U.S. Presidential Race: Official Thread

Obama or McCain/Democrat or Republican..you decide

  • McCain

    Votes: 14 7.5%

  • Obama

    Votes: 173 92.5%
  • Total voters
    187
  • Poll closed .
Last night I was on air with Fox Football Fone-In... with a fast blather about this week's footy matches and (the screener told me Steven was a political junkie, and it would be cool to promote my event at the Lincoln Memorial)... I gave a mention that the DC area Obama supporters would be meeting at the Lincoln Memorial.

It's going to be a good day!


*The bastard, Nick cut me off, but not before I said what I wanted to say. Was only hoping Steven would have said something.
 
The President of the United States should never have the same name as a brand of oven fries. Therefore, Obama wins.
 
sincher said:
Can't help having some admiration for McCain for what he went through...

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news...n-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html

...while also wondering if he must - just must - be a little unhinged by all that, in the here and now.
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i find it a little difficult to articulate my thoughts on what he went through to be honest. Obviously it was terrible and no one should have to go through that kind of shit and anyone who does and manages to come out as a relatively balanced human being deserves respect. he did however cave in under the pressure and sign confessions etc. now i am in no way saying that i could hold out under that kind of pressure or that i would expect it from anyone. however i am slightly uncomfortable with the term war hero that is applied to him. he was an average soldier from an extremely distinguished and privileged military background who became extremely unfortunate victim of circumstance and who when subjected to those conditions didn't actually hold out.

I think i held a lot more respect for what happened to him when he still held true to his strong beliefs on non use of torture etc. his recent voting over the illegality of waterboarding sits uncomfortably with me.
 
Simon Adebesi said:
If you can have a member of the famous vacuum cleaner dynasty as president, I dont see why you cant have a chip barron.
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Hoovers are clean, warm, and efficient. They also clean up the messes from the past.

Oven chips are bland, overly-simplistic, and boring. They're no one's first choice.

Obama wins.
 
DanH said:
i find it a little difficult to articulate my thoughts on what he went through to be honest. Obviously it was terrible and no one should have to go through that kind of shit and anyone who does and manages to come out as a relatively balanced human being deserves respect. he did however cave in under the pressure and sign confessions etc. now i am in no way saying that i could hold out under that kind of pressure or that i would expect it from anyone. however i am slightly uncomfortable with the term war hero that is applied to him. he was an average soldier from an extremely distinguished and privileged military background who became extremely unfortunate victim of circumstance and who when subjected to those conditions didn't actually hold out.

I think i held a lot more respect for what happened to him when he still held true to his strong beliefs on non use of torture etc. his recent voting over the illegality of waterboarding sits uncomfortably with me.
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I think he gets some kudos for the fact that he could have left the camp much earlier than he did but he refused to leave without some other, junior POWs that were with him there. I might be wrong about that though, I dont know that much about it.
 
obama better win, if that cnut mc cain gets into office there is a good chance i will kill someone
 
DanH said:
i find it a little difficult to articulate my thoughts on what he went through to be honest. Obviously it was terrible and no one should have to go through that kind of shit and anyone who does and manages to come out as a relatively balanced human being deserves respect. he did however cave in under the pressure and sign confessions etc. now i am in no way saying that i could hold out under that kind of pressure or that i would expect it from anyone. however i am slightly uncomfortable with the term war hero that is applied to him. he was an average soldier from an extremely distinguished and privileged military background who became extremely unfortunate victim of circumstance and who when subjected to those conditions didn't actually hold out.

I think i held a lot more respect for what happened to him when he still held true to his strong beliefs on non use of torture etc. his recent voting over the illegality of waterboarding sits uncomfortably with me.
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He caved in?! Did you read it?

That's an unbelievable reaction to what happened. He repeatedly turned down release in favour of continuous torture and probable death, on a point of principle.

Incidentally, I don't think he refers to himself as a war hero. I seem to remember he in fact said that is not a good term.
 
On CNN a democratic spokesman just said that if Obama wins he'll get straight to work.

A republican spokesman came on and said if McCain wins he'll get a good week of sleep first. Old cnut must be proper tired :lol:
 
dumbo said:
I think Obama is going to present a huge Blair style disapointment for anyone who thinks he's some Ghandi figure. He'll be much better than the current regime or the Mccain/Palin ticket but d-d-don't believe the hype.

Where's old Ralfie Nader this time? he'd still get my vote.
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I make you right on this.

Hm, the BBC's Peter Allen just described Obama as Blair x100, whoa, watch out. ;)

And whereas Blair came to power with an economy on an upward curve, Obama is...well we all know where and it ain't pretty.

There was a piece on the World Service at the weekend talking to Kenyans about Obama, and people were of the impression that he will be sending some extra cash their way [even along tribal lines] and generally boost their economy.

Nader is running as an indpendent again, rather than the Green Party's candidate as he was in 2000. These are his key policy areas this time around :: http://www.votenader.org/issues/
 
dumbo said:
I think Obama is going to present a huge Blair style disapointment for anyone who thinks he's some Ghandi figure. He'll be much better than the current regime or the Mccain/Palin ticket
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Exactly...we're all clinging to the expectation that he can't be worse.

Wibble mentions Thunderbirds...McCain reminds me of Buzz Lightyear. And I can just hear him rallying the troops with "Infinity and beyond.....".
 
dumbo said:
I think Obama is going to present a huge Blair style disapointment for anyone who thinks he's some Ghandi figure. He'll be much better than the current regime or the Mccain/Palin ticket but d-d-don't believe the hype.

Where's old Ralfie Nader this time? he'd still get my vote.
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Isn't that the point though?
 
Simon Adebesi said:
I think he gets some kudos for the fact that he could have left the camp much earlier than he did but he refused to leave without some other, junior POWs that were with him there. I might be wrong about that though, I dont know that much about it.
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His only choice was to stay. Those of us who have served dont leave our men behind. Additionally he was an Admirals son and it would have killed his career both in the military and afterwords.

I always give great respect to what McCain went through he just sold his soul to the radicals in his party to get the nomination so for me at least he didnt get my vote.
 
sincher said:
He caved in?! Did you read it?

That's an unbelievable reaction to what happened. He repeatedly turned down release in favour of continuous torture and probable death, on a point of principle.

Incidentally, I don't think he refers to himself as a war hero. I seem to remember he in fact said that is not a good term.
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he broke down under torture then. as i've said i would not have expected him to do any more. I don't think i could stand up to it myself.

the account you posted was his own recollection of events and i've no reason to believe they're not true. Other people present at the time though also comment that the way he presents his recollection paints himself in a fairly positive manner.

What McCain glosses over is that accepting early release would have required him to make disloyal statements that would have violated the military's Code of Conduct. If he had done so, he could have risked court-martial and an ignominious end to his military career. "Many of us were given this offer," according to Butler, McCain's classmate who was also taken prisoner. "It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to 'admit' that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was 'lenient and humane.' So I, like numerous others, refused the offer."

"He makes it sound like it was a great thing to have accomplished," says Dramesi. "A great act of discipline or strength. That simply was not the case." In fairness, it is difficult to judge McCain's experience as a POW; throughout most of his incarceration he was the only witness to his mistreatment. Parts of his memoir recounting his days in Hanoi read like a bad Ian Fleming novel, with his Vietnamese captors cast as nefarious Bond villains. On the Fourth of July 1968, when he rejected the offer of early release, an officer nicknamed "Cat" got so mad, according to McCain, that he snapped a pen he was holding, splattering ink across the room.

"They taught you too well, Mac Kane," Cat snarled, kicking over a chair. "They taught you too well."

The brutal interrogations that followed produced results. In August 1968, over the course of four days, McCain was tortured into signing a confession that he was a "black criminal" and an "air pirate."

"John allows the media to make him out to be the hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals," says Butler. "John was just one of about 600 guys. He was nothing unusual. He was just another POW."
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that's from the rolling stone which is obviously left leaning in it's views so again it's views must be taken with due perspective.

Like i say, i have great sympathy for what McCain went through in the POW camp but i thinkl that's what it is really, sympathy.
 
Wibble said:
I don't trust him. He walks like a thunderbird.
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Not sure I know quite what you mean, but I think that may be related to the fact that he can't raise his arms above his shoulders. Injuries from the war. Also causes those jerky, awkward hand/arm movements he makes.
 
DanH said:
that's from the rolling stone which is obviously left leaning in it's views so again it's views must be taken with due perspective.
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Then again it's direct quotes from someone who served with him, and was a POW at the same time. Unlikely that that individual would be described as left-leaning. I read that same Rolling Stone article, it doesn't make him look like a war hero. I have sympathy for anyone who went through what he and the other POWs did, but to be honest, someone said he was an average soldier before being shot down, but that's being generous. He wasn't a very good pilot, but 40 years later, so what.

I used to actually respect the guy. Thought he spoke his mind, sounded like he wasn't completely full of shit. Didn't go right along party lines on any given issue, might actually carve out a position of his own. This of course endeared him to the media, who love a story like that ("Maverick bucks party line, etc"), and this did help his political career. The Rollling Stone article makes the whole Maverick thing out to be a calculated stance, but even so, I used to have some respect for him. But over the last couple of years, he has gone against far too many of the principles he used to say he stood for. He embraced the far-right Christian wing of the party, cozying up to feckwits like Jerry Falwell, who, for those unfamiliar with the right Reverend, placed a large shame of the blame for the 9/11 attacks immediately afterward on "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians", who had tried to make the country more secular, and thus incurred god's wrath. A hateful intolerant demagogic feckwit in every sense of the word, and the sort of person McCain, 10 years ago, would have told to go feck himself. But he has been eying this run for the presidency ever since losing the last time around, and he knew he needed the support of people like this in order to win the nomination.

And there were other principles he forswore. His choice of a barely literate halfwit, who wants to run NASA because she can see the moon from her porch, as his running mate, is an abject farce. "Country first," has been his slogan, and yet a man who is 72 years old and has had 4 melanomas (I know, I know, I've beaten this to death in this thread but I just can't. Let it. Go....sorry) chooses someone completely, utterly, uniquely unprepared to take over in the event of his health taking a turn for the worse, an event that statistically is not that much of a longshot. All for a bump in the polls in August, and a chance to negate Obama's bump following the Democratic convention by "rallying the base". feck off. The fact taht he has been able to talk up her credentials over the last two months with a straight face has been evidence enough of his willingness to seell out his principles in order to win the election. Christ it has been painful to watch.

Okay, I'm going to shut the hell up now. I already voted, the polls are now open, all debate is closed, and I'll be away from my computer for the next 24 hours, nothing more from me. Enjoy the drama today and tonight everyone, and I hope I haven't been too much of a windbag in this thread over the last couple of weeks. It's just that I'm a little worked up over this election, and...meh. Vote early and often. Cheers.
 
Chris H said:
Then again it's direct quotes from someone who served with him, and was a POW at the same time. Unlikely that that individual would be described as left-leaning. I read that same Rolling Stone article, it doesn't make him look like a war hero. I have sympathy for anyone who went through what he and the other POWs did, but to be honest, someone said he was an average soldier before being shot down, but that's being generous. He wasn't a very good pilot, but 40 years later, so what.

I used to actually respect the guy. Thought he spoke his mind, sounded like he wasn't completely full of shit. Didn't go right along party lines on any given issue, might actually carve out a position of his own. This of course endeared him to the media, who love a story like that ("Maverick bucks party line, etc"), and this did help his political career. The Rollling Stone article makes the whole Maverick thing out to be a calculated stance, but even so, I used to have some respect for him. But over the last couple of years, he has gone against far too many of the principles he used to say he stood for. He embraced the far-right Christian wing of the party, cozying up to feckwits like Jerry Falwell, who, for those unfamiliar with the right Reverend, placed a large shame of the blame for the 9/11 attacks immediately afterward on "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians", who had tried to make the country more secular, and thus incurred god's wrath. A hateful intolerant demagogic feckwit in every sense of the word, and the sort of person McCain, 10 years ago, would have told to go feck himself. But he has been eying this run for the presidency ever since losing the last time around, and he knew he needed the support of people like this in order to win the nomination.

And there were other principles he forswore. His choice of a barely literate halfwit, who wants to run NASA because she can see the moon from her porch, as his running mate, is an abject farce. "Country first," has been his slogan, and yet a man who is 72 years old and has had 4 melanomas (I know, I know, I've beaten this to death in this thread but I just can't. Let it. Go....sorry) chooses someone completely, utterly, uniquely unprepared to take over in the event of his health taking a turn for the worse, an event that statistically is not that much of a longshot. All for a bump in the polls in August, and a chance to negate Obama's bump following the Democratic convention by "rallying the base". feck off. The fact taht he has been able to talk up her credentials over the last two months with a straight face has been evidence enough of his willingness to seell out his principles in order to win the election. Christ it has been painful to watch.

Okay, I'm going to shut the hell up now. I already voted, the polls are now open, all debate is closed, and I'll be away from my computer for the next 24 hours, nothing more from me. Enjoy the drama today and tonight everyone, and I hope I haven't been too much of a windbag in this thread over the last couple of weeks. It's just that I'm a little worked up over this election, and...meh. Vote early and often. Cheers.
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I assume you voted McCain.
 
x42bn6 said:
I assume you voted McCain.
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Actually I can't remember. I've been so worked up, I might have ticked the wrong box and voted for Senator Jim Inhofe. But it's the thought that counts, isn't it?
 
Chris H said:
Okay, I'm going to shut the hell up now. I already voted, the polls are now open, all debate is closed, and I'll be away from my computer for the next 24 hours, nothing more from me.
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That's a shame, I've enjoyed reading your posts so far. But have a good one.
 
Chris H said:
Then again it's direct quotes from someone who served with him, and was a POW at the same time. Unlikely that that individual would be described as left-leaning. I read that same Rolling Stone article, it doesn't make him look like a war hero. I have sympathy for anyone who went through what he and the other POWs did, but to be honest, someone said he was an average soldier before being shot down, but that's being generous. He wasn't a very good pilot, but 40 years later, so what.

I used to actually respect the guy. Thought he spoke his mind, sounded like he wasn't completely full of shit. Didn't go right along party lines on any given issue, might actually carve out a position of his own. This of course endeared him to the media, who love a story like that ("Maverick bucks party line, etc"), and this did help his political career. The Rollling Stone article makes the whole Maverick thing out to be a calculated stance, but even so, I used to have some respect for him. But over the last couple of years, he has gone against far too many of the principles he used to say he stood for. He embraced the far-right Christian wing of the party, cozying up to feckwits like Jerry Falwell, who, for those unfamiliar with the right Reverend, placed a large shame of the blame for the 9/11 attacks immediately afterward on "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians", who had tried to make the country more secular, and thus incurred god's wrath. A hateful intolerant demagogic feckwit in every sense of the word, and the sort of person McCain, 10 years ago, would have told to go feck himself. But he has been eying this run for the presidency ever since losing the last time around, and he knew he needed the support of people like this in order to win the nomination.

And there were other principles he forswore. His choice of a barely literate halfwit, who wants to run NASA because she can see the moon from her porch, as his running mate, is an abject farce. "Country first," has been his slogan, and yet a man who is 72 years old and has had 4 melanomas (I know, I know, I've beaten this to death in this thread but I just can't. Let it. Go....sorry) chooses someone completely, utterly, uniquely unprepared to take over in the event of his health taking a turn for the worse, an event that statistically is not that much of a longshot. All for a bump in the polls in August, and a chance to negate Obama's bump following the Democratic convention by "rallying the base". feck off. The fact taht he has been able to talk up her credentials over the last two months with a straight face has been evidence enough of his willingness to seell out his principles in order to win the election. Christ it has been painful to watch.

Okay, I'm going to shut the hell up now. I already voted, the polls are now open, all debate is closed, and I'll be away from my computer for the next 24 hours, nothing more from me. Enjoy the drama today and tonight everyone, and I hope I haven't been too much of a windbag in this thread over the last couple of weeks. It's just that I'm a little worked up over this election, and...meh. Vote early and often. Cheers.
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Great post.

Is this line...

His choice of a barely literate halfwit, who wants to run NASA because she can see the moon from her porch, as his running mate, is an abject farce.
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...all your own work? Cause it's a cracker :lol:
 
The early chronology of events put the potentially most telling hour at between 0100 and 0200 GMT.

Well as far as the Presidential race goes at least.

One senate contest i'm listening out for is Minnesota .
 
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