Mccain/Palin?

How old is he? ^

Cracks me up....................

Palin has really got the lefties scared and showing their true colors.

Let's face it. It is very doubtful that any of the candidates could ever live up to the incumbent.

Just kidding, I am not a George W. Bush fan in any way!

 

It always amazes me that in times of major elections our two major parties put on their boxing gloves and go at it. I personally hate this us vs. them attitude. If anyone's to blame for the problems in this country, it's BOTH parties. The original good ol' boys, the founding fathers, warned of the dangers of factions... and yet, they were still able to complete some of the greatest compromises in our history. Where's that now?

The founding fathers are probably rolling over in their graves at all this, especially at the fact that there's a black man and woman on the party tickets, haha... I guess at least we've come a long way in that regard. I'll be glad when all of this name calling and finger pointing is over.

-Matt

 

I was over it a long time ago, my friend.

 

What it comes down to is both sides are terrified to say what they're actually going to do if elected; Barack Obama will never admit he's going to tax us back into the Stone Age to fund his Socialist agenda, and John McCain will never say publicly he's going to make the Southwestern part of the United States a satellite of Mexico.

Therefore, we're left with the boxing match over issues where both sides want to sound as centrist as possible to avoid offending the majority of voters.

 

Bingo......

 

"Under pressure for being shielded for questioning, Sarah Palin has a agreed to sit down with Charles Gibson of ABC’s “World News Tonight,” according to an ABC News official.
ADVERTISEMENT

No other interviews are scheduled. It will be the first TV interview for Palin since she was named 10 days ago as running mate to John McCain."

Get to know as much about your candidate as possible.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13227.html

 

Does anybody know what time that will be on in California?


Abner

 

It looks like she is going to be given some of the questions in advance. No wonder they agreed to it. Ay dios mio! Let the Pitbull answer cold baby!

Abner

 

This thread needs to be Barack-rolled. It's what Dems and Repubs can both agree on! That, and the great taste of Miller Light.

 

Ha ha!!!! That's hilarious!


Abner

 

If so, good for her. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing from the governor. A press conference would be even better.

I'm a little surprised this isn't going to be on Fixed News. Pleasantly so.

 

LOL Indeed

 

This is the only US election that has some broadcast coverage in Australia. We don't have any idea about the US election process, other than it appears to go on forever. There would not be many Australians that don't know about Obama and McCain. If you asked them who ran against Bush, nobody here would know or care. This time they do. People are even expressing an opinion on who they want and we have nothing to do with it! Arguments have occurred in my work place on who is the better candidate!

Maybe it is because the issues are no longer local, if they ever were. The subprime mortgage crisis has rippled across our pond as well. Banks are talking up their interest rates here because of it. Petrol here has gone through the roof and pushed family budgets to the limit. Grocery prices have increased obscenely.

The potentiality of Afghanistan blowing up is also a worry. We recently got the biggest hit in casualties in Afghanistan that we have had since Vietnam which, of course, is nothing compared to the US, but everything is relative. This war is heating up and will go for a decade. A lot more grief to come from there yet.

Russia is behaving oddly and consistent with the Cold War philosophy. Does anybody trust it and China? I don't, nor do many others.

Whoever wins will have a leadership role for the rest of the democratic world, as well as the US. Why would anybody want the job? Hopefully, the right person will get it.

 

We here can only hope. I just hope that the far left and far right will quit acting like children after it is over because they didn't win or get their way and start supporting whoever wins. We should all come together and work for the best of the country and the world rather than the best for a political party.

I am leaning towards McCain/Palin at this time, but would certainly support Obama/Biden if they win. I want to see this country and democracy succeed no matter who is leading, but that is not the agenda of many unfortunately. The extreme side of both parties have treated the last two presidents unfairly IMO.

 

This is no time for quibbling about differences. Democracies have troops in the field and economies are under threat. Genocide is not a redundant word, global warming is not resolved, human life has been devalued in so many places, and the Cold War threatens to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the past.

Democratic values have to be buttressed by solidarity between and within states. The threats must be presented by a solid mass of democratic co-operation, or otherwise we may find ourselves bitterly fighting emboldened enemies across the globe who don't care if you are right or left.

You can't do it alone, but, unfortunately, you blokes have to take the lead. Who else can? The UN? Europe? I don't think so. Your Presidential Election may be more important than some in the US realize. We, the outsiders, are all watching and have a lot depending upon it as well.

 

Apparently that's true worldwide.

The United States is very very close to abdicating that vital responsibility, to simply walking away from it. And as you suggest, I don't think that any of the other Western allies are able or even willing to fill America's oversize shoes.

I expect the United States to behave a lot more like Europe in the future. We will be entranced by our own internal race relations and class antagonisms. We will lecture the rest of the world on democratic principles and on trendy issues like global warming. We will issue statement after statement on human rights and we will participate in an endless sucession of international conferences. There won't be a hint of "unilateralism" from us.

But what the United States won't be doing is deploying military force. We will be talking a good game, but when it comes to actions and not words, we'll be passive.

And our adversaries can be expected to act accordingly.

I worry most about world fuel supplies. The majority of the world's proven oil reseres are in the Persian Gulf region. If the US withdraws precipitously leaving behind a power vacuum in struggling Iraq, then the Iranian mullahs can be expected to move aggressively to fill it. If we think that the price of fuel is high now, just wait until those gentlemen dominate the Gulf region and control the tap. What other country in the world can stand in their way, especially after they roll out their nuclear weapons?

Israel is going to be terribly isolated, rockets from Iran's Hezbollah surrogates raining down, increasingly desperate for survival and nuclear armed for armegeddon. China threatens to invade Taiwan and builds up its forces on the coast opposite. They have been deterred by knowledge that an attack would mean war with the United States. If that's no longer true, the clock will start ticking.

Russia will get more assertive around its periphery as it tries to recover some of the old glory. In their case, the most worrying thing might be the European Union's growing dependence on them for energy supplies. Europe will be given to understand that there are limits that they mustn't exceed if they expect those supplies to keep flowing. If Europe doesn't take the hint, Russia can always sell the oil and natural gas to China instead.

Days may be numbered for the cozy peaceful twenty-year-old post-Communist "globalized" world that we all naively assume is eternal and unchanging. The US will be watching from the sidelines like the good post-colonial European that its leaders will have become, issuing sharply worded statements and elegantly delivered speeches calling for concerted international action (you first). A conference or another round of diplomacy ought to take care of any problem.

The rest of the world might not like the United States behaving like a superpower. But they are going to like the planet a lot less when we don't.

 

I will be sorry if that comes to pass. It was interesting that yesterday, the Australian Prime Minister informed the country that he expected a military threat to Australia to become real no later than 2020. He was arguing for the upgrading of the Australian Armed Forces. I guess that means we will be arming. He linked his opinion to dynamic Asian economies. I wonder who that may be?

The problem for the USA, no matter how far the country may retreat into isolationist policy (hopefully it won't), it won't mean safety. There exists the potential for the US to present a threat, if there is a change of heart in the country. Any enemy will attack that potential. Isolationist policies tend to also mean a reduction in defence spending, so you get a double whammy.

The best example of the potential argument was the sinking of the French fleet in World War Two. Churchill ordered it sunk because it presented a "potential" threat, if it supported the Nazis. It was sunk in harbour with the loss of two thousand French sailors.

Lets hope that this speculation is wrong and we are all safe in our beds. Wasn't Teddy Roosevelt who said "Walk softly, but carry a big stick". I might keep a large stick under the bed just in case. The wife can use it!

 

The United States is committed to keeping the USS George Washington battle group homeported in Japan for the foreseeable future, so our friends Down Under need not feel abandoned.

 

Actually, it was "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

 

I wonder where he sees the potential threat coming from. The biggest local worry is obviously Indonesia. I don't see them as a conventional military threat to Australia at the present moment, but in the future they might easily become one. Right now the biggest worries to Australian homeland security might be (in addition to terrorism) smuggling and illegal immigration. If I was an Australian leader, I'd be putting additional emphasis on patrolling and securing the country's huge and very sparsely populated northern seacoast. I gather from my reading that Australia is already doing that.

The way I see it, the biggest threat to Australia right now might not be local at all, but many thousands of miles away, at the sources of its vital trade and transportation routes. I don't know if Australia can realistically field an expeditionary warfare capability that's capable of acting independently in remote places like the Middle East, but Australia has obviously put a lot of effort into contributing to multinational efforts in those areas.

The problem is, the US is the core of those efforts, and if the US enters into a phase where it's reluctant to engage in foreign military adventures, then there's nobody else in the Western alliances (NATO, ANZUS, the EU etc.) likely to take the lead. But if there's a disruption of world commodity supplies, then it's not just the United States that's going to be hurt. World prices will gyrate wildly and economies all around the planet will be rocked.

They did put on a good Olympics.

Speaking about Asian strategies, Australia might be smart if it very quietly snuggles up a little bit with India and with Japan. Nothing overt or provocative, but just in case - a plan-B if America flakes out. India is expanding like China, albeit more slowly, while Japan seems to be in the process of installing a new Prime Minister who favors increasing Japan's long range military capabilities. Both countries are concerned about China's rapid expansion and potential Asian hegemony. Just culturally, in terms of democratic values and stuff, Japan and India might be better for Australia than would sucking up as a peripheral client of the Middle Kingdom and its ruling imperial party. Trade with China if that's advantageous to you, but be careful and stay alert.

Of course it won't. But there are Americans on both the left and the right who imagine that they can just wash their hands of the world.

It's deeply ingrained in the American character. Many of our ancestors came to this continent in order to get away from something. There's always been this "new world" vision, the idea that we can create a whole new society here, a society perfected, untainted by the failures of the old world. America's always been a place that's separate and apart, in its own eyes.

During the 19'th century when Europe was at the height of its colonialism, the US was expanding across its continent and settling the West. Its attention was fixed on domestic matters and distrustful of foreign involvements. We reluctantly got involved in WWI's late stages, but immediately retreated into our bastion again as soon as it was over. It wasn't until WWII that we unexpectedly and unintentionally found outselves astride the world like a colossus while all of our traditional European rivals were in smoking ruins and prostrate, dead at their own hands. Then the Cold War reared its ugly head, motivating us to stay engaged while the world's "progressive" opinion learned to hate and to undermine us.

But now that the Cold War's over, the pressure to retreat into our own borders, to once again avoid foreign involvements and to get on with the utopian "new world" social project, is very strong indeed.

That's what Barack Obama represents, at least to a some extent. It's certainly what many in his American left base implicitly want. And it's why so much of the world's public/media opinion is so strongly in favor of his election. The world will probably get what it wants, and then it will have to be prepared to deal with the implications of its victory.