"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully," the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists."

Those words aren't from FOX News, or Rush, it's Obama himself.

How utterly insane is it that this man is 7 days away from becoming President-elect?

We are about to elect a man whose campaign BANS reporters for asking tough questions.  Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

We are about to elect a man who says he picks his friends CAREFULLY.  Friends like Ayers, Rezco, Wright and too many others to believe.  How careful was that?

We are about to elect a man who is counting on class warfare to sweep him into office.  He is promising to increase the size of government.  He says the biggest failure of the Civil Rights movement was their failure to institute redistributive change through the courts.  Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or  

Every time he is asked about FACTS from the past, he says it's just Republican scare mongering.  The main stream media plays along and refuses to entertain the notion of any kind of investigative work regarding Obama.  In fact, all they do is cover how 'evil' the Republicans are for ASKING!  Holy shit, we are so screwed.

I think the people who believe they are sticking it to the 'rich' by voting in this kind of redistributive policy (socialism goes by many names) are fools.  They are only hurting themselves.  Rich people do not get hurt by this, they move their wealth away from the economy and every single person who can't afford to do that will feel the pain.

And that's how I feel about.  Feel free to tell your neighbors.

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And I'm assuming that the 201K effect will overcome the Bradley effect. 

This talk about socialism is nonsense - I heard McCain give a speech where he criticized Obama's socialism in one sentence, and 2 or 3 sentences later, he was criticizing Bush for not redistributing enough money to keep people from getting their homes foreclosed on.  If McCain came out with an objective definition of socialism, he would be one - and Palin has long been for leeching your money for Alaskans:

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It's not clear to me how the State of Alaska 'owns' oil on federal lands - the US people own that oil.  But Alaska does a good job of taxing our oil and redistributing the profits to their people.  I guess that the American consumer won't miss a few billion dollars.

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Raised taxes, redistributed profits, rejected private ownership, and the business community compared her to Hugo Chavez in March (before they had any idea she would be nominated) - that's some resume to campaign on a platform of "my opponent is a dirty socialist!"

monty wrote on Oct 29^th, 2008 at 10:23am:

Whatever you have to tell yourself so you know you're voting for the right guy. Rationalization is the second strongest human drive.

I'd much rather see a pres/vice pres combo that stand up for the rights of special needs kids than one who stands for the extermination of them.

Whatever you have to tell yourself....

Now go vote - before you change your mind.

Melissa wrote on Oct 29^th, 2008 at 10:34am:


Beyond your emotion-based objection, why should we question any of this?  Is buying advertising time or space a violation of some law?  When a political party wants to put out its message, is that not protected speech under the First Amendment? 

monty wrote on Oct 29^th, 2008 at 10:54am:

Ah yes, the First Amendment. 

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Was the First Amendment written for the American people or for the government??  All I'm saying is when a politican excessively uses the media to forward his/her political gain, that it should be QUESTIONED.

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The First Amendment was written to protect speech, particularly political speech. 

Politicians have always used advertising and the media to get their message out - the only thing that is slightly different is that there are new media that are selling advertising opportunities that were not available ten or twenty years ago.

If anything, having a half hour talk (or debates, or other longer formats) addresses that common concern that most political commercials are superficial, while the media focuses on clever sound bites.  Maybe McCain should do the same and buy half-hour blocks of time to present his case to the voters??

monty wrote on Oct 29^th, 2008 at 11:11am:

Yes, speaking out against the government, the right to dissent.

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monty, define propaganda for me and then answer your own question.

Melissa wrote on Oct 29^th, 2008 at 11:39am:
[/quote]

Propaganda is any communication that attempts to persuade. Many people equate propaganda with false statements, but that is not accurate - propaganda may be true or false, or it may involve values that cannot be proven either true or false.  Speeches like the annual State of the Union and the Gettysburg Address are inherently propaganda, and not necessarily lies or evil.  People should be able to hear such 'propaganda' from candidates and decide for themselves.

To put it in other terms, of course the candidates are going to toot their own horn.  It's a job interview, and the job of the selection committee (us) is to vet their claims.

To answer my own question, no.  I think that to have a functioning political system, candidates need to be able actually make claims and promote ideas. This may be as low-level as a bumper sticker or yard sign, speeches (which may require renting an auditorium or broadcasting the speech) or however the candidate chooses to communicate with and convince the voters.

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BINGO!  

aww... just got my sample ballot and NJ Weedman isn't on it at all this year! 

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