Political Frenzy

This is a side by side comparison of the two presidential candidates tax plans that was posted on WashingtonPost.com. Here is the link.

To enlarge it you can click on the image.

Well the RNC has finally concluded and the general election campaign has ‘begun.’

I noticed a few things from the convention.

1. More handmade signs from the crowd
2. I was more bored than when watching the DNC
3. Former rivals of John McCain were saying good things about him! I say this in a sarcastic tone because after Obama picked Biden as his VP nominee McCain made commercials with Biden saying bad things about Obama. I do believe Mitt Romney had some choice words for McCain during their debates. But he was singing like a canary in the Twin Cities. (I’m mocking this because it is something that happens in EVERY political race, but McCain seemed to want us to think only Biden said bad things of Obama.
4. Sarah Palin established herself as an attacker. I found it odd that a women who has less than two years of political experience attacking a US Senator, and former State Senator, but who am I to judge? I say things about candidates and I am not an elected official.

Honestly I was annoyed by Palin’s speech because instead of introducing herself to us (which is what a candidate should do when NOBODY KNOWS HER), she chose to spend her time not just attacking Obama, but mocking him. It was tasteless. I wanted to hear more about what she has done and what her plans for the country are. I don’t want to hear cheap shots at a proven and tested candidate from a woman who most people think shouldn’t have been anywhere near this race. Palin can say what she wants about Obama, but he has been chosen by millions of voters to be there candidate. One man choose her, and it is time to prove to everybody why. It is tasteless for someone who is still trying to get our respect to mock someone like Barack Obama, who has earned it. Because if that is all she is going to do she will just be a flash in the pan.

It was also interesting how the Republicans have starting using the word REFORM all the time now. They might have caught on that we don’t like what is going on in our government! Imagine that!

If they can reform Washington, it’s about time they told us how they will do it. I’m listening!

From what I saw before I fell asleep McCain’s speech was good. He needs to take some risky moves by saying the word reform, which will rattle his base but it will also get him more votes. And the hecklers, or whatever they were trying to do in the middle of his speech to get attention, come on! What are you thinking, let the man speak!

I liked the video about McCain. The man is a hero. But do we really need his wife telling us about adopting a child from Mother Teresa’s arms then tell us about it again 5 minutes later in a video?

I feel asleep during a lot of it, were President Bush or Vice President Cheney there? Because if I supported someone’s decisions 90% of the time that would mean that person is a great politician and I would want him to come and tell everybody how great I would be as his job.

(Matt Sullivan/Reuters)

The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s VP candidate seems to be confusing everyone, and I’m no exception.

Last Saturday when Obama choose Biden as his VP candidate a McCain spokesman said that it was “a concession” by Obama admitting that his lack of experience means he is not ready to be our president. Then McCain chooses someone with ZERO foreign policy experience? I want to know what that particular spokesman has to say about this.

One of McCain’s main arguments is that he is ready to “Lead on Day 1.” Is Palin?

We can argue about which experience is better, executive (like being a Governor) or legislative (being a Senator) until we are blue in the face. But one thing is clear, having no foreign policy experience is a huge problem. Having no executive experience is tolerable I think. No wars are going to be started because a part of the budget is labeled incorrectly.

It is argued, although not much longer, that Obama has ‘no experience.’ But I can promise you that he is competent in the issues that face America today, and that foreign leaders know and respect him.

Palin, at the moment is not known by foreign leaders. Sure, if McCain tells them that Palin is going to visit and that she is a great women then they will respect her. But wouldn’t they respect anyone if they are told to? McCain can tell a foreign leader that a blogger named Ryan is coming and that I am a great man. But that doesn’t mean I am ready to lead the country (not yet at least!).

I am looking forward to the Vice Presidential debate. Joe Biden has been involved in foreign policy issues for decades, he it going to blow her out of the water.

If something were to happen to President Obama, Vice President Biden could step in and deal with a foreign policy emergency without hesitation. If something were to happen to President McCain, would Vice President Palin be ready?

I’m sure she is a great Governor for Alaska, and it looks like she is a reformer which is what Washington needs. But a vice president needs to know what is going on in the world, not just in Juneau.

I just hate how McCain is showing that he thinks that people who voted for Hillary will vote for Palin just because she is a woman. This is an unfortunate political stunt.

http://www.politicalfrenzy.com/vice-president-sarah-palin/

Youth and experience is bad Mr. McCain?

In response to Barack Obama’s (late night) announcement that Joe Biden will be his running mate, John McCain was quick to attack.

An ad (which had to be put together weeks ago) showed quotes from Biden during the debates earlier this year in which he criticized Obama’s experience.

A McCain spokesman went on TV saying that because Obama picked the experienced Biden it is a ‘concession speech’ by Obama because it shows that he has no experience.

Do you really want to go there McCain?

First of all whoever McCain picks there will be similar, if not more harsh, videos of this new candidate criticizing McCain during the primary. This is politics folks, you attack your opponent and when they beat you, you tell everyone how great they are…it’s weird I know.

Does everyone remember the exchanges between McCain and Romney during the debates? If you don’t you sure will see the clips (immediately) if he chooses Romney as his running mate.

Now to the ‘concession speech’ remark…McCain you need to get some smarter help! This idiot is saying that because Obama chose a man who is very experienced it means that Obama himself is not experienced. If that is so,then why did McCain support the Bush-Cheney ticket?

By McCain’s logic Obama should have picked a retarded person, because that would mean that Obama is so smart he doesn’t need advice.

Also does this mean that because McCain will be picking a younger man that he is too old?

McCain, what does it imply when you have dumb campaign staff say stupid things on TV?

The floodgates are open, nice job McCain.

http://www.politicalfrenzy.com/obamas-1am-text/

This past Saturday I attended a voter registration drive hosted by Barack Obama’s campaign. At 10am the office was packed, with volunteers pouring out the front door. They had to announce that they had ‘too many volunteers,’ and didn’t have enough supplies or places to send everyone!

I was amazed not only by the sheer number of people willing to give up a beautiful Sacramento Saturday to register people to vote and to get out Obama’s message, but mainly by the diversity of the crowd.

Surrounding me were teenage white girls, Muslim men wearing turbans, old white men, middle aged white men, middle aged black women, young black men, old black men and women, and other white college students like myself.

I have before never seen a crowd so diverse all working towards the same goal. Senator Obama’s message is getting across to people from all walks of life, don’t let the hype from Senator Clinton fool you!

Senator McCain is going to have his hands full come November; I wonder what a gathering of McCain volunteers looks like.

The gas tax holiday proposed by opponents Senators Clinton and McCain is nothing more than a campaign gimmick.

Both candidates know that it doesn’t make fiscal sense; they also know that by proposing something like this that the American people will not look into whether or not it makes fiscal sense.

Again, this is an assault on our intelligence as voters. They think that we don’t understand that the suspension of a federal tax would cause long terms economical problems in an economy that is now in recession. The experts that have weighed in on the ‘gas tax holiday’ are even saying that it might not even lower the price of gas for consumers.

I’ll be honest when I first heard John McCain propose to cut gas prices I was happy, but then I realized that it would be a mere band-aid on a bullet wound. Suspending the gas tax for three months will only create more problems. Even if the overall price of gas was lowered by 18 cents per gallon, on a typical 13 gallon fill up that’s a whopping savings of over $2.

Big deal

McCain and Clinton also know that there is no way that the House and Senate could pass the bill in time for the ‘holiday.’ Congress just doesn’t work that fast.

Instead of taking money away from our country’s infrastructure how about we tax the oil companies (over a certain threshold of profit) who despite a ’supply problem’ still manage to make billions of dollars a month in profit ?

Today Senator McCain attacked Senator Obama on public election financing. McCain’s camp said that last spring Obama’s campaign said Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly-financed general election.”

Campaigns that are publicly financed means that each campaign would receive around $85 million from a taxpayer financed fund. But if they accept it they are not allowed to raise money elsewhere.

McCain said that Obama should “keep his word to the American people.”

First of all, Obama isn’t the nominee yet, and neither is McCain. So let’s not count the chickens before they hatch (even though on the Republican egg I can see the beak). Secondly an attack on Obama is good news for Barack’s campaign because that shows that the Republicans are already counting on him winning the nomination.

The thing that I don’t like about this type of attack is that Obama has said nothing about using public financing during the general election. By McCain challenging something Obama has said nothing about it makes it look like Obama has already said he won’t use public financing. Ahhh classic politics.

Let’s be honest here, the only reason McCain has brought this up is because he knows he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell at raising even half the money Obama would. In January Obama raised over $32 million dollars, mostly from small donations. When looking at cash each campaign has on hand, it is not surprise. Obama has over $18 million while McCain has just about $3 million.

If the candidates agreed to both use public financing it would take away a huge advantage from Obama. When his campaign made that comment last spring I’m sure they didn’t realize that they would become a money machine in 2008.

If Obama does receive the nomination he has a huge decision to make. Should he reject his proposal of using public financing and dominate McCain with his millions. Or should he stick to his word and have a level playing field with McCain?

The smart thing for him to do would be to reject the public financing and take the wrath that comes with a flip-flop. McCain won’t have much money to get the message out that Obama flip-flopped in the first place.

I am sick of hearing about how conservatives will not back John McCain. Do these “experts” not realize who votes in primaries? Only hard core conservatives vote in (Republican) primaries! They have chosen John McCain as their man, therefore they have already backed him!

A candidate in a primary wants to be as far to the right (or left if they are a Democrat) as possible to court the people who actually vote in primaries, the people who believe in the extreme values of that party. The fact that a moderate candidate like McCain has won the nomination (I told you so by the way) is amazing.

During a general election, because voters of all parties can vote for the candidates of either party (unlike most primaries where Republicans can only vote for Republicans, and Democrats can only vote for Democrats etc.) candidates tend to bring their views more toward the center to court the Independent and undecided voters, McCain will not have to do this. He is already in the center with much of his views. He took a gamble to state his actual views during the primaries and it has paid off.

A moderate candidate receiving the nod from Republican primary voters is amazing, whoever says that McCain will ruin the party is wrong and needs to read a Political Science 1 book.

After the onslaught of victories on Super Tuesday by John McCain (and the surprise…again…of Huckabee’s victories) it appears that it is mathematically impossible for Mitt Romney to catch up in the delegate race. The McCain campaign released this:

“The remaining contests account for roughly 963 delegates. For Mitt Romney to match our delegate count, he would have to win more than 50 percent of those delegates. And, he would have to win nearly every single delegate still available in order to become the nominee. And, many of these contests are proportional, so Mitt will have to win by big margins in many states to garner every last delegate. For example, in this weekend’s Louisiana primary, he would have to win the with more than 50 percent of the vote in order to win (1191 delegates to win, 963+236=1,199). ”

Even if Huckabee wasn’t in the race taking up Romney votes it would be an impossible task for Romney to catch up. So congratulations Senator McCain and good luck against the Democrats (your gonna need it)!

I have been wondering how Romney stuck around this long, he didn’t seem like a viable candidate to me a few months ago. When looking at his “fundraising” it seems that he has been buying his way to his 2nd place finish.

According to opensecrets.org Mr. Romney has “raised” over $88,000,000, twice as much as Senator McCain’s $41,000,000. We all know that Romney is wealthy beyond belief and has largely self-financing his campaign (giving himself over $35,000,000), but was this a good investment?

I find it humorous at the amount Huckabee has raised in relation to his impact, though January he raised a mere $8,900,000. Romney has spent over $80,000,000 more than Huckabee and it is still a battle between the two!

When looking at the campaign debts category Romney’s number is alarming, he has $35,000,000 in campaign debts! McCain has just over $4,500,000, and Huckabee $97,000. $35 million where does that go? When he loses does he have to pay that himself? What a horrible use of money. He probably could have cured some disease, or saved Darfur with that! The problem is that almost every candidate wishes they had that kind of money!

I want candidates who are so in tune with the needs of the country and can resonate their vision with the people so effectively that they get enough support from the voters. Financing your own campaign is like paying for a hot prom date.

Senate Democrats continued the circus of making it appear that they want to end the war in Iraq. Last night amidst orchestrated photo ops of rolling out cots, and cold pizza Senate majority leader Harry Reid hosted an all night debate to block the Republican filibuster on an amendment to the defense bill.

The amendment would set a timetable for troop withdrawal in Iraq, it fell 8 votes short or the necessary 60.

Numerous Senators took the podium and spoke for or against the amendment, or about nothing at all. Other Senators accused Reid of “playing politics.”

I would have to agree. According to a Capitol Police Officer, the rolling out of cots and pizza was simply a “photo op.”

Even if the vote succeeded what happens next? VETO…they need to figure out another way to solve this!

Senator McCain seemed to speak off sript when saying, “Nothing we have done for the last 24 hours will have changed any facts on the ground in Iraq,” McCain said. “No battle will have been won or lost. No enemy will have been captured or killed. No ground will have been taken or surrendered. No soldier will have survived or been wounded or died or come home because we spent a whole night delivering our poll-tested message points, spinning out sound bites or arguing with each other and substituting our amateur theatrics for statesmanship.”

Well put Senator.

The campaign fundraising numbers are in for this quarter. Overall, as typically happens, the candidates raised more than ever before.

The Democrats rose far more than the Republicans, which seems to be the new trend. The overall leader for last quarter was Sen. Obama, who raised $32.8 million, and has $34.5 million in the bank. Sen. Clinton raised $28 million, and has $32.6 million in the bank. The leader for Republicans was Rudy Giuliani with $17.3 million.

The new trend among candidates is to raise a lot, and spend a little. There are very few candidates in the red, and a few nearing it.

While Clinton and Obama are rolling around in cash the McCain troubles continue. The Senator says that he “values his marriage to much” to use family funds for his campaign. Mitt Romney, dipped into his personal fortune (valued in the hundreds of millions) lending $9 million to his own campaign.

Rep. Ron Paul has more cash on hand than Sen. John McCain. McCain has only $1.9 million available, while Paul has $2.4 million. According to the New York Times, nearly half of Paul’s money came in donations of less than $200, that is a lot of donors. I still scratch my head when thinking about his performance on The Colbert Report, is this guy really running for president?

Where does all this money go? That’s a good question, and a hard one to answer. A lot of money is spent on travel. Obama spent $2 million alone traversing the country in private jets last quarter.

In this popularity contest, cash is king. It seems that Clinton and Obama will be dueling down to the last hanging chad, and then join forces when one of them is nominated.

It is harder to predict the Republican nominee. I still don’t see a nominee for president whose highest elected office is mayor. The last president whose highest office wasn’t Governor or Vice President was Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960.

But the times are changing… aren’t they?

On the web: Democrats Continue to Beat Republicans at the Donor Box

Today the House passed a bill that would require that our combat troops withdrawal from Iraq by April 1, 2008. It is said that the House passed this to pressure the Senate to attach similar restrictions to the military policy bill they are deliberating….then what?

President Bush will veto this bill while still in the hands of the messenger boy.

This is the third bill passed this year that has to do with time tables and troop withdrawals. Drafting and passing bills takes a lot of time and effort. Why would Congress keep passing the same bill over and over, it is a waste of time. Mr. Bush has vetoed it, and will continue to veto it. How about they spend their time on passing bills that will actually cause change?

It is obvious that the public is fed up with how President Bush is handling the Iraq war. When Congress members go back home they want to be able to tell their constituents that they ‘tried.’ Where in reality they didn’t. Isn’t the definition of insanity ‘doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result?’

By Congress passing this bill it make makes it obvious to me that they have no idea how to end the war.

With news of poor fundraising, and the departure of key staff members John McCain’s presidential hopes seem to be in trouble. Today it was announced that John Weaver, McCain’s right hand man, and the architect behind the “Straight Talk Express” has left the Senator’s side.

McCain is now trailing Giuliani and Thompson in the polls, and many are predicting the end of the McCain campaign. Like other elections, it seems that this has become a popularity contest, with the newest and most exciting people garnering the most support. There is a feeling that whomever is elected next year will shatter the mold of middle-aged white man presidents.

Most people feel that McCain is too much aligned with “Mr. 30%” President Bush. With GOP Senators now pulling away from the president’s vision of how to finish the war in Iraq, McCain’s views are looking stale. This does not mean that he isn’t a good candidate. I think he is a great candidate, and have much respect for him. He is, after all, a true war hero and is most qualified out of all candidates to be our president.

If McCain’s presidential hopes were dashed I would assume that he would be tapped to run on the ticket with the Republican nominee. He would make a great Vice President, and would be an extremely strong running mate. I would like to see Mayor Bloomberg and McCain join forces and shake things up. But I would also like to see an Obama/McCain ticket…I’ll keep dreaming.

It is still premature to be making predictions, but before voting day rolls around the polls will look completely different than they do today.