Obama's redistribution of wealth

There are several brands of conservatism:

1) Fiscal conservatism
2) Social conservatism
3) Religious conservatism

Bush failed the test miserably for #1, and chose to focus on #2 and #3. This pleased the religious right but lost him the middle.

 

Dr. Douglas,

Now that's what I am talking about and now this matter can be put to bed


Thank you,

 

Let's see if you feel the same way after the coming all-out assault on the first and second amendments; President-elect Obama has a very clear track record of smearing and silencing those he doesn't agree with (see Joe the Plumber), and moonbats like Nancy Pelosi & Chuck Schumer simply can't wait to go after the private ownership of firearms.

Get ready for a steroid-enhanced Fairness Doctrine with exemptions for newspapers (since they're mostly liberal propaganda anyway), and a scorched-Earth attack on District of Columbia v. Heller.

Sorry, but that's not American.

 

Yeah, we need someone who is a "real" American. Like someone who does not salute the flag!

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/anthem.asp

 

I heard McCain and Palin state many times that Obama smeared/silenced Joe the Plumber. I watched Senator Obama's whole exchange with Joe the Plumber. Senator Obama was very respectful. I assumed that McCain and Palin were just telling more lies about Obama, e.g., palling around with terrorists, starting his political carreer in the front room of a terrorist, Obama is a socialist, etc.. Perhaps there was another exchange between Joe the Plumber and Obama that I didn't see?

 

Well, of course he was respectful to his face; there were cameras running.

When there were no cameras around;

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/10/24/joe.html

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/11/07/ddn110708helenweb.html

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1225269136317840.xml&coll=2

 

Joe-the-Plumber himself, the media, and the McCain campaign were the only people pushing the Joe-the-Plumber story. I didn't see anything in there that indicated that Obama had anything to do with it except for the unsupported accusations coming out of the McCain campaign. The accusation that Obama smeared or tried to silence Joe-the-Plumber appears to me to be the same silly nonsense like McCain demanding that Obama apologize for Lewis's statements regarding George Wallace or Obama palling around with terrorists. Trying to smear by the most tenuous of associations. It was just repeated so often that many people actually began to believe that it was true.

My view is that Joe-the-Plumber is another example of the poorly run McCain campaign. There are millions of people that McCain could have chosen to represent the American Working Man. Joe-the-Plumber was a bad choice. It was also picked up too late in the campaign. McCain needed a consistent message. His campaign was purely reactive and tactical. There seemed to be no proactive strategy or message. I consider it very sad that Joe-the-Plumber was the closest he came to a theme to his campaign. Another example, why couldn't he stick to the "Great American Hero" message? Why did he have to instead focus on trying to tear down Obama? That would have been far more powerful, IMHO.

 

Do you really think the people who scoured his background and released the "information" he's not a licensed plumber to the media were from the McCain campaign?

 

I didn't suggest that. I stated, "Joe-the-Plumber himself, the media, and the McCain campaign were the only people pushing the Joe-the-Plumber story." Of those three options, my opinion is that the media would be the one's to most likely dig up the info that he's not a licensed plumber. He's not really going to buy his boss's business anytime soon. The business doesn't make anywhere near $250,000 per year. There's a lean on his property because he hasn't paid his taxes. etc. This whole Joe-the-Plumber story was more of a distraction to any McCain message, IMHO. If he had picked someone (or many someone's) without the distracting baggage and used them to represent the working class individual and he'd started that message much earlier then he might have gotten a good useful message across. The fact remains on this story though is that I've seen no evidence (except for unsupported assertions from the McCain campaign) that Obama (or anyone in his campaign) tried to smear or silence Joe-the-Plumber. Why should they have tried? It probably caused as much problems for the McCain campaign as it helped (of course just my personal guess). Have fun, Bill

 

The closest thing to a theme that McCain's campaign had was "Country First". I rarely heard his campaign supporting that with the exception being the rally signs. McCain is a Great American Hero. That is a great support to the Country First theme. The McCain campaign squandered the opportunities to push that message. Even when pushing the palling around with terrorists nonsense, they should have tied it back into the country first and great American Hero theme.

To be fair though, I do admit that the one theme they did a decent job pushing was the I'm not George W. Bush, I'm a Maverick theme. For example, it was brilliant to not even let Bush show up at the convention. Anyway, IMHO, McCain needed to focus on those two messages (Country First and Maverick). His campaign kept running off in strange directions, like Obama is a celebrity. What kind of a silly message is that?

 

I agree Bill. The McCain camp had a crappy campaign, plain and simple. The organizer they made fun of so much during the RNC kicked the holy shite out of them. Story over.

What do I think of Joe the Plumber? Utter joke. It was quite obvious that bozo was a plant. They must have vetted him like they vetted Palin.

Abner

 

I really can't imagine that Joe started off being associated in anyway with the McCain campaign except for him making the $100 donation that has been reported (IIRC). Here's my guess. Obama came to Joe's neighborhood and was just talking to people. Joe decided on his own to try to score some political points. He called out to Obama from the back of the small crowd. He seemed to make a very thinly veiled attempt to pretend to be an undecided voter during the interaction with Obama. I say thinly veiled because at the end Obama said something along the line of, "Even if I don't get your vote, I'm still going to fight for small businesses similar to your's because small businesses are very important to the economy."

I think that just prior to the last debate, the McCain campaign ran across the five minutes of footage with the Obama and Joe exchange. They decided to use it. They got some traction with it so they kept using it. I don't think they really used it to the best advantage though. For example, we have a progressive income tax system here in this country. Claiming that the progressive income tax is socialism doesn't make sense to me. It seems to show a lack of understanding of what socialism even means. Socialism is when government owns the production and services part of society. Taxes in socialist societies could be a progressive income tax or not. Socialism doesn't have anything to do with that.

 

Progressive income taxes? Introduced by that famous socialist, Teddy Roosevelt. Oops, McCain cited TR as his favorite President!

The Republicans have trafficked for years in phoney archtypes. Whether they slur Democrats with them or, like Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, create them out of whole cloth, they can't seem to break away from this practice. Works with a lazy electorate, which they've often had. Doesn't work with one that is paying attention.

 

You would have more success with that particular point if you could keep yourself from committing precisely the sins that you are condemning while you are making it.

 

We can agree on that; I think it's an absolute disgrace that American voters weren't fully informed about Obama's relationships with terrorist Bill Ayers, convicted felon Tony Rezko, and race-baiter Jeremiah Wright.

The media certainly wasn't going to say a word about any of them, but McCain seemed more concerned with being a nice guy than winning.

 

Come on now Bill, that's straight out of Democrat 101; do as I say, not as I do. They're going to change the world if they have to spend every last dime of your money to do it.

 

Surprise, surprise. I disagree with you. Obama had his scandals aired. He answered to these stories over and over not only in person, but in the form of debates and speeches. The public had a chance to listen to the events and make a decision. Even after all of that, the McCain campaign insisted on avoiding issues like the economy and use gutter like tactics. This is what lost them the election. The Roveian tactics have a shelf life, and then peope wake up and see through them. The McCain camp had to keep pushing it all the way to the end, and all the major polls show it turned people off. People want jobs, they want homes, they want food and the want dignity. Culture war issues will not get them that. Calling certain segments of America "less American" will not get them that. Alas, the people have awaken. God bless America.

As far as McCain? He had plenty of scandals Obama could have dug up. He wisely chose not to continue rehashing old news to the very end. He discussed the issues, and he won. Boom! There it is. Plain and simple.

Take care Bruce!

Abner

 

Name one phoney character I've invented. Obviously, I never have. Your response is, therefore, fatuous.

Funny how I talk about the Republican Party, but you choose to talk about me. Taking things a bit personally, huh? Well, you and yours should. I and others have had it with people who hate America and hate Americans. Get used to the margin--it will be awhile.

 

If the media didn't report about these, you wouldn't know about them. This makes your comment a non sequitur. But if Republicans are bothered that these subjects didn't get--by their judgment--sufficient coverage, perhaps there is an alternate explanation: what was made-up crap was just crap. No one who cares about this country cares about that meager stuff.

 

The biggest federal government deficit creators in history? Reagan and Bush. Sorry, but those old lables were never true, and Bush (with the 2001-2006 Republican-controlled congress) rendered them so blatantly false. Time for the grown-ups to lead.