John McCain vs Barack Obama Mega-Politic-Thread of super fun awesomeness.

[Cops]

Polls aren't 100%, but it's undeniable that Obama is leading and that this election isn't neck and neck anymore.

edit: I forgot to mention that the Republican party paid for Sarah Palin's shopping spree. The democrats are going to spin this completely out of control prying on the Republicans for being out of touch with average struggling Americans. Let's be honest though, $150,000 on clothes. She spent the price of a house on useless materialistic objects, money which comes from supporters of the Republican party. I know corporations give money but they do collect small contributions from people. This isn't going to resonate well with the people who gave them $10, $20, or $30. The first chance she has at proving she's a normal fiscal Republican she goes and fucks it up.

[Hercules]

GObama for all subspace players!


Hi, this is Hercules and I approve this message.

[Pearl Jam]

Because any modern election has as much to do with style, delivery and image as it does policy. Why else would Obama be winning like he is? His extensive, well-documented experience in various political areas? At this point its Obama's race to lose.

I guess the primary thing that concerns me about him and the democrat party in general is that its a foregone conclusion that paying for their massive, sweeping government means upping the corporate tax (a favorite pasttime of the democratic party). At this juncture in the U.S. economy, that isn't going to help create jobs right now...it's going to make it more difficult. That concerns me.

[Vykromond]

Thats because you cant base the election off < 1% of the people who will actually be voting on it.

learn some fucking statistics

[Cops]

Because any modern election has as much to do with style, delivery and image as it does policy. Why else would Obama be winning like he is? His extensive, well-documented experience in various political areas? At this point its Obama's race to lose.

I guess the primary thing that concerns me about him and the democrat party in general is that its a foregone conclusion that paying for their massive, sweeping government means upping the corporate tax (a favorite pasttime of the democratic party). At this juncture in the U.S. economy, that isn't going to help create jobs right now...it's going to make it more difficult. That concerns me.

I completely agree, but it doesn't cost $150,000 to look good. I can understand the GOP wanting her to look 'above the top', but this is just a ridiculous amount of money. Clothes which supporters paid for. This is only going to piss off a select percentage of the GOP base, which isn't a huge group of people in the grand scheme of things. When the Republican party two weeks before the election are behind in the polls these events only marginalize Obama's lead.

I think there's legitimate concerns with raising corporate taxes, it's dangerous to bite the hand that feeds. I think Obama re-raising taxes for the wealthiest individuals is something that has to happen. The wealthiest people got tax breaks during the middle of war and also the possible threat of an economic meltdown. Even if Bush didn't know the economy was headed down during his first or second year in office he obviously had some indication over the past several years and failed to act. Economically this was a shit maneuver, and it's cost the American people. I'd like to see taxes on wealthy people only increase to what they were before Bush lowered them.

[PrOnEsSim]

So I'm going to the Obama rally today here in Virginia. Hopefully he'll come, because I heard he might not, which would suck (He was in Hawaii for his grandmother). I'll let you all know how it went, etc...maybe even post a video. Should be fun, im skipping class for this.

[Pearl Jam]

I agree that $150,000 on a wardrobe is ludicrous, but in the grand scheme of thigns its an insignificant portion of the enormous amounts of money BOTH parties have spent on their campaigns. The fact that something like that has even been brought to light and we're even talking about it is just a testament to how much the media can sensationalize and sway opinions based on stupid shit like this (not referring to you Cops, just a commentary on the media in general). Impartial reporting apparently isn't popular anymore.

[Cops]

I agree that $150,000 on a wardrobe is ludicrous, but in the grand scheme of thigns its an insignificant portion of the enormous amounts of money BOTH parties have spent on their campaigns. The fact that something like that has even been brought to light and we're even talking about it is just a testament to how much the media can sensationalize and sway opinions based on stupid shit like this (not referring to you Cops, just a commentary on the media in general). Impartial reporting apparently isn't popular anymore.

Spending money on campaigns to get people out to vote is completely legitimate, but allocating thousands and thousands of dollars for clothes is like you said ludicrous. I don't think this is really going to affect too many people but if you were an avid Republican who donated $200 to the GOP wouldn't you feel a little ripped off to hear them blatantly wasting your money? Like I said it's only going to push the average American further away from the Republican party. And right now the last thing the Republicans need to be doing is losing any percentage of voters.

I think this is a perfectly legitimate topic to be discussed, as long as you include what the Obama camp has spent on clothes or something that doesn't require a substantial chunk of cash.

The issue is do political parties spend money recklessly, you can't report on one side of this story but you could show both sides and their spending habits. I guarantee you the Democratic party has wasted their fair share of money.

Clip - 4 people who donated money to each party, saying how they feel about the situation. This is probably just going to be short 5 second clips of people saying how they feel.

Expert - telling you generally what each party spends on these sort of things. Is $150,000 on clothes a normal amount of money for a political party? Ask another question related to the Democrats spending habits.

I've already pieced together how a short news story might look, however it would look a hell of a lot better if you had 5-10 minutes to tell the exact same story. I'm sure people would ultimately realize that this issue of irresponsible spending isn't a one party problem.

[Pearl Jam]

Exactly. Like I mentioned before, concerning this latest election our news outlets have had a really hard time:

A. Reporting both sides of ANY issue
B. Not being ridiculous to grab ratings ($150,000 on clothes! How does that make you feel? Obama's a muslim! Sarah Palin's daughter dates black guys!)

Granted, this isn't exclusive only to this election, it just seems especially terrible to me this time around.

And this country has a large contingent of avid Republican supporters who aren't going anywhere.

[froedrick]

Pearl Jam you should vote Divine Rides this election. I think there would be more surfing

[Pearl Jam]

Rides/Schlyrd '08: "Raw Dog until the bitter end."

[froedrick]

I'd come down south to vote if that were the slogan

[Vykromond]

And this country has a large contingent of avid Republican supporters who aren't going anywhere.

GOP is either going to see massive restructuring or will be the minority party for a very, VERY long time if mccain loses

[genocidal]

GOP is either going to see massive restructuring or will be the minority party for a very, VERY long time if mccain loses

What this guy said. Their coalition is not sustainable because many of them have polar opposite viewpoints.

[Kolar]

What this guy said. Their coalition is not sustainable because many of them have polar opposite viewpoints.

I think the Jesus freaks and corporate shills made a good run of it.