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Re: Barack 2008!
2020, never count your pumpkins until they're picked.
2020, never count your pumpkins until they're picked.
Reports that John McCain, though still 6% behind, is tightening his position. Appears to like the struggle of being behind.2020, never count your pumpkins until they're picked.
Reports that John McCain, though still 6% behind, is tightening his position. Appears to like the struggle of being behind.
Palin factor... http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/21/palin.factor/index.html
McCain just 'making stuff up': Obama
Posted 6 hours 53 minutes ago
The Democrat, riding high in national polls and battleground states, hammered Senator McCain over the Republican's claims that he attacked 'Joe the plumber', the Ohio voter who has become an emblem of the middle class tax debate.
"It was really amazing, he's decided to fabricate this notion that I've been attacking Joe the plumber," Senator Obama said, after noting he had watched a speech by Senator McCain earlier in the day on television.
"I have got nothing but love for Joe the plumber. That's why I want to give him a tax cut," Senator Obama said.
"John McCain is still out there, just saying this stuff, just making it up."
Pushing back at the "socialist" charge, Senator Obama said it was tough to believe that his supporters, like billionaire financier Warren Buffett and former Republican secretary of state Colin Powell, would embrace such a person.
"Apparently Senator McCain's decided that if he can't beat our ideas, he's just going to make up some ideas and run against those," Senator Obama said.
Senator Obama also took aim at Ms Palin's comment last week that the patriotic values of "real America" could only be found in conservative small towns.
"We cannot afford to divide this country by class or region," he said, without mentioning the Alaska governor by name.
MICHAEL FULLILOVE: Well I think to put it into perspective this is the kind of excellent fodder that people like you and me are going to be expecting from Senator Biden for the next four years should Obama-Biden be elected on the fourth of November. I mean Biden is known for speaking his mind and speaking before his mind catches up with him and this was obviously an impolitic thing to say.
It was impolitic because it's partly true. There is, the international system is an unromantic place and the North Koreans and the Iranians and various other characters around the world are not very susceptible to Obama's personal history or his campaign rhetoric or anything like that.
There is interstate competition and the next president will be tested and there is a particular risk, of course there are risks with both candidates, I happen to think the risks are greater with Senator McCain than Obama but one of the risks with Senator Obama is that America's adversaries mistake his reasonableness for weakness. His willingness to talk for an ability to be brow-beaten. And you've seen a little bit of this already.
The European diplomats complaining in June that his pledge to negotiate with Tehran for example without pre-conditions, reduced the west's leverage over Iran.
So, there's something to this. Whoever is the next president will be tested. It's how they react to the test that matters to the rest of us.
MARK COLVIN: It was Biden himself who made the comparison with John F. Kennedy. Now of course John F. Kennedy's first big international action was a major mistake and that was the Bay of Pigs affair. People remember better now that he was steady in the Cuban Missile Crisis but that's obviously what the Republicans are seizing on that Obama will make a mistake first up.
MICHAEL FULLILOVE: And I think it's odds on that whoever's the President will make a mistake first up. I mean not necessarily the mistake on the big crisis but it's an enormous step up for whoever takes this job regardless of the experience they have. Even to go from being a senior senator like John McCain to being President of the United States.
For all the people around them they are stepping up from completely different kinds of jobs, in some cases from research jobs at places like the Brookings Institution potentially, if some of my colleagues were appointed to these jobs. So they're stepping up into these decision making roles; mistakes are made, mistakes are always made in transition.
The question is, how disciplined and how strong and how steady would Obama be? And the good news is that he has run an incredibly disciplined campaign.
He is remarkably self-confident, so I think his ability to have his confidence dented by adversaries in the first few months is low.
People say that he doesn't know how to apply leverage and pressure but I suggest if you speak to Senator Clinton she'd tell you that he knows quite a bit about leverage and pressure.
And finally, if you look at the way he's spoken about foreign affairs the interesting point is that he has taken positions and stuck to his guns.
On the talking to his adversaries point for example he was criticised roundly by the foreign policy establishment; he stuck to his guns and pretty soon people came over to his side.
So those are the arguments for thinking that this is not a blushing wallflower you're dealing with, but a very confident person with both high intelligence and steely determination.
MARK COLVIN: And of course John McCain, when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to steadiness and experience, has some devastating comebacks doesn't he? I mean he says for instance on this question of experience he says that he was in his cockpit on the deck of the US Enterprise during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, so he knows about this stuff.
MICHAEL FULLILOVE: Yeah I mean I don't know how much that particular comment helps him because there are not too many people in America who probably remember that or were of working age at that time. So that might play into some other perceptions about McCain.
But you're right, McCain has it all. He has all the experience. He has it all over Obama in the area of experience.
MARK COLVIN: But does he have the temperament?
MICHAEL FULLILOVE: The temperament is another question. I mean he is an intuitive, impulsive, he's an unpredictable and bold character. Even in this campaign we've seen him do unpredictable things.
Some of the things in McCain's temperament are helpful in international relations.
Sometimes if you're known to be a hawk that can intimidate other people or it can force them to stand down. Plus being loyal to your friends is good in international relations in some ways. But being quick to anger and having highly personalised relationships with other heads of government can also be dangerous because it can drive you to binary positions in the policy that you run.
MARK COLVIN: Michael Fullilove. Lowy visiting fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, director of the Global Issues Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
I though Obama was against guns or at the very least was going to reduce "personal guns under cover" licenses.ABC (PM) last night - fairly candid commentary :-
Biden is impolitic
Obama is confident, sticks to his guns
McCain is impulsive, unpredictable/url]
lol - ok ,I though Obama was against guns or at the very least was going to reduce "personal guns under cover" licenses.
So those are the arguments for thinking that this is not a blushing wallflower you're dealing with, but a very confident person with both high intelligence and steely determination.
Sounds very good. I see you mentioned a horse? Very ominous. One of the Late Queen Mother's horses "Devon Loch" was about to win a major race- many, many moons ago - and it suddenly sprawled legs sticking out at lost.lol - ok ,
metaphor, for the following :-
Sounds very good. I see you mentioned a horse? Very ominous. One of the Late Queen Mother's horses "Devon Loch" was about to win a major race- many, many moons ago - and it suddenly sprawled legs sticking out and lost.lol - ok ,
metaphor, for the following :-
yeah, but if you read my post (that particular post), you still win $4 nett, whoever winsSounds very good. I see you mentioned a horse? Very ominous. One of the Late Queen Mother's horses "Devon Loch" was about to win a major race- many, many moons ago - and it suddenly sprawled legs sticking out and lost.
(from what I've heard) is that Tina Fey knows that Sarah Palin is waaaaaaaaaay better looking than her.
yeah, but if you read my post (that particular post), you still win $4 nett, whoever wins
PS I thought you were gonna tell us the one where, half way through the race, the horse turned round and ran the other way .... and Paddy sez to Seamus "well that's that then!" - "no, no!" sez Seamus, "I've backed him both ways !!"
:topic Much lighter talking Irish jokes than US politicsVery good- where ever I go the Irish get it taken out of them, strange that. Irish comedians are best at using it to maker a dollar or two, quite clever.
In Ireland they turn it round by doing a bit of research. The true story of the pipeline to a reservoir, built by the Irish. That should have come out below the water line, came out 5 meters above it. It was designed by an Englishman, a Scottish firm was involved and the draughtsman on site was an Aussie who disappeared later with his swag.
Obama Leaves Hawaii, Bidding Goodbye to His Ailing Grandmother
By Jeff Zeleny
HONOLULU – Senator Barack Obama slowly walked up the steps of his campaign plane here on Friday evening, his suit coat slung over his shoulder, as he concluded his one-day visit home to Hawaii.
From touch-down on Thursday to take off on Friday, Mr. Obama spent nearly 22 hours on the ground in Honolulu visiting his ailing grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. He did not say how Mrs. Dunham was feeling and campaign aides did not disclose her condition, but he believes this could be his last time seeing her. He had expressed worry in interviews that she may not live until Election Day, and explained that he suspended his campaign schedule to see her, and recalled how he had not been able to get to his mother’s bedside before she died. His grandmother’s 86th birthday is this Sunday.
October 24, 2008, 11:38 pm
During his brief visit here, he spent about seven hours with his grandmother during three separate trips to the apartment where she has lived for about four decades. A small group of reporters accompanied Mr. Obama to the Punahou Circle Apartments, but they waited outside as he visited Mrs. Dunham.
He did not speak to reporters on his trip and was filmed by camera crews only once, as he took a solitary walk along Young Street in his old neighborhood. His visit dominated Hawaii television news and newspapers.
After an overnight flight, he is scheduled to appear at three rallies on Saturday, the first of which is in Reno, Nev., followed by one in Las Vegas and an evening event in Albuquerque.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/this-race-is-far-from-over/2008/10/25/1224351608124.html
[Initially] A narrow McCain win was - for realists and pessimists - more likely, especially as the incumbent party generally catches up in the last week of a campaign.
Then came September 15. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At 9am John McCain said in Jacksonville: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." The ensuing full-blown, epoch-making economic crisis propelled Obama ahead. Economics dominates the election.
To be fair, it was Obama's coolness under fire that seemed to clinch the deal, especially in the three debates in which he held his own and pressed every advantage.
Michael Kelly, an Australian who teaches speech communication, describes the Obama voice as smooth, deep, lyrical, with the use of swinging cadence to "entertain the ear", stringing words and phrases together like a jazz musician.
It was deliberate. Obama knew he had to prove to whites an African-American need not be angry, aggressive, emotional.
The first Africans arrived in America in 1619. This was a full year before the Mayflower. Yet America has been coming to terms with their presence ever since.
...
In 1968, Martin Luther King jnr was cut down by racists and the "n1gger lover" Robert Kennedy followed King to a martyr's grave.
If an African American wins the November 4 election there will be no avoiding the symbolism.
Abraham Lincoln once warned Americans: "We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves."
Economic suffering may overtake the last redoubts of race prejudice. And some Americans - in spite of themselves - may do something to make their friends cheer.
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