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PoliGAF Interim Thread of USA General Elections (DAWN OF THE VEEP)
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Karma Kramer
Banned
This whole thing feels like a cover up. I bet he didn't even kill himself... fucking CIA and Bush.
The Librarian
Banned
SEBELIUSKarma Kramer said:
Tamanon said:
Well, if Posner is right, he proclaims that the Anthrax used in the attacks was highly specialized, military grade and prepared to be used airborne. The vessel used by Ivans only had liquid Anthrax in it.
He said that this could not have been done by one man, and that he might be a cover by a group that used him as a cover. He also begged the question as to why someone with such a history of mental instability was working for the government.
A little too conspiracy theory for me, but I think he makes some valid points.
Tamanon said:
Yeah... the White House received that briefing about Bin Laden planning an attack on the US a month prior, and the Bush White House ignored it. More accurately, Condi Rice ignored it.
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
Tamanon said:
Yup, Bush is a dumbass. They had all the intelligence. People canvasing in New York, suspicious activity. The whole nine yards
reilo said:
Well Cheney also gets that particular briefing.....it's stunning, I didn't know THAT much was known and ignored. Dammit.....God I hope that Obama follws through on his proposal to overhaul the intelligence community. And I hope that we're able to restore a proper PDB method.
Tamanon said:
The intelligence community at the time wasn't at fault. They clearly caught it and saw the writing on the wall.
It's the top-level people at the Bush administration that were too fucking stupid to learn how to read.
soul creator
Member
Cheebs said:
that's not change we can believe in
heh heh heh eh eh heh heh
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
..
reilo said:
The real answer is the elephant in the room: He's a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Everyone knows his skin color and name cost him at least 5 points in national polls, but no one wants to actually acknowledge it so they go on and on talking about bogus shit like "national security moms" and "working white-class voters". They should really be asking how a black guy with big ears and a funny name consistently leads national-hero-GOP-superstar-senator John McCain in polls, even if only by 3-8 points.
teruterubozu
Member
DEO3 said:
But the other side is how can any GOP candidate be so close in the polls after Bush. That's simply disturbing and brings up nightmares of 2004.
DEO3 said:
Or that half the country voted for bush the second time around (which is shocking even if Kerry was no better) and probably basically agrees with the Republicans rather than the Democrats? You know that assuming that people that don't support your candidate of choice are racists is ultimately not a good way to win converts, right? (Not saying that none of his opponents are racists, just that there's no reason to assume it's true of most of them)
Gaborn said:
I think you can assume a lot of points. And you can fairly assume that's true regardless of party allegiance. There will be bigots on both sides of that aisle. However, I think that this will be a very productive election for American race relations, rather than divisive. There are a lot of fucking idiots in the country who are simply not exposed to black people, or go out of their way to avoid thinking about it. But whether you vote for him or not, you'd have to have incredible cognitive dissonance to not see that he's a charismatic, personable success story.
At least I hope so.
OuterWorldVoice said:
I agree on all points, I just don't like people that appear to demonize the opposition by bringing up Obama's race as if that's the only reason people are opposing him. I think there's a LOT of great things about his personal story, but I don't agree with his (or McCain's) politics, and I think there are a lot of people like me (well, ok, who disagree with Obama, not necessarily who disagree with both Obama and McCain, and similarly, plenty who disagree with McCain but not Obama, etc)
The Librarian
Banned
That's pretty good.:lolmj1108 said:This was on the front page of Digg...sums things up nicely:
Gaborn said:
A lot of people are just Democrats. A lot of people are just Republicans. I think it's amazing the media is acting like a close race is somehow surprising. It's not surprising at all, and in this climate, 5 points is not close, really. And even though I personally find the Libertarian "policies" shallow and totally unworkable, I am glad the "party" exists and frankly wish it was doing better to try and shake up the other two. And if it was bigger it would have fewer fringe elements and less spastic logic.
OuterWorldVoice said:
Again, I completely agree (although I think the Libertarian party's impact is underrated, if you look at Montana's senate race for example, Stan Jones probably swung that seat to the Dems in '06, which at the time which helped give them a majority
worldrunover
Member
Gaborn said:
Was that the guy who was missing fingers?
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
OuterWorldVoice said:
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
I think Obama beat Hillary by 6%, yet people on TV constantly say that the race was close. Well, it wasn't a blow out but Hillary really wasn't that close to beating him.
Gaborn said:
Yeah, but I didn't say everyone who doesn't support Obama is a racist. I said there's 5% of the country who would normally vote for him, but there's just something about him. And it's because of them he's polling "only" 5-10 points ahead of McCain instead of 10-15, which then leads the media to go on and on about all these ridiculous reasons why he's under performing - when the answer is staring them in the face.
worldrunover
Member
mckmas8808 said:
I think Chuck Todd mentioned this on Countdown tonight. 6 points would be like 330 electoral votes for Obama. i.e. not close at all.
DEO3 said:
And again, I don't think that's true for even that 5-10%. I thought this article about David Duke's views on Obama and the election was kind of telling even though it's a few months old, it's rather hard to gauge a movement I find so detestable, but it seems interesting that the perception is that all of the candidates are equally bad because they don't promote the ideas of the bigots and the racists generally.
The Librarian
Banned
Obama campaign response to the McCain campaign response on the ad by Paris Hilton:
"Whatever.":lol
"Whatever.":lol
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Gaborn said:
I'm sorry, but can you explain this post of yours again?
mckmas8808 said:
Well, it's in the article, but essentially I think that most racists would probably tend not to vote rather than vote for a candidate that will go against their core beliefs about racism, even if their opponent is black. In fact, historically it's been true that racists simply tend to sit out elections and not vote (the major exception being the dixiecrats in 48 and George Wallace in 68, but in both cases they had a candidate that openly advocated their views)
I'm literally watching that video now and came to post it in response. :lolworldrunover said:
Video: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#26062288
As OWV said, it's not really close at all.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Gaborn said:
Which works out for Obama (compared to the MSM talking points) in 2 ways.
1. The racist is a DEM, so instead of voting McCain like many on TV like to say will happen. According to you (and I hope you are right) they won't vote at all.
2. The racist is a REP, but hates McCain so much and what he is about that they won't vote for him.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Gaborn said:
Yeah I was agreeing with you.
PhoenixDark
Banned
Those type of racists are going to be irrelevant for the reasons mentioned. What's more dangerous for Obama is the large group of people who aren't racist or openly prejudiced but may not feel comfortable voting for a black man. I really think that could cost Obama Penn., Ohio, Florida, etc. They'll agree with Obama and tell polling services that they'll vote for him, but once they get into the booth who knows. IMO that's the dark horse, and Obama touched on it in his race speech. People who feel like affirmative action and immigration are taking their jobs away, people who don't necessarily have a problem with prejudice but get upset whenever issues of race are brought up, people with "white victim mentality", etc
In short Obama could get blown out. I don't think that will happen but I bet there'll be some solid blue states we thought were going for Obama that go red come November.
In short Obama could get blown out. I don't think that will happen but I bet there'll be some solid blue states we thought were going for Obama that go red come November.
PhoenixDark said:
It's possible, then again there are usually states on both sides that are expected to go one way but end up going to the other, that's why elections are held, to see what the actual result would be. That doesn't imply that it's because Obama's black, if it happens more to Democratic states than Republicans any more than if that happens to a red state it would be because McCain is white. I know some people want to blame a potential Obama defeat (if he in fact loses) on racism, but that's a huge assumption.
OuterWorldVoice said:
It would be nice, but I don't think that's going to happen at all. People are impressively capable of holding on to their biases while carving out exceptions for particular acquaintances and celebrities.
Every time a racial issue is shoved into the spotlight all the chattering heads say they hope for a "dialogue on race" which never comes. Obama's campaign is just going to be the biggest example.
It's just as well, because the way we discuss it as a culture is broken. See:
Gaborn said:
Not to pick on Gaborn, but this is a great example of how people screw up when talking about race in the US.
It makes the underlying assumption that there are Racists and Not Racists, which simplifies and distorts the situation. Racial attitudes are a lot more subtle and complex than Stormfront vs. everyone else.
It also frames the discussion as what people are, rather than what they do. This makes white people very defensive (why the phrase "I'm not a racist, but..." is common), and that in turn means any black person who brings it up is liable to be accused of "playing the race card."
Plus it kills any shot at accurate social or political analysis. Gaborn's statement is just soooooooooo wrong wrong wrong.
Remember, the primary rule to modern republican analysis of the budget is to first insist on an absurdly long time lag in results so that the success or failure of the current administration are really the success or failure of the LAST administration, or, failing that, shift the focus to congress since it was obviously the democratic congress's fault or the republican congress's credit.
Of course, for the past decade we had a republican president with a republican congress so who's to blame now?
Of course, for the past decade we had a republican president with a republican congress so who's to blame now?
SouthernDragon
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Liberal reality.
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