Pretty funny negative Obama ad

Objects in the Mirror May Be Creepier Than They Appear - The Plank

Gay Marriage

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=cf9cd254-f184-482c-bded-45d9a5af32f1

This article highlights the methods of the anti-gay marriage movement in California. Last May, the California Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The decision was a four-to-three decision and is regarded as a major victory for the gay civil rights movement. California became the one of only two states in the country to allow same-sex marriage, the other being the great state of Massachusetts. However, efforts were quickly mounted to reverse the decision. This November, Proposition 8 on the California ballot is a proposed constitutional amendment that will eliminate the right to marry for same-sex couples.
I have been following the events in California for a while, because I care strongly about the issue and it frustrates me how much bigotry there is in America directed towards homosexuals. I have been pleased to see that this issue has not been cast in the national spotlight during the presidential election. I was afraid that McCain campaign would exploit people’s homophobia in the same way that the Bush campaign did in both 2000 and 2004. But the fact that they have not used this issue for political gain indicates to me either that the tide of public opinion is changing so that open homophobia no longer tolerated in presidential candidates (much like open racism), or that possible McCain himself has different stances on the issue than some of his Republican counterparts (namely Governor Palin). He has opposed a federal ban on same-sex marriage in the past, claiming that it is a state’s issue. He may have moral qualms with exploiting people’s hatred. I am not sure.
For the record, neither candidate supports gay marriage. Obama’s position is that the government should only be able to provide civil unions to gay or straight couples, and marriage is left to the faiths. McCain believes it is an issue for the states to decide. Palin, however, has deviated from her running mate and declared her direct opposition to benefits for same-sex couples. I myself had a hard time believing her statements during the debates about “tolerating” homosexuals. She comes off as a bigot to me.
Regardless, the vote on Proposition 8 in California is one that I will follow closely on Election Day. I do not see how the government can define love. Also, it is ironic that conservatives want the government to stay out of their lives but by all means let them restrict the rights of homosexuals.

Youth in the Election

Just thought this was an interesting way to see how Americas youth is involved in the election. The clip was originally from CNN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxlwYP0HNdc

A Choice of Historical Proportions

I recently read an article by Ed Rollins on CNN.com. (The link is
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/26/rollins.historic/index.html)

Rollins spoke of the 2008 elections as "heading for the history book." On one ticket, we have the potential for the first African American president and the first Catholic vice president. On the other ticket, we have the potential for the oldest president ever and the first female vice president.

The 2008 election has truly been a unique one. Never before have we seen more money spent on campaigns. Barak Obama has spent 205 million dollars on TV ads alone, while McCain has quietly also spent another 119 million on his ads. Never before have we seen such well-funded campaigns. Obama broke every record. Never before have we witnessed such a youth movement in the political process. In both the Republican and Democratic parties, young people's involvement in the political process has increased tremendously. Like Rollins implied, more is at stake for our nation in this election, than any in recent decades. When the President takes office, he will have two wars to control, an economy to rebuild, an energy crisis to fix, as well as all the other issues to handle.

My point is simple. While we have an election of historic proportions, we also have a choice of historical proportions. Our political system as long been divided by partisanship. When George Washington was leaving office, he warned that political parties have the potential to be divisive and destroy our nation. As citizens of the United States, come January, we will all have a choice. We can either allow the partisan bitterness that as been the theme of this election to divide us, or we can rally behind the President, Democrat or Republican, and allow him fix this country. Once the election is over, we have to clean our conscious. Forget all of the viscous attacks and as Washington would say "petty jealousy." I'm not saying that we all have to hold hands and start singing, but we can't allow the partisan politics of the 2008 election prevent our next President from doing his job.

One picture

You know what they say about a picture...

What do you all think this one is saying?

Jon Stewart is on (cross)fire

Here is a great clip from CNN's debate show CrossFire, featuring the Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Stewart argues that CrossFire is doing bad for America, and doing a bad job presenting material in a way that is benficial to the viewers. And when the guys from CrossFire try to come back at Stewart, he really takes their cookies.

http://www.spike.com/video/jon-stewart-on/2652831

Two Takes on Media Objectivity and the Presidential Election

For your reading pleasure, take a look at these two pieces: "Why McCain is Getting Hosed by the Press" and "Election 2008: Objective Journalism is Loser." How do they relate to the media theory we've been reading? Do you buy the pictures of the media and of political news they present? How do you respond to the ways that the media is explaining its own behavior during the presidential campaign?

Palin Ready for the White House?

Sarah Palin, already a lightning rod for media coverage in this election, was the subject of thousands of blogs across the internet again yesterday as a result of her appearance on NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams on October 22nd, 2008. In the interview, the following exchange occurs between Williams and the vice-presidential nominee:

WILLIAMS: Governor Palin, yesterday you tied this notion of an early test to the new president. Would this notion of precondition --

PALIN: Right.

WILLIAMS: -- that you both have been hammering the Obama campaign on. What — first of all, what in your mind is a precondition?

PALIN: You have to have some diplomatic strategy going into a meeting with someone like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-il, one of these dictators that would seek to destroy America or her allies. It is so naive and so dangerous for a presidential candidate to just proclaim that they would be willing to sit down with a- a leader like Ahmadinejad and just talk about the problems, the issues that are facing them. So that -- that's -- that's some ill-preparedness right there.

Whether you believe this quote was taken out of context or that Palin simply stumbled over her words, I think you can agree Palin’s explanation struggles to relate to what the rest of us consider a pre-condition to be. As Ilan Goldenburg stated in the liberal blog Democracy Arsenal:

“What Palin is describing is what would be called preparation not preconditions. Just to be clear. Not negotiating until preconditions are met means not starting your negotiations until the other side has met some kind of condition you imposed. In the case of Iran, McCain insists that the Iranians suspend their uranium enrichment program before we can even begin to negotiate. Obama opposes this precondition. The basic argument against preconditions is that you can't ask your adversary to give up a big negotiating point in exchange for absolutely nothing and expect them to actually sit down at the table.”

While the media and bloggers often tend to over-react to a single quote, I think a trend can be seen with Palin and her gaffs concerning the U.S. and Foreign Policy. Pre-Conditions are not a trivial matter; McCain and Obama have a fundamental disagreement on this issue that could have severe affects on how the U.S. sits down with powerful leaders around the globe. My hope is that this quote doesn’t reflect the extent of Sarah Palin’s knowledge on foreign policy. But I’m not convinced it doesn’t.

Palin's $150,000 wardrobe

This was a huge mistake for the McCain-Palin campaign to make. I'm sure Palin needed a few new pieces of clothing when she first became the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican Party, but that does not constitute spending six figures to do so. As an informed citizen of the United States it is hard for me to listen to four straight debates, in which McCain and Palin both focus on cutting porkbarrel spending while $150,000 is being spent to clothe Sarah Palin. While the two things are slightly different, Sarah Palin already has clothes, and while a few more may have been appropriate, $150,000 worth from Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue is excessive(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/us/politics/23palin.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin). Many of the newly purchased, expensive clothes were very similar in style to what she wore before, and it is hard to tell the difference without close inspection, which is hard in most every setting that Palin would be speaking to a large number of people and need to be seen in those clothes(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/us/politics/23style.html?ref=politics). They could have used that money for what it was donated for, actually campaigning to win the presidential election. Palin would have still looked professional without the ridiculous proce tags on her clothes. If anything, this only adds to my skepticism of her and the campaign as a whole. This is only one of many poor decisions that the McCain-Palin campaign has made recently. They have begun to focus on everything, but the issues that are most important, and while most of us have conceded that the issues aren't very prominent in this election, ultimately Americans want to know if they're going to be secure in their jobs in future, if they have enough money to retire sooner rather than later, and if they can afford to send their children to college. The McCain-Palin campaign, however has been focusing too much on attacking Barrack Obama with disregard to substantial issues. At least in a couple of the Obama ads we have looked at, there is policy involved. Because of this, I feel that the Republican campaign is falling short, and with less than two weeks left until election day, they had better make the adjustments necessary quickly or suffer the consequences.

Negative Campaigning

Here's a video that I came across related to our topic of negative campaigns. What do you guys think? I think it was sort of funny, the way Obama put it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luGPbkKqTE4

Final Presidential Debate

The final presidential debate for the 2008 campaign season was held last night at Hofstra University in New York. While the previous debates focused on a variety of issues, this final debate was specifically about the issues regarding the nation’s domestic policies such as the economy, energy, healthcare and education. Both Barack Obama and McCain started out with their plans to rectify the problems in the economy and almost instantly, McCain goes on to attack Obama's tax policies by mentioning Joe the plumber, and how Obama's tax plans would prevent Joe from acquiring the business that he had wanted to for so long.

McCain was on the offensive for most of the night, attacking Obama on not only his policies but also his affiliations, and thus made the debate more exciting. He tried to contrast the fundamental ideology between him and Obama by noting Obama's tax and healthcare plans as a promotion of big government, while portraying himself as a supporter of the people. McCain suggested that instead of having the government spread the wealth, he believed that it should put its trust in the people.

McCain landed many punches by mentioning the amount of spending that Obama promised while noting that the U.S.'s budget deficit is at an all time high in order to legitimize his plans for a spending freeze. While in the previous debates where Obama criticized McCain for "using a hatchet where only a scalpel is needed," McCain defends himself this time by stating that he will use a hatchet first and then fix the remains with a scalpel.

However, one of the main highlights of the debate came when Obama criticized him for voting with Bush’s budgets 4 out of 5 times and McCain made a dramatic attempt to distance himself from the Bush Administration by telling Obama, “I am not President Bush, if you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago.”

Overall, McCain was more dynamic than he had been in the previous debates, but at the same time, he appeared as a belligerent old man while Obama confidently stood his ground in his defense. During the debate, Obama carefully and respectfully listened to McCain’s arguments and responded effectively to the criticisms, but McCain, on the other hand, seemed urgent to follow up every one of Obama’s comments with another attack. McCain made a last effort to change the direction of the campaign with his dramatic performance at this debate, but surely, it is not enough to change the tide of this election.

The debate can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvdfO0lq4rQ

Will the media affect the 2008 election?

As always, the media permanently plays a huge effect on our lives. We wake up day after day and are exposed to images that can truly alter our perception of the world. As the 208 election approaches, celebrities are playing a growing role in our view of the candidates and are trying to encourage younger voters to cast their vote. Celebrities have started ad campaigns in past elections such as "Rock the Vote" and efforts by younger television stations such as MTV to help persuade young people to get involved and VOTE. Recently, many A-list celebrities released a nearly 5 minute video, "5 Friends", (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhDRVKDcXQo where they sarcastically tell viewers, "Don't Vote!" then offer up reasons to the contrary. Are their efforts really doing the job to get people in the voting booths? Additionally, a voter registration group released an ad, with Jessica Alba, wearing a Hannibal Lecter-esque mask touting the message--"Only you can silence yourself." But just as celebrities are inspiring people to vote, are some people getting the wrong ideas about candidates and their views? Shows such a Saturday Night Live, which have been around for years, cold possibly skew the view and audience perception of the candidates. People who are not informed about the issues and the election may just see and episode of SNL or the Daily Show and feel that they are informed about all that they need to know. But is this the case? Do these shows distort the ways that some Americans perceive the election and its surrounding issues? On the other hand, these shows also "lighten the mood" for this election; giving Americans an opportunity to perhaps even enjoy politics. But as the election draws nearer, Americans have to hope that young people with the right to vote are in fact doing so. The celebrity efforts will hopefully play a large enough role to make a difference in 2008. According to rockthevote.com, an estimated 2,353,224 young people have registered to vote in this years election. So, have the stars done a good job of selling civic duty?

For more information

http://www.rockthevote.com/home.html

McCain Too Old?

All the issues aside, it is very important for the safety of this nation to actually be cognizant of John McCain's age. The Senator from Arizona is currently at the age of 72, which is far above and beyond the average age of a United States President. I for one refuse to vote for John McCain unless i see an official physician's report. The man may not be able to carry out his first term, if he is to be elected president. The candidates are always arguing about each others economic policies, foreign policy, and stance on health care, when they should merely just take a look in the mirror. Barack Obama is a more presidential looking character. In my opinon, he is going to win this election due largely to the fact that people cannot see John McCain in the White House and are frankly too concerned about his old age. Another thing that is not going well for John McCain is his selection of his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin. To many people in the general voting public, she is too extreme and too off-the-wall to be this naitons's Vice President, let alone President if John McCain were to be incapable of continuing to hold office due to medical reasons.

It is very important for this country to read between the lines and realize the fact that John McCain may not be President if he is elected. Sometimes it is the most basic of things that can lose a candidate the presidency. John McCain may just be too old.

Campaign Ad

Here's Obama's newest campaign ad (called 'Taketh'), already attacking McCain's healthcare policy from the debate last night. I just thought it was interesting how fast Obama's campaign got on attacking McCain's policies (less than 24 hours!)

Also, if you look at the whole archive of ad's you'll notice that as election day approaches, that ads become less centered around what the candidate wants to do, and more centered around how bad the opposing candidate's policies are. This is the type of dirty politics that I hate to see.