Who Will Win the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election?

I hope we can keep this post bloodless.

This site is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

http://www.palinaspresident.com/

Click on EVERYTHING you can esp. the phone, baby names, top of curtains, cabinets of desk, computers, light switch, etc.

I'm still writing in Bob Barr's mustache. I encourage all of you to do the same. I think you'll find it will be the best choice in the end.

What can Bob Barr's mustache do for us, as a nation?

Shave it! Hate to kiss bristles. Also he has lips, he doesn't have to pretend unlike MDH.

Is that a death threat to Bob Barr's mustache? Alert the secret service!

...I hope we can keep this post bloodless.
I believe that Obama will win.

.....I think it will be close, but I'm hoping McCain wins.

My motto is VOTE EARLY - VOTE OFTEN!!

North Carolina has "no excuse absentee" voting which started week before last and runs through this Saturday. I voted on Friday.

I think it will be close, but I'm hoping McCain wins.

Do realize that McCain is one heart attack away from being dead? Guess who would be president then.

I think we're all one heart attack away from being dead

I'd be stoked to have Palin as President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have all of you Obama supporters heard the 2001 NPR radio interview where Obama says that the government didn't go far enough to redistribute wealth during the civil rights movement? Sorry, but in my opinion I pay enough taxes already.

It's Bob Barr's mustache for me.

Really?
To me she comes off at best as completely uninformed of national issues, and very much a lightweight as a politician. I quake in my boots imagining her squaring off vs. Valdimir Putin.

I would much rather have any of the other candidates for President in any of the Republican or Democrat primaries in that position.

I'm sorry, but I don't want "the Today Show's Katie Couric trying to follow Dan Rather" calling the shots. Perhaps after a few more years of national exposure, a World Civ class or two and perhaps a stint as a Senator or Representative, and after she starts to behave like a serious adult then I could vote for her.

I wouldn't vote for Richard Simmons for president, either.

She had a two week crash course in financial markets, international affairs, federal taxes and other presidential issues. After her crash course she was given another crash course in what she was allowed to say on John McCain behalf.

I agree with almost all that you said Mrs. J., but I want a President who actually cared enough about the world to know something about it before she was tapped to be the VP candidate, and needing a crash course in world affairs. And the new CEO of HP wasn't the head of the legal department the year before. It takes time to understand how all the pieces of the world fit together and that's the piece she seems to be sorely missing as a head-in-the-permafrost governor.

I think that's an overriding issue for me. But there's more.

2 or 3 weeks ago, given our financial crisis and the obvious direction of the Palin nomination, Senator McCain should have asked her to step aside in favor of Mitt Romney. It could have been presented as Palin stepping down so that Romney could step in to comfort the country and help guide the campaign and recovery effort.

Since he didn't do that, and since he made the choice in the first place I now realize that Senator McCain will be as obdurate in the face of changing circumstances as our current incumbent President. We can't have in our next President the kind of stubbornness and inflexibility that led to keeping Donald Rumsfeld in power and in charge of a poor strategy.

You'd have loved that move too, Mrs. J.!

So while I began this season heavily leaning towards Senator McCain, I am now very heavily leaning towards Senator Obama. In addition to the anti-McCain reasons I like the message(s) that electing Senator Obama will send to the world. He's a brilliant guy and politician, and he inspires people. If he wins the election, I hope he wins with a landslide mandate and leads in the manner of Ronald Reagan. I further hope that he will inspire our fellow Americans to greatness and a national spirit of achievement to tackle some very large issues.

As Governor
* She sold the Governor’s airplane, and she flies Alaska Airlines. She forced the state legislature to prosecute the officials named in corruption.

I may have to reconsider my support of Bob Barr's mustache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WDjuiQmxA

I further hope that he will inspire our fellow Americans to greatness and a national spirit of achievement to tackle some very large issues.

.......I like the message(s) that electing Senator Obama will send to the world. He's a brilliant guy and politician, and he inspires people...........I further hope that he will inspire our fellow Americans to greatness and a national spirit of achievement to tackle some very large issues.

I may have to reconsider my support of Bob Barr's mustache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4WDjuiQmxA

What messages would that be?

There are many world leaders that are looking forward to him being elected. They see that as the downfall of America.......... and unfortunately, they'd probably be correct.

Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda’s apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated.

“The transcendent challenge of our time [is] the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,” Senator McCain said in a major foreign policy speech this year, adding, “Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House.”

That’s a widespread conservative belief. Mitt Romney compared the threat of militant Islam to that from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Some conservative groups even marked “Islamofascism Awareness Week” earlier this month.

Yet the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.

“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

An American president who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely, fulminates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool.

if you read his policy statement or watched any of his speaches you would know that there is no "redistribution plan" (a Mcainism) and that families making less than 200,000 will see an automatic tax cut.

If taxes were to be truly "equitable" then we would all be paying a "flat tax"

I would like to hear from all the people from Arizona and know if McCain has done any good in the State Of Arizona.

Let's talk about the top 400 people in this country amassing over 600 billion in wealth since Bush took office. Isn't that a redistribution of wealth upwards, to people who need it the least?

Sales taxes are regressive: everybody pays the same sales tax on taxable items, regardless of their income.

Generally speaking, lower income people pay a much higher percentage of their income for basic necessities such as shelter, food, transportation. They pay much higher interest rates for loans, if they can get a loan.

Oh, btw, that old socialist, Richard M. Nixon proposed a negative income tax in conjunction with eliminating some welfare programs (since they would be redundant if there was a negative income tax).

I thought this site was interesting.

http://www.newsmeat.com

You can type in any person's name and see how much money they have contributed and to which campaign.


Mary

Mrs J, I think you hit the nail on the head!! The problem with the McCain/Palin campaign has not been that they are not good people with perfectly sound ideas (if you are a conservative ) but that they have angered many in the "middle" with their negative politics.

Which is too bad ( for them) because there are far more "middle of the roaders" than flaming liberals (like me ) or conservatives.

As far as taxes go, I guess I am a socialist because I see absolutely nothing wrong with expecting the Donald Trumps of the world to bear more of a tax burden than the family that is barely scrapping by.

Ron, your figures make my head spin and I'm not sure I follow them (which is why I am not an accountant) but I do know that for many years I was a single parent in a famiy of 3 with an income of less than $40,000 paying a tax rate of greater than 10%. Hardly "low" income but not exactly middle class either. I did not own a home, could not invest in a 401K, didn't have a "pre tax" dollar account and did not have the expendable income to put into plans that would lower my taxes. So my "tax rate" was straight out of the table.

As I have said before, people with a higher income have the luxery of accumulating more tax deductions so a higher tax rate is not necessarily an unfair thing, it is more of a leveler.

Not true. The wealthy buy a lot more stuff and the basics of life (in Massachusetts clothing, food (up to $275 per item), shelter, and newspapers(!)) are tax free.!

Yeah, it's called the Earned Income Credit and it pays out a huge sum of money redistributing the wealth from taxpayers to non-taxpayers.

So my hard work above and beyond the call that got me that bonus paid for her summer off. Is that fair??? Can you imagine how many times and how hard I have gritted my teeth as my sister told me about her EIC

Do I get to complain that the money I spent on getting my kids' teeth whitened paid for their othodontist's perpetual tan (and potential treatment for potential skin cancer)? We don't get to make choices for other people. We get to make our own choices.

Hey, move to Minnesota. No tax on food or clothing.

If it makes you feel better, lower income people redistribute THEIR wealth by purchasing goods and services.

I am curious: it seems as though you believe that everybody is morally obligated to perform work that allows them to earn to their highest monetary earning capacity.

I postponed my career, instead working a series of volunteer or low paying jobs with flexible hours to allow me to spend time raising my children. I suppose I was also a leech on society.

I am assuming that your career has provided you with the types of rewards that were important to you. If not, if you are that unhappy with the choice you made, maybe you need to re-think your choices.

EXCUUUUUUSE ME???

They are YOUR kids, YOUR CHOICE to have them, YOUR CHOICE to have their teeth whitened.[

Even putting that aside, it would be one thing if she COULDN'T earn enough money to support her chosen lifestyle, but she CHOSE to take public money, MY MONEY, to support her summer vacation. She could have earned enough to support her family. She was essentially a "deadbeat mom," took advantage of the system and I got stuck with the tab. If the EIC wasn't there, she would have had to work, and would have worked a job sufficient to support her CHOICES. The existence of the program itself caused her "dependency" on the program.

I am sorry Ron. Unless every single economist with a PhD I know (and I know a lot of them) is wrong, you don't really understand the definition of regressive tax.


Speaking of subsidies, if you pay a mortgage, we all help subsidize you. If you flew in an airplane we all helped subsidize you. If you used petroleum products, or public transportation, we all helped to subsidize you. For starters.

Given how much you resent your sister and her family, I feel sorry for your nieces and nephews .
[...]
I'm guessing you aren't counting on them to visit you in the retirement home.

You certainly are free to make new choices for yourself, hopefully ones which will give you more pleasure and less resentment. Given the attitudes you set forth in this thread about raising children, I hope that you will forgo asking for half of your sisters'.

Who is this "we" you are referring to? The taxpayers? Or do you mean the folks who don't pay any income taxes (other than into their own retirement plan) but like to call themselves taxpayers? Well, I suppose the sales tax qualifies them, but you want to take away that pleasure from them too I suppose!

...and what's with the personal attacks? Have I called your motives or your altruism into question or insulted your choices in life or made snarky comments intended to hurt?

i have tried to stay out of this but --- well we all know I can't it must be a genetic disorder.

Sorry - tgir perhaps your PHDs in economics can explain the difference between a tax and a market price to you. you can't mix and match the two. I would assume they would understand that.

your ortho work is market price based and has absolutely nothing to do with regressive or progressive taxation.

and I don't see where we are subsidizing Ron's mortgage - but I do see where we are subsidizing your kids education. again can't mix and match public and private costs. I may not agree with all ron says - some of it sounds a little grumpy to me - but lets not confuse the issue.

There will ALWAYS be abuse of the system and people will benefit from laws and bills that were never intended to benefit. SO I guess we need to take the good with the bad. I am glad we live in a country that has social welfare programs and at least makes an attempt to care for those less fortunate. Am I angry that it is abused and full of fraud, you BETCHA but the alternative is letting everyone go hungry (told you before I was a Socialist).

Uh, yeah, I do rather take it personally that you feel you can decide whether or not I was fully contributing to society. Yes, that was insulting. Whether you intended it or not.

tgir wrote:
I postponed my career, instead working a series of volunteer or low paying jobs with flexible hours to allow me to spend time raising my children. I suppose I was also a leech on society.
Only if you took the EIC or benefits from another welfare program while fully capable of earning more.
Wink

I am not even complaining about that---but I sure would appreciate some intellectual honesty in the political discourse.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with people receiving help when they need it. Most people I know would prefer to receive a better wage for the work they do (or for a chance at decent employment) rather than a tax rebate or EIC. Sure, in my town there are one or two nightmare families who feed off the system from generation to generation, but they cost the system peanuts compared with the money we use to subsidize many industries (and so save jobs).

If we were fiscally or socially liberal we would vote for Barrack Obama over Hillary, Biden, or Edwards.[/b]

I realize this post will probably end my career here at oes.org, but as I read this thread