Presidential debates on ABC right now-both parties

Democrats are in panic. Howard Dean is calling for a stop to the campaign. He is asking superdelegates to cast their vote before the convention.

The cry babies could not take ABC questioning. The liberals are having fits that the drive by media dared to question them as if they were Republicans.

Stay tuned for more soap opera.

And this:

The Log Cabin stresses its loyalty to the Republican Party: "We are loyal Republicans," its website says. "We believe in low taxes, limited government, strong defense, free markets, personal responsibility, and individual liberty. Log Cabin represents an important part of the American family-taxpaying, hard working people who proudly believe in this nation's greatness." They take no position on abortion.

But Log Cabin dissents from socially conservative Republican views on matters relating to gay and lesbian rights. "We also believe all Americans have the right to liberty, freedom, and equality," it says. "Log Cabin stands up against those who preach hatred and intolerance. We stand up for the idea that all Americans deserve to be treated equally-regardless of their sexual orientation."

Why does Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and John McCain feel it necessary to wag their fingers when talking--very patronizing. Does anyone else want to reach out, grab those fingers, and squeeze very very hard. Turns me off big time. 

The biggest soap opera is that after 21 debates, with the majority of them making life very easy for Obama and very difficult for Clinton, there's all these objections to the ABC debate because Obama was asked some hard questions.  I would prefer questions of substance as well as everyone else, but there were so many bad questions previously, usually addressed to Clinton, that the fuss now appears to be just another case of bias--against Clinton, of course.  To be expected, and particularly from NBC.

And now I'll disappear for another month.   

They better flock, Clinton is still leading in the superdelegate count:

All told, Obama, of Illinois, has the support of 231 superdelegates and Clinton, of New York, 260, excluding Michigan and Florida, according to a tally by Bloomberg News based on lists supplied by the campaigns. Among all delegates, Obama leads Clinton 1,641 to 1,504, according to an unofficial count by the Associated Press, with 2,025 needed for the nomination. - Bloomberg News

No problem, Susie, but I hadn't seen her do it previously.  Obama and Clinton are the masters, but yesterday I saw McCain doing it as well, and I thought what's with these guys?  The two finger approach (Hillary) doesn't seem to be finger wagging so much as making a point, or at least I don't find it as annoying.  Anyway, I wish they'd all stop.  I feel like I'm back at school with the nuns!

Is that a ring on her middle finger or just a shadow? 

Im laughing at the finger pointing. 

And yes, point a finger at me and I immediately tense up thanks to Sister Frederick Mary.

Nicki

I don't like the sound of this. I thought stem cell research was to be used to find "cures" for serious diseases and conditions. That the research would be used to develop vaccines or to be able to "adjust" one's DNA to eliminate the same diseases/conditions.

And I just can't vote for a candidate that does not support keeping Row vs Wade. While I might not choose to have an abortion because of personal reasons; I believe that every woman has the right to decide what is right for her personally. I believe that it's my body and I know what is best for me. AND no male, I don't care what authority or experience he has; has the right to dictate what a woman can or cannot do. JMHO

I'll be watching for more on these two issues as the election campaign progresses.

I can certainly understand deaf parents not wanting to abort a child because it's deaf--it would be tantamount to saying the deaf are less worthy.  But to deliberately create a deaf child seems almost monstrous, or at least very selfish.  They can teach their child to sign in the house but outside the child would be at a disadvantage--it's even a safety issue.

But perhaps because the woman is having artificial insemination, they are looking for a half-way measure, not asking to create a deaf child but rather asking that a hearing embyro be discarded rather than a deaf embyro--amazing if they can do that!  And although I don't agree I can certainly understand why.  I suppose if they discarded the deaf embyro, they would feel as though, again, they are saying it is less worthy. 

I agree with Shirley on the blue eyes (disclosure I have blue eyes), that it's  ugly picking children on the basis of unimportant physical characteristics.  (In fact, I believe children with brown eyes have fewer eye problems, etc.)  Choosing a child because of its eye color has a racist feel to it and makes me uncomfortable. But I suppose the deaf parents may feel the same about discarding a deaf embyro. 

Saluki- about the finger pointing--- the media has a term for that 'gotcha politics'-- that's not the kind of things Obama endorses, he wants to change the political scene, not fit into the negativity.

"David Brooks says that Obama won't be able to go negative against Hillary Clinton because he (rightly) perceived that people are tired of that mode of selling. So he constructed an entire political persona on being a nice guy, and that's the essence of his appeal to be made President of the United States. To go the other way now would eliminate the basis of his candidacy.

To be fair, you can easily see where he'd get the idea that this could be a winning strategy. Most of the people on his side of the political aisle will tell you with a straight face that acting aggressively to protect our national security is a bad idea because "no one likes us anymore."

So the kind of mudslinging that political campaigns engage in, which would straightforwardly be libel and slander were it not targeted at public figures, backfires every time in a high-powered sales situation.

And Obama seems to have found a lode of voters who feel the same way. Perhaps the kind of voters who respond to mudslinging are the same people who allow car salesmen and mortgage brokers to browbeat and shame them. (To be sure, Obama voters also respond to Messianic charisma, which also tends to work in enterprise sales, but only to get you in the door, not to close the deal. And in any case, this says more about Obama's voters than it does about him.)

So if you can't go negative, in the sense of flinging groundless accusations that wouldn't be out of place on a grade-school playgound, what do you do instead?

In enterprise sales, you have to take an intelligent approach to the customer's problem, and show her why your product addresses it more effectively than your competition's product. You have to prove that doing business with you and your company is not risky, and you have to demonstrate unequivocally that you can and will follow through on your promises. (And of course, you have to make this case to her over lunch in the kind of restaurant she can't afford on her corporate vice-president's salary.)

In short, you have to have substance. That's the box Obama is in. He can't go negative on Clinton because his whole campaign is based on rejecting that kind of selling. But he'll have a hard time closing the deal because he has nothing to sell in the first place."

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Yet he did go negative ... I know some people think "Well, she did it first" but if you are going to say YOU ARE DIFFERENT or your politicing is different, then stay that way ....

"In what may be Obama's most direct and aggressive criticism of Bill Clinton's presidency yet, the Obama campaign dropped a new mailer just before Super Tuesday that blasts "the Clintons" for wreaking massive losses on the Democratic party throughout the 1990s. The question is whether this will hurt Obama or if it will all be swept away and rationalized.  In the past, he's been able to get folks backing him to ignore his negative attacks and claim that they are, in fact, positive or that they are Clinton's fault.  It does seem, however, that this undermines any claims of confidence that the Obama campaign was trying to send. "

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I wish I'd seen the mailer. 

Really, though this campaign does seem alot better than the mudslinging that I've seen in California lately!

What's considered negative in your opinions?

Obama will be hit hard about his questionable associations in the past and the present.  He better get use to it and have better responses planned.  Throwing Tom Coburn under the bus, wasn't the smartest thing he could have said during the debate.  He's going to need those very same Republicans to work with him when he gets back to the Senate.  It's fair game to go after McCain, but ole Tom might be smarting a bit.

Where is the proof?? Nevermind, I'm not going through that again.  Once he's out of this personality contest he's in now, and has to answer the hard questions about his programs, we'll be putting President McCain in office.  It's as simple as that. And it's coming to us right before the November election. 

I just read this long dissertation on what Hillary can't say, because it will bring disunity to the dems, but the Republicans will be happy to bring it to the election table. They are smacking their lips and waiting. 

It's quite difficult to prove a negative-- comments like yours, "a beauty contest"are typical negativity from the Clinton campaign and part of the reason people have flocked away from Bill and Hillary. It's time for a change-- a new era that's to quote republicans  "kinder and gentler".