You didn't say that when you were supporting him. Interesting what a wide swing your rhetoric takes due to who the Republican nominee is.


I said he was a very smart person and would have innovative ideas that were different from Democratic orthodoxy.

I turned out to be wrong. There is nothing new in his platform. It's standard old Democrat boilerplate. He could have at least tried Clintonism, and ideology which actually works.

Change means no more lobbyists controlling our government.

Lobbyists are the way that the people, as well as special interests, petition their representatives. If lobbyists aren't controlling the government, than no one is.

Change means putting a man in power who has not been corrupted by a lifetime in Washington.

We did that with GWB, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter...

Heck, we almost ALWAYS elect a guy who hasn't spent much time in Washington. What makes Obama different from the previous outsiders?

Change means America being a moral leader for the world once more

By unilaterally abrogating treaties and selling out allies who want a missile defense?

Change means ending the senseless bloodshed in Iraq.

Whether our troops are there or not, there will be bloodshed.

Change means no more sick children being left to die by the government because they can not afford health insurance.

We already have Medicaid and SCHIP. If they don't work, then a government program doing the same thing under a different name won't work any better.

Change means a serious commitment to ending our dependance on oil and starting to respect our environment.

John Mccain has a plan for that. Obama's plan consists of cap and trade and subsidies. Subsidies which coincidentally go to his friends in the ag and coal industries.

Change means getting the youth to start caring about their government once more.

Obama has excited the youth, but when he actually governs and young workers find that their paychecks are smaller due to higher withholding, they won't be very happy.

Change means allowing stem cell research to start saving lives

Stem cell research is already allowed. It just isn't funded by the government. Stem cell research is so potentially lucrative that it does not require government subsidies.

Change means no more discrimination against gays simply because they are different.


McCain has always been fairly liberal on homosexuality. Obama in practice won't be any better because his priorities are going to lie elsewhere. the African-American community isn't going to be turning out huge for him just so he can start working on gay issues as a high priority.

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chicken butt

I agree that your commentary is wrong, and I would add often wrong about Obama, just as you predicted him losing in North Carolina by how many points? 8?

__________________
"Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist...but it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." - Joseph McCarthy

Political Forum Diplomacy Game Map (In Progress)
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I had actually thought that lobbyists were universally despised. Lobbyists in theory is not a bad idea. You have representatives of certain groups try to promulgate their goals to the legislators. The problem comes when you see that the lobbyists derive their strength not from popular support but from money. So if a lobbyist for, let's say, American steelworkers wants higher wages for the millions of people he represents and a lobbyist for their boss wants to keep the wages the same, the lobbyist for the boss will win because the boss can offer the legislators more money. How is that fair? I say if the lobbyists aren't controlling the government, the people are. The Obama campaign is already on its way to doing this. The vast majority of his campaign contributions come from average americans. Forgive me as I've forgotten the exact figure, but something like 50% of Obama donations have been less than $20 per person.

I was using poetic license. By time in Washington, I meant time in politics. All politicians who have spent some length of time trying to gain voters have been corrupted. They've learned to sacrifice what is right for what is popular.
As Margaret Chase Smith said, "The right way is not always the popular and easy way." Obama has not been in politics long enough to lose sight of this idea.

I don't know who you're talking about, but that's not Obama. Obama is the man who wants to meet with all world leaders unconditionally. If he is willing to meet with everyone and discuss policies, how is he being unilateral? You seem to be describing Bush. Bush is the moron currently in office. Obama is the agent of change running for the presidency right now. Ok?

That's the sad truth. However, our presence is hardly lessening the bloodshed. I would say that Iraq is in a civil war right now and we don't have any business being there, but Iraq is not in a civil war, it is in anarchcy. There are no clearly defined sides in which one may place their loyalties. All our troops are doing there is offering the insurgents more targets. Look at these Awakening Councils; they are switching from allies to enemies and back again. So what if we kill some enemy combatants? They will be our allies again in a few weeks. Just what goal do we have in mind for American troops in Iraq? As I see it, we must allow the civil war to run its course before Iraq can begin the healing process. We are extending the civil war by bringing forign terrorist groups into the country who want to kill everyone. If we leave, these terrorists will be kicked out into the sand. Look at Nationalist China and Communist China during the Second Sino-Japanese War; they called a cease fire to drive out the outsiders invading their country from a neighboring state. The same will happen in Iraq.

Well this isn't the same thing. Obama's plan requires, by law, that each parent purchases health insurance for their children. He isn't trying to create a government sponsored health care system.

First, those policies don't exist to help his friends, those groups became his friends because they agree with his policies. There is a monumental difference. Second, try reading his full platform: Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In | Energy. You've focused on a single piece which could actually be highly successful and ignored the rest.

I can't give you a source to prove this, but you are dead wrong. I am a member of the youth and I can assure you that we are not a selfish as you believe we are. My campus is up in arms for Obama because we are not as cynical as the average American. If we need to sacrifice a small percentage of our paychecks to repair all the damage that Bush has done to America, we are more than willing.

You said it yourself, stem cell research is potentially lucrative. It needs government help to get it off the ground. Once stem cell research is stable, we can withdraw government funding. I don't see a problem with the government aiding a a cause that could potentially save millions of lives. The majority of Congress doesn't either as Bush has had to veto Stem Cell bills on two separate occasions.

I never said that gay issues had to be a high priority. In September 2007 McCain said that he did not support gay civil unions. What part of that is "fairly liberal"? Obama supports full civil unions which would be legally equal with marriages, but suggests that the individual states should be allowed to choose whether to allow the term "marriage" or not. I don't know about you, but I see a slight difference in their viewpoints.

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"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
~Plato

Right on Taliesin-It amazes me also that people don't like the state our country is in-but a person comes along offeres change-and then is severely critical of that person-SOOO--they don't want change?mmm can't imagine living 1 more year with this kind of strife-Well the good news is that a HUGE majority of the people in the US want that change and are supporting the right person to help us do it -GO OBAMA---

I agree that your commentary is wrong, and I would add often wrong about Obama, just as you predicted him losing in North Carolina by how many points? 8?

Yeah, but I got the John Mccain thing right when almost no one else would predict a McCain win.

Although the observation about Obama's platform is not a prediction, it's an analysis of his own writing. It's standard Democratic boilerplate. It's change only in the sense that we haven't implemented such policies since LBJ. It's a much more liberal platform than what Carter and Clinton ran on.

So if a lobbyist for, let's say, American steelworkers wants higher wages for the millions of people he represents and a lobbyist for their boss wants to keep the wages the same, the lobbyist for the boss will win because the boss can offer the legislators more money. How is that fair?

That's not exactly true. Unions are very powerful and spend millions on lobbying. Until recently, they outspent corporations on lobbying and campaign donations. It wasn't until the 80s that the business world overtook organized labor.

The vast majority of his campaign contributions come from average americans. Forgive me as I've forgotten the exact figure, but something like 50% of Obama donations have been less than $20 per person.


The lobbying issue is complicated. Obama may not be influenced by their money, but he is influenced by his experience governing. For example, his energy plan consists of heavy subsidies to the coal and ag industries because in Illinois he saw how much the people there were dependent on those industries for jobs. He's naturally friendly to them for the same reason Bush, from Texas, was sympathetic to oil interests.

As Margaret Chase Smith said, "The right way is not always the popular and easy way." Obama has not been in politics long enough to lose sight of this idea.



He's been in politics longer than Reagan or Carter were.

I don't know who you're talking about, but that's not Obama.

NAFTA. He's already pissing off Mexico and Canada and he's not even in office yet.

Obama is the man who wants to meet with all world leaders unconditionally.

A position that only makes sense if you don't know anything about diplomacy. JFK, in answer to a question about when he would meet with Kruschev, pointed out that if you hold talks at such a high level and they are unsuccessful, it actually increases tension. Talks between heads of state should only be undertaken if there is a reasonable chance of something good coming of it.

If Obama say, goes to North Korea and gains nothing, he's going to look like a fool and his political capital will go poof.

That's the sad truth. However, our presence is hardly lessening the bloodshed.

Depends. We won't know until we pull them out. I'm okay with a pullout, but we have to have at least a vague plan for handling contingencies like civil war or a genocide or even a regional war.

First, those policies don't exist to help his friends, those groups became his friends because they agree with his policies

You will find very few people outside those industries who think that coal and ethanol are a viable way to reduce greenhouse emissions. Obama is thinking about jobs here, not global warming.

I can't give you a source to prove this, but you are dead wrong. I am a member of the youth and I can assure you that we are not a selfish as you believe we are.

That's not selfishness. Most young people need every dollar they are making. Most Americans cannot afford to give more. Young people especially cannot afford to give more.

You said it yourself, stem cell research is potentially lucrative. It needs government help to get it off the ground.

No it doesn't. Any technology that is potentially lucrative is funded lavishly by the private sector. The only research the government needs to support is that research whose practical uses are uncertain.

I don't know about you, but I see a slight difference in their viewpoints.
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There is, but it's not particularly dramatic. There will be no actual movement on these issues at the federal level over the next four years.

Right on Taliesin-It amazes me also that people don't like the state our country is in-but a person comes along offeres change

He says change, but he doesn't mean change. He means going back to Democratic policies. If you like that sort of thing, great, but don't act like it's something new.

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chicken butt

Yeah, but we're not talking about McCain. We're talking about Obama. You also said that Obama wouldn't win Oregon. How's that prediction working out for ya?

__________________
"Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist...but it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." - Joseph McCarthy

Political Forum Diplomacy Game Map (In Progress)
Current Diplomacy thread

Fine, change the example say it's a corporation's lobbyist against an environmentalist's lobbyist. My arguement was that money, not popular appeal rules lobbyists. You admitted to this.

Yes, he want's to give subsidies to alternative forms of fuel. This ends the stranglehold that oil has on our economy and creates jobs, both of which are huge issues in this campaign. The issue with this policy is where now?

Barack Obama has been a Senator for 3 years. Ronald Reagan was Governor of California for 8 years. Jimmy Carter was Governor of Georgia for 4 years. Try again francois. Even if they had been in politics for a shorter period, Reagan is considered one of the greatest Presidents in American history and Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I'd say they turned out fairly well.

Well there is a tradeoff for everything. I'm personally against NAFTA. We have a choice of forcing uncounted thousands of Americans into unemployment or ruffling the featers of Canada and Mexico. I would choose the first option.

Who says he will look like a fool if he gains nothing? I certainly don't think so. If he visits North Korea and nothing of importance happens, I'd see it as an example of Obama being willing to talk before the only option left is conflict. I'd respect a man who talked with someone who hated him.

I agree with you here. If a genocide does happen, we need to have a plan. I'd like to see the US presence in Iraq be replaced by UN troops from neighboring Arab states.

Obama is thinking about global warming by reducing our dependance on oil. Obama is thinking about jobs as well. Once again, where is the problem?

Apparently most Americans can afford to give more. Obama has millions of people who have donated money because they believe change to be worth the investment. In one story that Obama likes to share, an elderly woman on a fixed income sent a money order to the Obama campaign for $3.01. We (the youth) realize that change comes at a cost and we are willing to meet that sacrifice.

So the moment we know something will work, we need to stop supporting it? We know alternative fuels will work and will one day be lucrative, why are we still supporting it?

McCain says that gays can not be legally bound to one another. Obama says that they can have all the rights of a married couple. That is the most dramatic difference that can exist on that issue.

First of all, change doesn't have to be something new. It was counted as change when Bush lowered taxes, but he wasn't the first to lower taxes. Second, a lot of Obama's policies are brand new. He wants to legally require parents to purchase health insurance for their children. Brand new. He wants 25% of our energy needs to be met by renewable energy by 2025. Brand new. He wants to take our troops out of harm's way in Iraq. Brand new. He wants to lift the ban on allowing modest-income veterans to apply for the Veterans Benefits Administration. Brand new. I can go on.

__________________
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
~Plato

Fine, change the example say it's a corporation's lobbyist against an environmentalist's lobbyist. My arguement was that money, not popular appeal rules lobbyists. You admitted to this.


It's complicated. In the example you are citing now, corporations have more popular appeal than environmentalists. Corporations have millions of investors, thousands of employees, and millions of consumers. All of these people have hard interests, and there's a lot of them. Environmentalism, to most people, is more of a "that's nice, I support it as long as it doesn't cost me anything."

Also, most of the time when environmentalists get into a battle with a corporation, the unions line up with the corporation against the environmentalist group, so it's a double team.

Now if you think Obama will buck unions in favor of environmental issues, you need to look more closely at his record of supporting coal, the dirtiest way to produce energy imaginable.

Yes, he want's to give subsidies to alternative forms of fuel. This ends the stranglehold that oil has on our economy and creates jobs, both of which are huge issues in this campaign. The issue with this policy is where now?



It is very unlikely that we'll be able to clean up coal. Few environmentalists think that's an option worth pursuing. Same goes for ethanol.

Obama, like any Democrat other than Al Gore, is going to choose unions over the environment 9 times out of 10. That's reality.

Barack Obama has been a Senator for 3 years. Ronald Reagan was Governor of California for 8 years. Jimmy Carter was Governor of Georgia for 4 years.

State politics counts too. If anything, state politics is even more "political".

Well there is a tradeoff for everything. I'm personally against NAFTA. We have a choice of forcing uncounted thousands of Americans into unemployment or ruffling the featers of Canada and Mexico. I would choose the first option.


NAFTA has created jobs in all three countries. There are several million jobs in this country dependent on exports. We would be shooting ourselves in the foot economically while alienating our neighbors.

Who says he will look like a fool if he gains nothing? I certainly don't think so. If he visits North Korea and nothing of importance happens, I'd see it as an example of Obama being willing to talk before the only option left is conflict. I'd respect a man who talked with someone who hated him.

Unsuccessful talks are very, very bad. Think of the 2000 Camp David talks between Ehud Barak, Arafat, and Clinton, and what the failure of that summit resulted in: war.

I don't understand how anyone can think that talking is a no-lose proposition. Try sitting down with a personal acquaintance you haven't gotten along with and see if talking helps. Sometimes it does, other times it just makes you both even more angry at each other.

Then there are the unfortunate visuals that sometimes come from holding talks. Like shaking hands with someone who has murdered 2 million people and smiling at them. That picture raises the stature of the dictator and ends up being used as propaganda against us later on(witness the picture of Rummy with Saddam from 1983).

I agree with you here. If a genocide does happen, we need to have a plan. I'd like to see the US presence in Iraq be replaced by UN troops from neighboring Arab states.


Bad idea. Sunni Arabs would just take the Sunnis' side in any civil war. The Shiites and Kurds would much sooner see a continued US presence than admit foreign Sunni Arabs into their country.

The Iranians are actually a better idea, since they would at least side with the majority Shiites.

Obama is thinking about global warming by reducing our dependance on oil. Obama is thinking about jobs as well. Once again, where is the problem?


He's thinking about jobs, period. It could be interpreted as reducing dependence on oil if it was more comprehensive, such as including a plan for more nuclear power plants.

Apparently most Americans can afford to give more. Obama has millions of people who have donated money because they believe change to be worth the investment

Most of Obama's donors gave $200 or less. By contrast, the tax plan Obama voted for last month would cost a median family over $1000 per year.

So the moment we know something will work, we need to stop supporting it? We know alternative fuels will work and will one day be lucrative, why are we still supporting it?


We don't need to. There are no technological obstacles to say, plug-in hybrids. The obstacle is consumer resistance. No amount of subsidies will change that. A higher gas tax would probably do more than subsidies, and a higher gas tax would at least be fair. Subsidies tend to go mainly to political allies of whoever is in power.

First of all, change doesn't have to be something new. It was counted as change when Bush lowered taxes, but he wasn't the first to lower taxes

Obama promises change in the sense that the old politics will go away. Obama's platform says nothing of the sort, it's just change back to what we were doing before Ronald Reagan. Other Democrats had similar platforms, but they didn't call it change. Hillary Clinton packaged it as a restoration of sorts, a return to the good old days. For once, Clinton was a lot more honest than Obama is being.

Second, a lot of Obama's policies are brand new. He wants to legally require parents to purchase health insurance for their children.

Expanding health insurance through government mandates dates back to Truman.

wants 25% of our energy needs to be met by renewable energy by 2025. Brand new

Conservation is new?

He wants to take our troops out of harm's way in Iraq. Brand new

JW Fulbright and Wayne Morse might disagree with you there(Vietnam).

The policies you are citing are new only in the circumstances, or there are microdifferences between those policies and the way it woud have been done in the 60s. But there is nothing there that a liberal Democrat in the 60s would disagree with.

Obama is advertising himself as a unifier, someone who wants to transcend the old politics. He has no plans for radical reform of government. Nothing even so radical as McCain-Feingold. It's pretty bad that he claims to be something that McCain has already been, only better.

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chicken butt

BTW, as much as I criticize Obama here, I still think he'll end up being a good President. He has the ability to inspire, he has the brains, and his instincts are not quite as liberal as his platform suggests.

I just feel that the reality of Obama is not nearly as awesome as is portrayed by his supporters, who seem to view him as a Messiah of sorts. He isn't even the guy his campaign portrays him as.

What he is, is a very bright young liberal Senator who could blossom into one of our better Presidents. He's no more a unifier or change agent than any other President we've had recently. He's never walked that walk, despite having ample opportunities to do so, all of which he declined and decided to just go along to get along.

Unlike the cynics here, I believe that we are very lucky to have two fine men like McCain and Obama running for President. I just feel that McCain is the superior of the two, most notably because he's actually done many of the things Obama only talks about doing(being bipartisan, trying to reform politics).

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chicken butt