Tendo City

Lying works (we hope)!

If anything has rung through loud and clear, it's that all Republicans can do is lie about Obama and the Democrats. "They will raise your taxes!"

But Obama has promised to LOWER taxes on 95% of Americans.

"Democrats hate America and freedom!"

Because Democrats all hate America? Did you skip Obama's acceptance speech or something?

"Democrats don't understand America's values"

But polls show, on many issues liberal positions have solid majorities.

etc... that's not going into word usage either, because everyone does that kind of thing -- "we're in favor of letting parents decide where their children go to school", for instance, as opposed to how a Democrat would put it, "you want to destroy the public school system"... but that's expected, everyone wants to put their side in a good light and the other side in a bad light. So both sides on the abortion issue are "pro", for instance. Pro-choice, Pro-life...

Oh, and the other lesson? Abortion is back as a major political issue, in a big way. The Republicans are pushing it, HARD. I really hope that this will backfire, because a solid majority of the American people are opposed to banning abortion. And the Republican party platform's abortion plank is in support of an absolute ban -- no exceptions.

It has been pretty interesting to see how so many Democrats made so big of an effort to only attack Republicans on issues and not question their character (see, for instance, all of the praise for McCain's military service), cumulating with Obama's speech and its masterful combination of outlining a platform of core Democratic party positions with a continuation of his Washington-is-too-partisan theme of, for instance, his 2004 DNC keynote. I'm sure part of it is that I like the Democratic attacks on Republicans while I don't like the Republican attacks on Democrats (because I happen to like many of those policies... once you remove the lies and spin they're layering on top of what the Democrats actually want to do, that is), but still...

This is a long-term theme, really. Republicans are always harsher in their attacks, and, I think at least, looser with the truth... and it does help them win. Obama has proven throughout this campaign that he's a bit weak on the attack politics angle; the Clintons are much tougher there. Obama's trying, but if Hillary were the nominee instead of Obama, responses to Republican attacks would definitely be harsher, I think. But at least Obama is doing a much better job of fighting attacks than Kerry did.

But anyway... the Democratic convention was fantastic, one great major speech after another. But the Republicans... they know they're down and struggling, and all they can think of is trying to win once again by rallying the base and playing the politics of fear and hate, tactics that have done very well for them for a long time now. I'm just hoping that it doesn't work this time... the polling looks good so far, but we'll see.

(Oh yeah, and did you know John McCain was a POW? It's true!)

Now... will McCain himself come out tomorrow with another attack speech like the ones of the past few days, or will he aim at a general audience? It makes sense to attack, of course -- conventions are for the base and party activists first an foremost, of course. Many Democrats did somewhat comparable things. So we'll see what McCain says... though I do think the tone here has been, like usual for the Republican party, more viscous than the tone the Democrats were setting. As if it's tougher and better to lie and be mean than just try to debate actual policy differences...

Though if all you listen to are TV ads, I can see how it would work.

Yes, it's rather shameful.

As a reality check, the democrats have abused the truth some as well, though not nearly to the same degree. There's been far too much pandering "across the isle" so to speak. It's the sort of thing which makes even the most leftist of major American politicians fall squarely in the "middle" of places like Britain. By other nation's standards, we don't actually HAVE a left (the insane rantings of the objectivist movement, and the mystical hippie style of environmentalist that does nothing to actually help scientific environmentalism notwithstanding).

Yeah, I'm still voting for Obama as he's certainly what I'd consider better off for our nation than the alternative (and by a huge margin I'd say at that). It's just a shame that pandering has become more important than reality.

Moving along though, I'd also say here's hoping that this cycle wakes people up to a number of things, from the ridiculous focus the media has on idiotic inconsequential stuff like whether someone "supported" a candidate convincingly enough (instead of "electability", which is really closer to "nothing" as that's determined by the VOTERS, try the actual positions on policy), to the strange history erasing double think that a lot of politicians get into.

I've heard some people say that if someone wants Obama to be elected, then we need to stop pointing out when he screws up. I've got higher allegiances, like to truth. Failing that, it's all only temporary victories with the same sort of deception of the masses that leads us to having Bush elected in the first place.

Well, pandering and lying are different... sort of... :)

Republicans just lie more. Though yes, the Democrats are quite adept at pandering...

I definitely agree, Obama has gone far too far in trying to make good with the religious right. Going to a forum run by a far-right evangelical preacher, emphasizing how much his Christian religion means to him, saying that Bush's faith-based initiatives are a good idea, etc... it's been quite disappointing. Hopefully he won't do the same when in office... we'll see.

Quote:It's the sort of thing which makes even the most leftist of major American politicians fall squarely in the "middle" of places like Britain. By other nation's standards, we don't actually HAVE a left

There's absolutely no question about this, and I've said that before too. America doesn't really have a left-wing party. It has a centrist party and a far-right party, and the far-right party has succeeded in convincing people that the right is the center and the center is the radical left fringe. It's very, very sad... we desperately need to move left, to counter-act all of the horrible effects of the Bush and Reagan years, and all we can do is get candidates to just edge towards centrist policies, which won't do enough quickly enough. It took Clinton years to counter-act the effects of 12 years of the "Reagan Revolution"... it'll take at least as long to counter-act the aftereffects of Bush years.

Oh yeah, and the fact is, the economy does better under Democratic presidents than Republican. All their talk about knowing economics better doesn't end up helping much, in the long term. But really, how hard is it really to understand that cutting taxes while raising spending is an incredibly bad idea? Short-term gain, long-term pain.

And with our current debt, that's a LOT of long-term pain. How in the world we'll pay off a $10 trillion dollar debt while we also have a large budget deficit is a really good question... which is why I said that, honestly, it might be a bit irresponsible for Obama to be talking about any tax cuts. I mean, he has to, because Americans HATE taxes... but man, that debt...

Quote:I've heard some people say that if someone wants Obama to be elected, then we need to stop pointing out when he screws up. I've got higher allegiances, like to truth. Failing that, it's all only temporary victories with the same sort of deception of the masses that leads us to having Bush elected in the first place.

Agreed. The truth matters more than spinning things to make it more likely that your candidate wins.

Oh, and did you know John McCain was a POW? If you hadn't, he just explained it at length once again!

Holy shit, that was a fucking disaster. What a horrible speech that was. He didn't even say a single thing in the hour that he was behind the mic. Did anybody else see McCain have a stroke midway through? Prr..oo...o...j..j..eccct! That speech was atrocious, and McCain didn't make any sense. There's nothing worse than seeing a bunch of fat, old, white-trash assholes with moustaches chanting "USA! USA! USA!" after every predictable patriotic bullshit line McCain spewed. These idiots are holding up signs saying STRAIGHT TALK! while McCain is telling stories about made-up people like "Bob and Sue from Buttfuck County, North Dakota." McCain talking about eliminating "useless" programs and having less government while during the same speech, he talks about finding new jobs for teachers who may not be suitable as teachers. McCain says that Americans need to stop giving so much money to countries who "don't like us very much" and manages to keep a straight face while he talks about how America needs to show the world how to lead again. McCain talking about how much he hates war only shortly after he admits to being in favour of sending more troops to Iraq despite the fact that he understands how hugely unpopular the notion is. Straight talk indeed!

A Black Falcon Wrote:Oh, and did you know John McCain was a POW? If you hadn't, he just explained it at length once again!

He is the Manchurian candidate, His clandestine Gook masters have only to say "knee" to put him under their spell.

I think world opinion of americans will dive even further down into the red should McCain win office,Rather then continuing to distance himself from Bush & Co he went galloping back into Georgie's arms to have a makeup sex, Which will hurt his ability to draw anti war conservatives and give Obama ammo to throw at him.


Obama has managed to build up a cult of personality around himself LOL, Stick him to a crucifix he might just draw bands of worshipers.

The only thing that still stinging Obama is the "reverend wright flap" , I think that it will only cost him white voters.