McCain Picks Palin as Running Mate

My initial reaction to McCain's VP choice: who? After reading a bit about her, I came to the conclusion that McCain is taking a massive risk in choosing Palin as a running mate. He clearly is pandering to the Party Unity My Ass (PUMA) bloc - the group of disillusioned Hillary supporters who still have not gotten over the fact that Obama won the primary. While no official numbers on PUMAs are available, I cannot imagine it is anywhere close to the number of people who supported Hillary during the primary. There are not that many ignorant people who supported her and want to throw the election simply because the person who won was not a woman named Hillary.

As I said, I think that he is taking a big risk. He is putting all of his eggs into one basket. To think that a one-time Hillary supporter who is still on the fence between McCain and Obama will lean toward McCain because he chose a staunchly conservative, pro-life woman who finds sport in killing animals is wishful thinking. It seems that one of the few things that these two women have in common is just that - their gender. If McCain ends up winning the White House, his choice of Palin will be viewed as genious. If he does not, however, end up winning, his choice will be viewed as disastrous. I'm leaning toward the second outcome.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty that I like about Palin. I like what she has done for Alaska in terms of finances. She has trimmed a lot of the fat from the Alaskan bureaucracy. She tackled corrupt power in Juneau and only has one ethics charge against her (for a Republican these days, that's good). But her stance on the issues is from the 1950s and earlier. She is anti-gay marriage (and from what I can discern anti-gay civil unions), staunchly pro-life, and believes that creationism should be taught alongside evolution. Find me a true Hillary supporter who finds these stances attractive, not a person who simply supported Hillary because she was a woman and could have cared less about where she stood on the issues. While Palin may interest traditional Republicans (old-school Goldwater Republicans, not these bullshit Neo-Cons), she is hardly palatable for the average Democrat. She may boost McCain's numbers a point or two, but in my opinion it's not going to be enough to beat Obama come November. Peace.

Photos - McCain and Palin (www.latimes.com), McCain and Palin again (blogs.wsj.com)

DNC Day 4: Obama's Acceptance Speech

I can describe this speech in one word: unbelievable. I have not seen Obama as passionate and on point as he was on Thursday. Oftentimes during long speeches I get bored and zone out, missing middle portions of the speaker's remarks (see: commencement) but Obama's 45-minute address kept me interested the entire time.

To begin with, his words about Hillary were amazing. Personally, I felt he did more with his one line about how Hillary serves as an inspiration for young girls everywhere - including his own daughters - for party unity than Hillary or Bill did during their speeches (not that they did not try, but Obama nailed the line better).

Obama also made an excellent point that this election is a defining moment for this country, and I personally agree that this is true. We are in an unprecedented time in our country. When the majority of the files of the Bush Administration are declassified in a generation, it is going to make the Nixon and Reagan Administrations look like choir boys. The Neo-Con way of running foreign policy and keeping a stronghold grip on domestic citizens goes against almost everything in the Constitution and everything that the Founding Fathers meant for this country. We simply cannot have four more years of an out-of-touch Republican surrounded by Neo-Cons.

Another excellent point that Obama made was in the form of the government's powers and their limits. He began by saying that government did not cause the majority of America's problems, but they compounded the problems by not responding in an adequate manner. Later in the speech Obama echoed this sentiment by saying that the government cannot parent children; the government has limits. This could not be more true. In a society where parents feel that their children can do no wrong, where good teachers are underappreciated, and video games and McDonald's replace reading and sports, a bureaucratic government is no match to set the youth on the right track. Parents cannot expect the government to act like a nanny.

For my last point of praise, I want to bring up Obama's assertion that we need to find a sense of common purpose for citizens and politicians. Whether pro-life or pro-choice, both sides can agree that unwanted pregnancies should be reduced. Whatever your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, everyone can agree that gangsters should not be toting AKs. Whether you're for or against gay marriage (an area where both candidates agree - anti-gay marriage), you still know that homosexuals deserve all the rights and opportunities as their heterosexual peers (unless you're Pat Robertson).

Of course, Obama's speech had some rhetoric and promises that I do not see as feasible. To begin with, to say that you are going to go through the U.S. Government's overhead line by line and get rid of the wasteful programs is a bit of a stretch. Not only would it take a massive team of experienced (and expensive) accountants to do this, but the lobbying spider web behind these programs is simply too strong to just up and rid the government of wasteful spending. It would take decades to undo the damage that corrupt lobbying has done to Washington; Obama may lay the groundwork for it if he tries hard, but there is no way he will be getting rid of it.

Additionally, he said that he would cut taxes for 95% of Americans. He may very well do this, but 96% of Americans make $150,000 or less, so this would be accomplished by simply doing a non-Bush tax cut (in other words, cut taxes primarily for the middle class and below, not the other way around). These words were political rhetoric.

Finally Obama made a very bold statement in saying that he would end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in 10 years. It's not as bold a statement as Obama saying he would end our dependence on all foreign oil, but it's still a hefty promise. Personally, I do not see it happening. The oil companies' grip on Congress has only strengthened in the past eight years, and they will not be pleased to hear that their record profits from black gold will be imperiled by Obama's policies, and they will make sure that key Congressmen vote in their interest (right, Ted Stevens?). Again, just like with the line items, Obama may very well try in earnest to do the right thing and look for other forms of energy beyond Middle Eastern oil, but it's going to be an uphill battle that will more than likely take more than a decade.

Of course, Obama's willingness to even try to attempt these things is a positive. I certainly don't think that McCain would send the country in the right direction in terms of wasteful spending (even though he has fought against pork-barrel spending) or our dependence on Middle Eastern oil (and don't say drilling offshore is a solution to this). If Obama were to win the presidency, he may not fix this country in all aspects where it is broken, but he would get us going there, whereas I do not see McCain doing so. Peace.

Photos - Obama at Mile High Stadium (www.mtv.com), Obama and Biden at Invesco Field (www.mtv.com), A packed Invesco Field before Obama's speech (www.mtv.com), An empty Invesco Field (commons.wikimedia.org)

DNC Day 3: Bubba and Biden

This post will be extremely short because I want to get to Obama's speech and McCain's VP pick and have not posted in a while because I got stuck at work at the end of the week. In short, I thought Bill did better than Hillary, but still not up to what I though was needed to completely unify the party and convince viewers that bygones were, in fact, bygones. Like I said, better than Hillary and a decent speech, but after seeing Biden's and Obama's speech, I thought Bill could have done better.

One thing about Clinton's speech that made me pause was his entrance. He came out to this music (I forget what it was - I know I heard Springsteen at some point during the night). I wondered to myself - who picks the music? Is it like baseball where the player gets to pick his own music to come out to? If so, I hope they would have some kind of editer so the DNC doesn't have a Manny Ramirez moment.

Which brings me to Biden. I thought Biden's was a great speech and he did a good job laying out the case against McCain. Another question came up during his speech that was akin to my question for Clinton: is the audience participation planned or is it spontaneous? My thoughts are this is politics and it has to be planned; spontaneity is dangerous in politics because it leads to politically damaging moments (like calling your wife a cunt). But then again the people at these conventions are certifiably insane.

Whether the audience participation was staged or not, Biden's speech was still great. The examples of when Obama was right and McCain was wrong were striking and certainly should have, in Kucinich's words, woken some Americans up. It also was refreshing to see Biden point to his friendship with McCain and McCain's brave service to this country and to pay respect to it. Through all of this we must remember that McCain has done a lot for this country in terms of personal sacrifice and to forget that would be insulting. No one on the Democratic side of things is painting McCain as evil - just the opposite. As Obama said recently, it's not that McCain wishes to do this country harm, he is just out of touch and not as in tune with America's standing at home and abroad. So while McCain was a great soldier, and Biden did a great job of pointing this out, that is not the only qualification for president and this country needs someone who will take this nation in a new direction. In my opinion, painting McCain as someone who loves his country and means well but simply misfires was the best aspect of Biden's speech. Peace.

Photos - Bill Clinton at the DNC (iMedia Press), Biden at the DNC (CBS News)

DNC Day 2: Kucinich's Foresight and Bubba's Tears

One of the more energetic portions of Day 2 came in the form of 5'7" Dennis Kucinich, who had a rousing speech with the phrase "Wake up America" repeated numerous times. Kucinich is one of those members of the Democratic Party who has proven his foresight to be unbelievable. Take his political downfall as mayor of Cleveland in the late 70s: Kucinich refused to sell the publicly-owned electricity company and the big banks in the Cleveland area put the squeeze on him and the city by removing their backings for Cleveland's loans. Kucinich refused to bow to this pressure and the city defaulted. He was run out of town and considered a huge failure. As it turned out, Kucinich was right and had actually saved the city about $195 million from 1985 to 1995, after it was determined that Cleveland's default was caused by political motives, not strictly economic ones. Kucinich has also had the foresight to vote against the Constitution-violating Patriot Act and against the Iraq War. Kucinich is no fortune teller, but he has a knack for knowing which present actions (or inactions) will negatively affect the future.

Kucinich's speech was essentially a daming indictment against the current administration and its numerous failed policies. Some excellent points that he made were the fact that Congress and the President somehow found money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, but could not even take care of the bridges and infrastructure at home (clearly referring to the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis last year). Kucinich pointed out that the Republicans and the Neo-Cons skillfully played on Americans' post-9/11 fears, leading us to Iraq and beginning to beat the war drum for Iran. I wish Kucinich's speech was closer to prime time, as I am sure a lot of people missed it.

As for the prime time speech, it was pretty much what I expected. What I did not expect and was very surprised to see was William Jefferson Clinton shedding a tear or two as his wife hit the stage. It reminded me of another Democratic politician who teared up over his wife while I was trying to figure out, are those tears on Clinton's face or is it snowing inside the DNC? As Clinton's speech began I could tell that it would be a run-of-the-mill deal. The only part that I thought was sincere was when she said that she was a proud supporter of Barack Obama in the first two minutes (and that's only because she perked up a bit). Beyond that, though, it seemed like Hillary phoned this one in. She went on about herself - 35 years in "the trenches" (probably not a good idea to compare oneself to a soldier during wartime), which made me wonder if she was setting the groundwork for 2012 (but that's probably my own cynicism and skepticism of 21st century Clintonian politics).

I did like that she injected humor into the speech, as it took some of the edge and pressure off of the whole affair (my favorite was Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants Suit). Her allusion to the invisible American I thought needed some elaboration, especially given that Nixon used it as part of his presidential campaign (and Southern Strategy) in 1972 in the form of the "silent majority." While I feel a little bad for her because this speech is under a very intense media microscope, she (and Bill) brought it on herself with her primary campaign.

In my opinion, I would have liked to see Kucinich's speech and Hillary's speech switch timeslots. Kucinich did not stand up on the podium and talk about his time "in the trenches" and all of that. He laid out the past 8 years quite nicely and succinctly, and did it with passion and energy. Hillary stood at the podium and delivered a speech that, if you cut out the 4-5 references to Obama, could have been any one of her campaign speeches. We'll see how Bubba and Biden do tonight. Peace.

Photos - Dennis Kucinich pumping up the crowd at the DNC (Wise Politics), Hillary Clinton at the DNC (PBS), The stage at the DNC (NECN)

Primer to the Democratic Convention

All eyes this week will be on Denver, Colorado as the Democrats host their primary convention. A lot has been going on lately in the Democratic camp, with Biden being selected by Obama to be his vice president (he could have done better, but he also could have done worse; Biden was a safe choice) and pre-convention business taking place at a rapid pace. While Obama and Biden should be the focus of this week, Hillary Clinton and her husband have garnered a large chunk of the spotlight. McCain has tried to capitalize on this with an ad deriding Obama's VP choice not being Hillary. He says that Hillary "spoke the truth" about Obama and that's why she did not pick him. It is a factually tenuous ad, what with Hillary's Bosnia-sniper-fire-esque assertions during the campaign, but that's another story.

Hillary has denounced the ad, putting on a face and saying that nothing is wrong and the party could not be better. One major factor in the convention will not be how Hillary acts and bullshits about, but how her husband behaves himself. Even while in Africa Bill has had a tendency to stir up the pot and insert himself in the campaign when his actions this year have shown to be more harmful than helpful this election (for both his wife and the Party). The real key to whether the mass media will declare unity in Denver is how Bill Clinton acts. One misstep from Bubba's beak and the news outlets will jump on it.

It's also a bit funny that the Democrats are the ones who are being labeled troubled internally. How quickly we forget when McCain was dogged for not being conservative enough for the Republican Party. (See here, here, and here). In reality, McCain is conservative (the man surrounds himself with Neo-Cons for shit's sake). His infatuation stage with the Iraq War continues, he is against gay marriage and abortion, and he is so rich he doesn't know how many houses he has. If you don't think that's a Republican, wake up. Just because he did not support a Constitutional ban on gay marriage (which, in reality, is a Republican stance) and he has been willing every now and then to work across party lines, he is not a Republican?

So if the news outlets were wrong about McCain and the internal divisions within the Republican party (or the Neo-Cons who have hijacked it), why should we believe them about an internal division within the Democratic Party? Is there a division between the Obamas and the Clintons? Probably. Does that translate into a whole party rift? Probably not. Many people (even Ted Kennedy has passed the proverbial torch past the Clintons) see Obama not only as a better choice than Hillary, but also an eager, young face for the party. A fictitious rift not only keeps Obama's polls down and the race exciting, it also sells newspapers and garners viewers. This means more ad revenue for the networks and papers, which translates into more money for upper management. And you thought the Wu-Tang Clan's C.R.E.A.M. was just a song. Peace.

Photos - Television cameras at the DNC (www.nytimes.com), Obama and Hillary yucking it up (www.abc.net.au), Howard Dean bangs the gavel, starting the Democratic National Convention (www.cbsnews.com)

McCain is So Rich He Doesn't Know How Many Houses He Owns

Some of you probably remember when Obama made his now-famous comment regarding people in rural portions of America sticking to "guns and religion" during economic downturns. John McCain came out and attacked Obama saying that his comments were elitist and it showed that Obama was out of touch. McCain is probably eating those words now. When asked in an interview conducted by Politico how many homes he owned, he replied, "I'll have my staff get to you." That's right, McCain does not know how many houses he owns and to find out, he'll have someone on his staff get back to you - he just doesn't have that kind of time because he's so damn important.

As news of McCain's ignorance began to spread, the number of homes people were finding in his possession kept going up like home foreclosures these past few months. First it was four, then seven, and finally ten. The Huffington Post says that he owns ten homes, ranches, condos and lofts at a total value of $13,823,269. In an economy where people are struggling simply to own one home, to own ten and not know how many you actually have is insulting.

On top of all this, however, is McCain's assertion during the Saddleback Civil Forum that $5 million is the cut-off for rich people in America. This is very ironic as in response to Obama jumping on McCain's ignorance, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers stated, "Does a guy who made $4 million last year...want to get in a debate about houses?" Well, under McCain's financial definition of what is rich, Obama is not, so Rogers' comments can simply be ignored.

I don't expect either candidate to live a normal life. Hell, McCain got rich by sleeping with a wealthy woman who was born the year that he graduated high school and inherited her roughly $100 million worth from her father. Obama and his wife Michelle did not marry into money like a lot of politicians (such as John Kerry - who was attcked for this) and made their own. Neither candidate is a member of the middle class, though one thinks that a $150,000 household income makes one rich and the other thinks $5 million makes one rich. One candidate owns so many homes that he can't keep them straight while the other owns one and knows it. Take a guess as to which one may be more in touch with the economy and how other people live. Peace.

Photos - John McCain, home-owner extraordinaire (Paste Magazine), Barack Obama, single-home owner (Times Online)

The Saddleback Civil Forum

John McCain, Rick Warren, and Barack Obama
at the Saddleback Civil Forum (The Economist)

My first reaction to watching the Saddleback Civil Forum was, "Wow, these questions are amazing and the one-on-one setting makes it impossible for the candidates to squirm out of a question non-chalantly." My second was, "The questions are amazing." Rarely will the mainstream media figureheads (I'm looking at you, Stephanopoulos) put on such a fair and well-planned debate. I had my doubts due to the whole Evangelical thing, but Rick Warren was affable and kept the pace of the questions going very well. I would like to see more of these types of forums in the future.

All was not perfect, however (nothing in life is.)  I thought Obama did very well and while McCain was much friendlier and more at ease than he usually is, both candidates said things that were worrisome. Let's begin with Obama.

Obama handled one of the first questions very well: the question regarding what is your biggest moral failure. He was open and honest about his rebelliousness as a teen and young man (specifically mentioning drug use and drinking, etc.). I thought Obama's best answer came after being asked about abortion. Saying that he believes in a woman's right to choose, he expanded on the issue by saying that being pro-choice does not mean that one is pro-abortion. He said that he would like to see the number of abortions in this country decrease. I wish he had expanded and gone into how to decrease abortions (real sex education, not abstinence education, etc.), but he was in front of a mostly Evangelical crowd.

Some things Obama said worried me: To begin with, the fact that he said "Christ died for our sins." I understand that that is the fundamental concept of being a Christian, but just the phrase brings nightmarish memories back of church as a kid and the Sunday school teacher telling my brother that all of his Jewish friends were going to hell for not believing in Christ. If that is what Obama truly believes, I have no problem with that as long as he does not try to push it on people who do not believe it (which is the majority of the world). I trust Obama will not try to turn America into a "Christian nation" or say that God wants him to be president. To each his own.

Barack Obama and Rick Warren (Monsters and Critics)

Another problem with Obama's answers was his gay marriage stance. He is for civil unions, but not for gay marriages. This is confounding, as one is political and the other is religious or spiritual. Under the 1st Amendment (Freedom of Religion), people have the right to establish and practice whichever religion they want to. If that religion says that gays can marry, and Obama is for the political aspect of a civil union, then why should gay marriage be outlawed? Who is anyone to judge a religion's view on who can or cannot be wed before a supreme being? In Christianity I thought God was the final judge on everything, not a politician. If a church wants to perform a gay marriage (and it is their right not to) and civil unions are legal, then why do we not call it gay marriage? It's splitting hairs.

On to McCain. One thing McCain did very well was be more approachable to the average viewer. He was not as stiff and cold as he has been in the past. I also give him kudos for answering the moral failure question in an honest manner (I did not think he was going to mention the failure of his first marriage.)  I would have liked a little more honesty (the fact that he cheated on his first wife, then married his mistress, Cindy McCain), but it's baby steps.

On the flip-flop question McCain was horrible. "Drill now" is a pathetic mantra to have. No matter how many times people are confronted with the facts, McCain still uses this tired campaign schtick. Experts have said that it will take MORE THAN A DECADE to get the oil out of the ground and there may not even be enough of it to significantly change oil prices. That means if McCain is elected twice in a row WE WILL NOT SEE ANY OIL FROM OFFSHORE DRILLING DURING HIS PRESIDENCY.

John McCain and Rick Warren (New York Times)

McCain also said that Ronald Reagan was a great president and that he won the Cold War without firing a shot. This could not be further from the truth. Anyone with an iota of knowledge about the Soviet-Afghan War or the Nicaraguan Contras (to name two campaigns that Reagan was elbow-deep in) knows that this statement (which McCain uttered twice) is offensively incorrect. We helped build Bin Laden's Tora Bora cave system, we sold the Taliban and the Mujahideen Stinger missiles and other weapons (which would later be used against our own soldiers after 9/11). It is scary to think that McCain would even think about saying this on national television and expect people to believe it.

McCain also showed his short-sightedness when it comes to what problems our country faces. He stated that radical Islamic extremism is the "transcendental issue of the 21st century." To begin with, anyone who has read a history book knows that we'll get a new enemy in 10-20 years. In the 1930s and the 1940s it was the fascists, in the 1950s-1980s it was the Communists. In the 1990s it was anti-government nuts in rural America. Now it is the radical Islamic extremists. Who knows who it will be next. Additionally, Islamic extremists are not the only problem for this country. I would say the energy crisis, the broken prison and justice systems, a tattered immigration policy, 8 years of flouting the Constitution, the meth epidemic, etc. are all issues that should be as high if not higher than radical Islamic extremism (don't forget that the largest terrorist attack in America before 9/11 was perpetrated by two American-bred white guys). But "Let's fix the prison system" is not exactly as strong a rallying cry as "I'll follow Osama to the gates of hell if I have to." Good luck with that one.

Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA (New York Times)

I have other issues with both candidates, but simply do not have the time to go over all of them. Maybe later. All in all, I thought that the Saddleback Civil Forum went very well and I would love to see more debates set up in that style. It was good to see the candidates answer tough questions that they rarely like to talk about (moral failure, abortion, etc.). Some of the answers were very good, others were very scary, but it certainly helped inform me as to where the candidates stand exactly on issues, and I hope it helped other people as well.