Democratic National Convention Thread (August 25-28, 2008)

unfortunately, the conventions aren't the start of a season. we're 80% near the end of the road. so i'm sure whoever is leading right now should feel good.

it's not a done deal. but, with the clintons scheduled to campaign with obama to get more of those hillary voters over and women and the working class over, i'm sure the dems feel great.

 

One can have a political philosophy based on fiscal conservatism and not be President of the United States, A_3PO. Yes, the last balanced budgets were the result of Democratic Presidents. Heck, don't you think I know that? LBJ's last budget was balanced and had a small surplus and then we had Bill Clinton. Truman, Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy all had balanced budgets at least once during their administrations.

 

What I meant was the notion of ELECTING a so-called "fiscal conservative" Republican AS PRESIDENT is a fairy tale. Every GOP candidate that says he would be one is flat out lying and knows it, including McCain. Any voter with an IQ higher than 50 should know that.

To be clear: I have no problem with a person who wants this kind of president. But if they actually believe the rhetoric on the GOP presidential campaign trail...

 

Gov't sponsored research is usually pretty effective because it's not done by the gov't (thank goodness) but by universities in partnership with industry. The gov't issues grants.

There's no guarantee, but you aren't going to get there without spending the money. And this is money that would go into the economy (employ people, drive technology purchases, etc) so it would also be a net stimulous. Personally, i think 15 billion a year is modest considering how much research as fizzled. We need to do this to keep the U.S. on the cutting technological edge ahead of Japan and the EU. It's a clear area were we can be leaders.

But I agree that it won't end our dependence on foreign oil. But I think it's the right goal. JFK said let's put a man on the moon, so, why not aim high? We can certainly put a dent in our foreign oil use. If hybrid technology becomes mainstream and we are able to switch from fuel oil to natural gas, that would effect the picture.

It may not lower our gas prices as a result of increased demand from Asia, but it might help our industries compete globally instead of getting mauled.

 

McCain's no Vince and Obama's certainly not Bush.

 

Based purely on the actual definition (and not pejorative definition) of conservative, Clinton and Obama are far more conservative than the post Reagan Republicans. The Bush Administration came to office with a record budget surplus and are leaving with a record budget deficit. They have left the best military in the world overextended and exhausted. McCain is offering more of the same. The Maverick John McCain is dead. The tax cuts he once called irresponsible he now wants to make permanent. The lobbyists he wanted out of American politics before now run his policy and campaign. The Rove smear artists who slandered him in South Carolina in 2000 now are working for him. I don't want somebody that craven in power.

 

Yeah, they do sound like scared little chicks.

 

The magic pony dust was in McCains ASS tonight big time.He pretty much destroyed him in that speech without being nasty about it.

 

now this crap is worth reporting

 

he's doing it all over the board, or she, whatever, it will be banned

 

I missed it... who/what/huh?

 

1) Let's try to keep the D&D civil.
2) Obama wasted an opportunity for a historic speech, instead opting for the same old politics of mud slinging and negativity. He does not represent change - simply more of the same negativity from politicians.

 

Are you ever right about anything?

The speech has been universally praised from all sides. Even Faux News hailed it as a masterpiece. So much so that the McCain campaign had no answer for it and didn't know how to respond.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're implying. What exactly was "conservative" about New Orleans? It was a Cat 5 hurricane that caused the levees to break. Natural disasters have no political ideology. And last I checked, at the time of the storm, the liberal Dems had complete control over that city as well as the state.

As for the speech, it was great.........the first 20 times I heard it during the primaries. The only real differences were that it was much more negative towards McCain, which made sense since he had to focus all his attention on Hillary when he was trying to secure the nomination.

He also sparingly went into some specifics on how he plans to bring about "change". Problem there is I don't exactly how he plans to do any of it. When drilling is not an option for Obama, how will we decrease our dependence on foreign oil? This was the first time I can recall hearing him speak out in favor of coal energy. That completely contradicts what the Senate leader Harry Reid said about it("Coal makes us sick."). And one other thing. If the Democrat Party nominee supports coal and nuclear energy and if that is apparently the party platform now, then why in the hell did the Democrat-led Congress just go on a 5-week vacation without passing any sort of energy bill?! And yes I know the dirty little secret why they did. So they could blame Bush and the GOP for it between now and November which is inconscionable.

I'm not gonna sit here and harp on the speech. It was fine. It's what Obama does well. The debates are gonna be the real key to this election. That's where the soaring rhetoric won't fly and where the teleprompter won't be there to guide him. Once he has to deliver some real substance, we'll know for sure if he's for real or if this is just the same crap I've been hearing for 20+ years wrapped up in a shiny new package.

 

Clean coal energy.

Which, BTW, is really hard to do.

 

I was really worried that the bar was set to an unreachable height for this speech, that like a Super Bowl, it would be nearly impossible for the event to match the hype. But I was slack jawed at the brilliance; humanity, inspiration, specifics, preemptive arguments, an indictment of the policies he opposes while recognizing the dignity of his opponent, long enough to be comprehensive but short enough to be riveting for it's entirety.

Pre-election speeches aren't the place for compromise and hard reality, the compromises will come with the political realities of legislation. Pre-election speeches are about the big picture, the vision of where we would want to go in the best of all worlds sense.

If this isn't the man you want to lead, if this isn't the vision of America you dream about then I just feel sorry for you. You are petty and scared.

 

Katrina was not a Cat. 5. It was a Cat 3 when it made landfall that made landfall east of NOLA...putting NOLA on the "clean" side of the storm. It was Mississippi that suffered the wind damage. NOLA suffered from a storm surge and levees that utterly failed to do the job the federal government said they would do. It failed in about 50 different places. That flooded nearly 80% of NOLA and killed about 1800 people. The Army Corps of Engineers accepted COMPLETE blame for the failure of the levees. http://www.planetizen.com/node/20019

With where Katrina hit, NOLA officials immediately breathed a sigh of relief...they thought they were out of the woods...that they dodged a bullet. And from the perspective of where the storm made landfall, they did. MS got a helluva lot worse hit than they did.

Maximum winds in NOLA were right around 100 mph. THAT'S CAT. 2 STRENGTH. The Federal government had told the people of NOLA the levees would hold safe through a direct hit of a Cat. 3 hurricane. They didn't even hold through moderate Cat. 2 force winds that kicked up the storm surge.

So in response to that...in the aftermath...as water poured into the city from all sides....the federal government argued with the state government over whose burden it was to clean up the mess. While people died they argued lofty concepts of federalism. Inexcusable. Our responses are quicker to international tragedy than they were to this.

 

I really like the man....but I always prepare for disappointment in that regard.

But I'm all about the vision.