The Brand New Respectful Presidential Campaign Thread

AlaskaDeb asked a good question and one I've asked before.  Have these debates changed anyone's mind about who they want to vote for?  I was an absolute Obama fan before reading all these different points of view but I have been seriously analyzing my stances based on many of the comments and information here.  I can't align myself with some of this, frankly.  While I realize Obama isn't reading any of this and endorsing ideals made in his behalf, it is sort of a turn-off to recognize my political beliefs are shared with disrespectful, "know it alls" who continue to berate those who have different perspectives(which Amy, that was really a cut-down especially coming from YOU!  I don't agree with Rocktobermom politically, but she has never seemed to think she's more intelligent or knows more than any other on this board!)  Anyway, I find a lot of wisdom in the views of Shirley, Rocktobermom, Grace, etc.  My answer to AlaskaDeb is that yes, it has made me think.

(Grace, I don't mean you by the way; you have a very eloquent and thoughtful way of presenting your views.  I have very similar political beliefs to you and you present those beliefs very well.)

Anna

Grace, glad you had some entertainment.

I do not believe Obama never puts his hand over his heart.  I believe this is a rumor.  I've looked it up sometime ago and I believe it is false.  Also, a friend said he wouldn't allow the flag behind him.  I also believe this was false. 

I don't care what religion he is.  I didn't care what religion Romney was.  I care about his judgment and whether or not I can trust him. I certainly do not care what color he is. I care about his experience.  So far I feel like McCain is a person I can trust to lead this country.

Shirley

Deb its really hard to tell how many people that are truly undecided.........for Democrats of course they don't have a nominee yet and Amy for example just can't stand Hillary so if Obama doesn't get the nod then she has stated she just may vote for McCain..........Grace on the other hand I think is for Hillary or is it AnneShirley that if Hillary doesn't get the Democrat nomination she will vote for Obama .....Kelly whom I believe is a conservative Democrat is leaning toward McCain but it is still really early in this horse race Deb and anything could happen......and as we get closer to November and the Democrats decide whom their nominee will be you think this has been going on for years now just wait.........there will be daily earthquakes in Washington........Shokk

I thought is was rude to ask a woman her age.

Right now, if choosing between all three I think I would vote for McCain, but with his age his VP will make a big difference. 

Hillary kind of scares me because I feel she tells people what they want to hear....like she changes to fit the crowd she is talking to.  Plus I think she is tainted with her DH....and I really didn't like him. 

I don't like Obama much because as much as I have heard about him I sill don't know much about his real thoughts on policy.

I guess that makes me still undecided...LOL  I have been joking that Alaska should just form our own country;  Sara could be our president

Just joking!

Deb C

Tripneg ...  At this point, my answering her baits and taunts brings no benefit.  You're right, she is rude.

Nicki, he was not doing the Pledge, I would gather that he would put his hand over his heart at that instance ... this was while the National Anthem was being played.  I go to sporting events and I see that the players have their hands over their hearts as do most of the people around me.  Even Jehovah's Witnesses will stand for the Flag Salute, for respect, they just won't put their hands over their hearts.  So, for him not to do it is bothersome to many patriotic people and breaking the law (although I don't think people knew it was a law and who would really enforce the law?)

Deb,

How funny--we Californians have thought the same--form our own country as we seem to be very separate in our politics from the rest of the nation! Perhaps we could join together and even get Hawaii to join--a three state nation? And name ourselves Alcanaii?

Of course. first we would have to have the United States government separate Northern CA from Southern CA--our politics just don't mesh at all!!

That's what I'm afraid of also Rocktobermom. When Democrats have been in charge--President and Congress--they have been able to reduce the deficit and strengthen the economy. Those of us struggling to survive in our current economy need a change at the top--so we don't lose our homes and what little we do have to try and survive with. What we earn doesn't even keep up with inflation.

You have written about how hard it is to be a single parent and have all the responsibility. Well, then too, there are others who have been forced out of their jobs and retired, now living on half the income they had before. And some who do have a spouse, the spouse lost a job during the dot.com bust, and was forced to take a job that provides a third of his former income.

So, we do agree that Bush and his oil friends need to be out! It's about time! Here's to a better financial picture for all of us in our near future. 

I read a long article yesterday on McCain's plans for the economy, and they are wildly improbable and freightening if one has children.  He's planning to cut taxes just about everywhere he can, and particularly for corporations, stay in Iraq, and do all of this by borrowing more money and cutting basic services. For example, he plans to cut the gasoline tax, which currently goes into a trust to fix infrastructure problems, such as failing roads, tunnels, and bridges.  He has no intention of eliminating the deficit or balancing the budget (both of which were intrinsic to being a Republican back in the 50's and early 60's, before Reagan came along and borrowing took its place). I don't have children so it's not my issue if the next four or five generations have to pay for this war; it just seems a bit unfair and as a Democrat, I rather lean towards fairness.  I guess McCain wasn't kidding when he claimed not to know that much about economics.

February 14, 2008, 4:01 p.m.

Obama’s Big-Government Vision
It’s old-fashioned-liberal tax, spend, and regulate.

By Larry Kudlow

Sen. Barack Obama is very gloomy about America, and he’s aligning himself with the liberal wing of the Democratic party in hopes of coming to the nation’s rescue. His proposal? Big-government planning, spending, and taxing — exactly what the nation and the stock market do not want to hear.

Obama unveiled much of his economic strategy in Wisconsin this week: He wants to spend $150 billion on a green-energy plan. He wants to establish an infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60 billion. He wants to expand health insurance by roughly $65 billion. He wants to “reopen” trade deals, which is another way of saying he wants to raise the barriers to free trade. He intends to regulate the profits for drug companies, health insurers, and energy firms. He wants to establish a mortgage-interest tax credit. He wants to double the number of workers receiving the earned-income tax credit and triple this benefit for minimum-wage workers.

The Obama spend-o-meter is now up around $800 billion. And tax hikes on the rich won’t pay for it. It’s the middle class that will ultimately shoulder this fiscal burden in terms of higher taxes and lower growth.

This isn’t free enterprise. It’s old-fashioned-liberal tax, spend, and regulate. It’s plain ol’ big government. The only people who will benefit are the central planners in Washington.

Obama would like voters to believe that he’s the second coming of JFK. But with his unbelievable spending and new-government-agency proposals he’s looking more and more like Jimmy Carter. His is a “Grow the Government Bureaucracy Plan,” and it’s totally at odds with investment and business.

Obama says he wants U.S. corporations to stop “shipping jobs overseas” and bring their cash back home. But if he really wanted U.S. companies to keep more of their profits in the states he’d be calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate. Why isn’t he demanding an end to the double-taxation of corporate earnings? It’s simple: He wants higher taxes, too.

The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore has done the math on Obama’s tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6 percent personal income tax, a 52.2 percent combined income and payroll tax, a 28 percent capital-gains tax, a 39.6 percent dividends tax, and a 55 percent estate tax.

Not only is Obama the big-spending candidate, he’s also the very-high-tax candidate. And what he wants to tax is capital.

Doesn’t Obama understand the vital role of capital formation in creating businesses and jobs? Doesn’t he understand that without capital, businesses can’t expand their operations and hire more workers?

Dan Henninger, writing in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, notes that Obama’s is a profoundly pessimistic message. “Strip away the new coat of paint from the Obama message and what you find is not only familiar,” writes Henninger. “It’s a downer.”

Obama wants you to believe that America is in trouble, and that it can only be cured with a big lurch to the left. Take from the rich and give to the non-rich. Redistribute income and wealth. It’s an age-old recipe for economic disaster. It completely ignores incentives for entrepreneurs, small family-owned businesses, and investors. You can’t have capitalism without capital. But Obama would penalize capital, be it capital from corporations or investors. This will only harm, and not advance, opportunities for middle-class workers.

Obama believes he can use government, and not free markets, to drive the economy. But on taxes, trade, and regulation, Obama’s program is anti-growth. A President Obama would steer us in the social-market direction of Western Europe, which has produced only stagnant economies down through the years. It would be quite an irony. While newly emerging nations in Eastern Europe and Asia are lowering the tax penalties on capital — and reaping the economic rewards — Obama would raise them. Low-rate flat-tax plans are proliferating around the world. Yet Obama completely ignores this. American competitiveness would suffer enormously under Obama, as would job opportunities, productivity, and real wages.

Imitate the failures of Germany, Norway, and Sweden? That’s no way to run economic policy.

I have so far been soft on Obama this election season. In many respects he is a breath of fresh air. He’s an attractive candidate with an appealing approach to politics. Obama is likeable, and sometimes he gets it — such as when he opposed Hillary Clinton’s five-year rate-freeze on mortgages.

But his message is pessimism, not hope. And behind the charm and charisma is a big-government bureaucrat who would take us down the wrong economic road.

— Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and author of the daily web blog, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.

Grace,

Once again you are missing a problem of dot.com . There was such greed here and irrational expectations that it could not sustain itself. Companies that had no profit and not even a viable product were hiring people like no tomorrow. The common sense went out of window. The blame lies with venture capitalists and  "irrational exuberance" of stock market. I hope we all learn from this mistake.

Susie,

I've never heard of Larry Ludlow but I would find it difficult to accept the opinion of someone who makes such sweeping generalizations, which is what, in my view, the above piece does.  For example, the economic problems that Germany experienced had more to do with its need to accommodate East Germany than with some "Western European" failure in market practices.  It's important to note that Western Europe is not monolithic, as he seems to suggest.  There are vast differences between the economies of England and Ireland and Spain, when compared to the Italian economy, for example.  And those differences have as much to do with culture as economic policies.  I also find it strange that he would use Sweden as an example.  Sweden had a downturn in its economy in the early 1990's, but with some adjustments it's been roaring back, and without discarding the wonderful social benefits it provides to its citizens.

But it's really not possible to compare the U.S. to Sweden.  We have a less educated citizenry than Sweden, so unfortunately it will be harder for us to recover if we sink into a deep recession or, God forbid, a depression, which appears to be happening. (Today I stopped at a fast food store and my bill was $6.17.  I handed the woman at the register a $20, a quarter and two cents.  Unfortunately, the register was not geared to accept my type of payment, and the woman, after a lot of thinking, handed me $14.05.  I had to explain to her why it should have been $14.10.  I should have just let it go!  But it certainly didn't encourage me to believe we're going to come out of our recession as the Swedes did.)  Anyway, there are many more arguments to be made against Kudlow's piece.

I have greater faith that Clinton will do a better job with the economy than Obama, but after reading McCain's answers to the problem, I'm confident that either Obama or Clinton will do a far better job of getting us back to some stability than will McCain.  

Speaking of which, I just watched the opening of Saturday Night Live.  I wasn't sure how to take it--whether pro-Hillary or neutral.  My gut is that it gave Hillary a somewhat backhanded boost but that it didn't help Obama at all.  Any one else watch it?  And if so, what did you think?