Okay. We're not getting paid by the McCain, Clinton, or Obama campaigns--even though many of us act like it sometimes (including myself). So let's admit what we don't like about our candidate. Obama supporters, this is a good chance for you to show that you're not mindlessly following the candidate with the best looks and most personality.

I'll go first. There is plenty I don't like about John McCain in 2008. I've went through a few in other threads. I don't like his reveral on the Bush tax cuts. I don't like the gas tax holiday. But one that worries me the most that I have not mentioned wtih regards to McCain is the fact that he apparently wants to continue Bush's first term policy of....

Giving North Korea the Silent Treatment.

Quote :

"I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration's policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure" .... "The worst thing we could do is to accede to North Korea's demand for bilateral talks," McCain said. "When has rewarding North Korea's bad behavior ever gotten us anything more than worse behavior?" "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15210254/

Apparently McCain doesn't realize that at least under the Clinton framework we had inspectors going into N. Korea and we knew where the nuclear fuel rods were being kept. After Bush came in and starting playing global cow boy, that's when things fell apart and Kim starting doing nuclear tests.

I'm detecting essentially this same flawed approach in his approach to Iran. He needs to realize that not every dictator we don't like is the Soviet Union. Nagotiating is not appeasing. In the real world, people respond to incentives. And if we want N. Korea and Iran to keep their nuclear asperations under control, we need to offer them carrots to walk the line (we can't afford to use the stick anymore).

Right now, I'm hoping that this is just bluster he's affecting for the election, but a scan of his history makes me wonder..
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9407EFD61E3EF93BA35751C1A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 2:16 PM. Reason : PS* No, this does not mean I'm worried McCain will take us to war with Iran. Stop being stupid.]

6/4/2008 2:11:56 PM

I get a general feeling from him that he thinks government can solve the world's problems.

And his cult of personality is a bit bunch.

I mean, look at this official poster:



Mao would've gone ga-ga over it.



[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 2:35 PM. Reason : and he's-too- frikin' awesome]

6/4/2008 2:12:48 PM

I don't like how Obama panders to the pro-Isreal crowd and I think he's a little too big on biofuels

6/4/2008 2:14:52 PM

Barr has no chance of winning.

6/4/2008 2:20:19 PM

McCains shift left after he lost the nomination in 2000.

McCains immigration bill... my biggest issue

McCain opposing the tax cuts

I dont particularly like McCain. I would rather have dinner with Obama(without the wife). Although I respect McCain more.

I feel he is just like other politicians willing to say whatever to get elected.

6/4/2008 2:29:06 PM

^^For you, it would be better to say, Barr isn't even a real libertarian.

6/4/2008 2:30:21 PM

McCain is a stupid little bitch when it comes to the economy. I mean don't get up in front of people and say you're open to suggestions b/c you don't know what to do.

6/4/2008 2:35:09 PM

^actually I dont mind that as much. Admitting/knowing weaknesses isnt a bad thing. imo

Should have been worded different though. I dont mind someone saying they dont know much about an issue, but give you a plan on how they would deal with it or consult with advisors about the matter.

6/4/2008 2:39:53 PM

he also needs to grow a pair of balls and say, "america, vote this pussy obama into office and he'll probably sit down with iran and introduce islamic law in the united states. vote me in office and i'll drop a deuce on his desk and send his ass to the shitter with our new weapons and space programs that will generate some good jobs"

i don't give a shit if it's not PC. somebody needs to be a man and be an asshole to these rogue nuclear nations

6/4/2008 2:42:07 PM

Quote :

"For you, it would be better to say, Barr isn't even a real libertarian."

Well, there's that too. Still, even Barr is leaps and bounds better than either of the 2 major party candidates.

6/4/2008 2:43:28 PM

^^But that would be a lie!

6/4/2008 2:45:16 PM

Why the hell would Obama introduce Islamic law?

6/4/2008 2:46:37 PM

^^at least i'm staying on topic asshole. not picking apart everything until there is nothing left.
funny, that's just like democrat. why am i suprised.

McCain needs to be a big dog and show how pussy the liberals really are with all their PC horseshit and how they are really all scumbags and hypocrites in reality. That wouldn't be very hard, but i'm sure it's going to happen soon enough.

Obama is such a terrorist sympathizer it makes me sick. He'd have probably sent aid to the middle east and afghanistan after 9/11 had he been president. LETS GO HAVE A CHAT WITH IRANS PRESIDENT AND LEGITAMIZE HIS BULLSHIT MORE. MY NAME IS HUSSEIN OBAMA AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE

and mccain could easily pick this apart, but he won't. too bad. oh well.

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 2:49 PM. Reason : .]

6/4/2008 2:47:07 PM

#1 thing McCain supporters should dislike about their candidate:

They share something in common with Rat

6/4/2008 2:50:34 PM

so you feel great having so much in common with dnl. lol

/thread

6/4/2008 2:53:39 PM

So you're the right's equivalent of dnl?

6/4/2008 2:54:57 PM

^Ill take rat over farrakhan, rev. wright, and Iran.

6/4/2008 2:55:03 PM

Haha yeah say whatever you want, doesn't matter if it's a lie, as long as it's on topic

JUST LIKE A REPUBLICAN WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED ARF ARF ARF

6/4/2008 2:55:30 PM

6/4/2008 2:56:03 PM

Quote :

"So you're the right's equivalent of dnl?"

whatever makes you happy to be a democrat i guess

6/4/2008 2:57:37 PM

cmon guys this thread is about shitting on your candidate and i clearly did that in 2 of my posts. can't you guys oblige us? cmon, isn't there something wrong the messiah of modern socialism in your books????

6/4/2008 2:58:44 PM

I'm unsure about how this universal health care thing is gonna work. For sure, insurance companies have been screwing people over for a long time, but I'm honestly unconvinced government can do the job better. I also wish there was more of an emphasis on Obama's planned policies than his (admittedly exceptional) rhetoric, both because I want to have it hashed out more and because it'll mean everyone can stop yelling back and forth between "omg, he's a visionary" and "he's a personality leader with no substance," because that shit is getting old from both sides.

6/4/2008 2:59:56 PM

Quote :

"I don't like how Obama panders to the pro-Isreal crowd and I think he's a little too big on biofuels"

6/4/2008 3:00:00 PM

I haven't made up my mind about McCain and Obama.

McCain is too much of a hawk for me. His tough talk on Korea, Russia, Iran, etc is not what we need right now. He's also old as shit, and his suggestion that we need more ultra-conservative judges on the supreme court is kinda nutty. His occasional "maverick" breaks with GOP orthodoxy on immigration, torture, etc. obscure the fact that he is a pretty hardcore conservative on most issues. He will spend too much on the military. He doesn't really understand economics, and his idea that cutting spending will help the economy in the short term illustrates that fact.


Obama's massive spending proposals and tax redistribution policies smack of socialism. He advocates ridiculous capital gains and windfall taxes at a time when our economy is already reeling. His solution to our health care problems is more government intervention and expanding medicare / medicaid, which will shift the burden around but do little to cut costs. His claim to fame is opposing the Iraq war, and yet he has seemingly no clue what to do about it now. He has no military experience, and we are at war.

6/4/2008 3:16:30 PM

^that's the best i've heard in politics in a weeks

6/4/2008 3:23:45 PM

^^

lincoln had no military experience

--

i'm not into the universal health care

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 3:30 PM. Reason : +]

6/4/2008 3:29:18 PM

^ neither did James K. Polk, president during the Mexican-American War.

6/4/2008 3:50:44 PM

it's been said fdr didn't have military experience

but he was secretary of the navy

so i'm not sure how all that jives out

6/4/2008 3:53:42 PM

Prawn, I too think cutting govt spending will help out our economy. I think it makes an immediate difference in showing a change of direction and helps to rebound the dollar. imo

6/4/2008 4:31:40 PM

According to theory, cutting spending should hurt in the short term. Does depend on how markets react and all that.

6/4/2008 4:37:30 PM

Quote :

"neither did James K. Polk, president during the Mexican-American War."

Is that supposed to be a barb against Polk?

California, man

6/4/2008 4:43:20 PM

McCain unnerves me because he keeps saying odd things that go counter to many of his older stances that made him popular to begin with such as his reverse on the torture ban. He seems a bit too trigger happy when it comes to dealing with America's enemies, and I haven't been impressed by his economic plans to date. His supposedly short temper isn't exactly comforting either.

Obama scares me because the expectations around his presidency have been raised so high that when he actually comes to office and has to start making hard decisions, his supporters are going to get pissed pretty quickly. We may get a situation like the 1993 Clinton health care reform where he's overly ambitious, bungles the execution, and then is almost lame ducked immediately. I think there's also an unnecessarily high expectation that Obama is some how going to magically restore America's prestige and power to the "good ol' days" of the 1990s when clearly the world has moved beyond it. His voting record also still scares me, and I'm afraid he's going to tack FAR left if he takes the White House with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Sucking up to AIPAC hasn't helped either.

6/4/2008 4:44:26 PM

^^ Mexico's going to take it back soon anyway. Or, ideally, we'll get the Republica del Norte.

http://www.aztlan.net/homeland.htm

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 4:50 PM. Reason : I might be going to UNM]

6/4/2008 4:46:46 PM

markets responded pretty good when we had a balanced budget.

I also think that cutting some spending would not adversly affect the economy. Now cutting out 400B in highway funds sure would. But I think it can be done over time, and NEEDS to be done. We have to cut spending. I dont see how that is an issue or people arent concerned over massive spending increases and MORE entitlements. Thats where all our money goes now. Its like giving 10k to a broke alchoholic gambler then saying.. come on ill give you a ride to vegas. And wondering why he didnt get his life back on track with that money.

6/4/2008 4:47:34 PM

After hearing the Israel speech on my drive home, I'll agree with what the two other posters said.

I want us to protect the people of Israel from harm, but I sure as hell don't care about the future of the state of Israel. I'd dissolve it tomorrow if I could without bloodshed/suffering.

6/4/2008 4:56:57 PM

^^ I hear what you are saying. In the long term, less government spending is better for the economy. By cutting spending, the markets would probably react positively and inflation would likely drop some. I've always been an advocate of less spending.

But the reality is that we are at a precipice with respect to the economy. It could get a lot worse before it gets better, and there are a lot of "emergency measures" being floated out there. Modern economic theory says that governments can stimulate the economy primarily in 2 ways: tax cuts and deficit spending. Now if you disagree with that, you can take it up with Keynes, Friedman, etc. But when a reporter asks McCain how he would stimulate the economy in the face of a looming recession and he says he would do so by cutting spending, it appears that he doesn't know how markets and economic theory works.

6/4/2008 5:17:18 PM

I wish that Obama's environmental policy focused more on cutting all types of pollution and waste as opposed to talking about biofuels and CO2 almost exclusively. It'd be nice for him to use his influence to discourage wasteful energy spending by Americans and show how they can save themselves money by growing out of their "throw away culture" mentality.

6/4/2008 5:27:34 PM

wish he had a different middle name...wish he woulda been hillarys vp...wished he was a governor...all i can think of right now

wish he was a governor more than i wish he was hillarys vp

6/4/2008 5:37:25 PM

Prawn I agree with what you are saying. Im just saying that alot of the woes now are from a declining dollar. Decreasing spending would help that. Also mccain has proposed cutting corporate taxes as well to help the economy. A good long and short term measure I think.

I think we are in agreement on the issue prawn. We both seem to feel that the worst thing to do would be raise taxes. correct?

6/4/2008 6:07:23 PM

Correct.

Obama's ridiculous proposal to raise capital gains taxes up to 28% would hurt the economy and lower revenues both at the same time.

6/4/2008 6:19:43 PM

He proposed to raise it to 20%

6/4/2008 6:30:40 PM

So is his stance "evolving" then? Because just a few months ago he was talking about a 28% tax on capital gains.

20% is more reasonable.

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 6:38 PM. Reason : 2]

6/4/2008 6:38:17 PM

No, it's not evolving, he said he wouldn't take it past what it was during the Clinton years, which was 20%. It was reported as 28% because that would be nearly "doubling" it - but I never heard Obama say anything but considering taking it back to the 20% where it was during the Clinton years. I'm not sure if this was a rumor spread on purpose or just miscommunication - but I don't think it matters right now. He isn't raising it past 20%.

6/4/2008 6:44:37 PM

“I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28%.”

-obama

6/4/2008 6:51:25 PM

The rate was at 28% under Clinton before he cut rates to 20% on demands from the republican congress. Obama said on CNBC that current rates are not fair, and he would raise them, but not above Clinton-era levels of 28%. So I guess he left some wiggle room for narrowing it down to 20%.

6/4/2008 6:52:32 PM

no offense terp, it sounds like to me he doesnt have any idea what he would raise it to. he still hasnt funded his new spending, let alone the deficit we are already in.

6/4/2008 6:55:31 PM

Quote :

"wiggle room"

?

you want wiggle room?

wigga wigga wah, wigga wigga woo, wigga wigga ooh ah ee oh ah

6/4/2008 6:58:47 PM

Wait a minute, I remembered him saying 20% , and addressing the whole 28% thing on CNBC. Not that I really give a shit at this point - but unless I see proof otherwise, I still believe he said he isn't going above 20%

6/4/2008 7:07:15 PM

two things i'm not crazy about with the whole Barack campaign.

(1) he's short on experience at the national level

(2) as someone else mentioned, the whole "cult of personality" thing thats sprung up around him complete with feelgood propaganda. one might even say he's encouraging it. i don't think its particularly harmful, but it makes his supporters look... shallow.

6/4/2008 7:26:40 PM

Ron Paul - I don't like his extreme yearning to yield to the gold standard. I also think rather than cutting departments it would serve us better to restructure them.

Barack Obama - I do not like his goal of increasing the capital gains tax. I also don't like his idea of transitional bilingual education, but only with respect to the fact that it doesn't encourage people to learn the fucking language BEFORE they get here.

6/4/2008 7:29:23 PM