf of politicians right now saying that “bearings” evokes age and Obama supports terrorists. If that is so than so does McCain, he even sought the endorsement of a man who said we deserved 9-11. He has lost his “bearings,” as has any person who thinks that people who make more than $200k are the middle class to be helped in the coming presidency. Senator McCain is constantly asking for Olbermann’s one-line, which his campaign has complained about, “Old man yells at cloud!”

First: On the McCain Campaign

The Presidential election is an important time for our country. It is a time for redefinition of our political ideas, if we so wish. There are always group pushing to keep the status quo. In the last several weeks of this contest there has been a great deal of focus on Hillary and Barack, the only real competition left. The sad part of the story is that people are missing important details like that John McCain is getting less than 80% of the vote when he is the immanent nominee (I cannot rightly say that he is the only nominee, keep going Ron Paul). Tonight I am going to examine why this may be so, his potential problems running against Barak, and some of his recent comments and the controversy behind them.

John McCain the war hero has done so much for this country and I honor him immensely for the sacrifices he has made for us here in the United States. However when he enters the political field I do not see any reason for candy coating our comments. Senator McCain is no longer driving the “straight talk express.” He has, pardon my language, kowtowed to the whims of a party which, by the polls, is not fully backing him. There are three central features which I see playing an important role in this up-and-coming election: the economy, the war, and the comparison to the current president. Introduction of social issues is a possibility, but I do not see it as large of a factor in this year’s race unless something is started by recent comments which I will address later. His lack of backing by those considered the base of the party lies in his history as a semi-moderate in the Senate and current conditions of his changing sides on ideas like global warming, illegal immigration, and torture. These flip-flops played a major role in the stopping of John Kerry in the 2004 election and raise questions among true die-hard conservatives about his convictions on ideas they see no debate in.

This leads to the strong possibility of him running against Barack Obama in the fall and the problems he will most likely have in the competition. He says he wants to run a clean campaign which is great but this relies heavily on 529 groups doing the dirty work for him. If they just debate the issues he faces major stoppages for flip-flopping and the conviction question, so attacks to take down Obama on character are important. The problem is what is he going to use? If he uses the Reverend Wright controversy, not only will his own “pastor problems” be brought up, but he may even get a huge yawn from those of us who are already tired of hearing about it. Whoever is going to attack Obama needs something scandalous enough to stick, so far the Reverend Wright controversy has stuck but everything else rolls off of Obama like water off of a duck and Obama has passed a vetting by the Clinton attack team without even a scratch that McCain has a chance of reopening. Besides the problem of what he can hit Obama with there is the question of where. John McCain is not the best debater while Obama’s oratory skills are amazing and inspiring even if he really isn’t saying anything that any other democrat hasn’t already said. There are many times when McCain looks rehearsed and uncomfortable talking to groups and that discomfort could be his downfall. There is one issue which McCain has more than earned the right to attack Obama on and that is experience. McCain simply has more of it. And though it is the “old Washington” experience, it has a value of its own that cannot be matched. John McCain’s label as a maverick is important here. Though he fell in line with the more conservative end of the party more recently, he has put forth some ideas that were considered to be risky for a republican senator. Here is where people reach a fork in the road, should they think about that and go with his experience or go with the new rhetoric he has been spouting.

Recent comments by McCain about the conservatism of judges are very chilling not for the fact that he wants more conservative judges but for the fact that he wants judges who would be at the whims of voters. Judging by popular demand undermines our justice system not to mention the system of checks and balances set forth by the rarely read US constitution. By the way, small plug, Scott Ritter, former chief U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq, recently gave a talk at my university and was awesome. The best and most important point in his lecture was not about lies or stopping the war, it was about knowing the constitution and what rights we as Americans are guaranteed. To the main point, if he appoints judges who bow to the whims of the people, that means the laws will bow which means that, in a largely skewed view if criminals get to be a majority, the crime could be stricken from the record. The problem with following the majority is 1) is it a majority or a passionate and vocal minority, 2) what if the majority changes, and 3) what if you are suddenly found in the minority. These are three points I wish any person to examine before starting anything as suggested by John McCain.

Thus ends my first blog. I don’t know what I am going to right about next. Probably oil prices unless something more delicious catches my eye. Please comment on what you like or don’t like. I tried to touch on high news items so that no one is left in the dark but if you would like more info, let me know and I will try and provide it. I apologize for all misspellings and grammar issues. If you want anything in particular researched or talked about comment about it and I will try and blog about that next though I would prefer further discussion on the same topic. DO NOT ARGUE BLINDLY!!! This is an observation based on the facts I know and I do not want a yeah-ha, nuh-uh argument. Thanks for reading.