I think Obama was wise to carefully consider the questions and have a discussion instead of quick quips like McCain. McCain's positions are far in line with evangelicals, and require less explanation. To me, he does appear more decisive, but he's also more rigid. Obama can't simply say - hey, i am in favor abortion, and that's it. Period. Because that's not going to go over well. He has to explain why despite this, there's a reason to vote for him. I think a lot of the evangelicals were impressed - Obama resonated with him by connecting to the pastor. Whereas McCain sounded more like on a stump speech. I think McCain will get the big applause and draw most evangelicals in. But that's what he has to do. Bush was nearly 80% of this group. So I think considering the audience, Obama did as best as he could. For him to be quick and confident like McCain would have fed into the belief he was an elistist liberal out of touch with conservative middle America. I think this showed us he was not in fact an elistist, but a humble man willing to listen. That's his best approach.
Batman, as soon as you round up 15 liberals on this board with over 2,000 posts to accept the bet, included among those being yourself, SamFisher, mcmark, FranchiseBlade and glynch, then I will gladly accept the bet. Those are my terms. The ball is in your court. The longer you wait, the higher my price rises.
in order to make it fair, why don't you take the 6 months and distribute it amongst the 15 liberals? That would be 12 days each for them. I think that would be better. I mean, you're super sure of victory right?
Were you able to find any videos in full parts (like 10 minutes)? I keep only finding these 5 min clips of each candidate and I'm having a hard time putting them in any kind of order.
Why not? Would that be too much like McCain's directness... I didn't think Obama did too bad; in fact, I thought he handled himself pretty well until McCain showed him up.
I don't expect you to take the bet and I never have. I'm just pointing out the fact that you don't have anything resembling the courage of your convictions. I have plenty to say about Saddleback, but I'm not saying it in another of Chicken George's dorky propaganda threads. Chicken derails everyone else's threads with his nonsense, so in his threads I am only saying... Then take the bet, big shot. I encourage the rest of you to do likewise.
The question is did McCain change anybody’s mind? I doubt it. Whereas Obama made a lot of people take a second look at him and his ideas. Win for Obama
Soon enough, his price will be the entire BBS. That way, he and basso can stroke each other's egos in complete privacy. If somebody were writing a book about this whole saga the title would be D&D Superheroes: A Troll's Ransom.
What do you base this on? As you recall, McCain, as a centrist, has had to go to great lengths to restore faith in him among the party's base. This forum was the perfect way to do that, and he nailed it. Obama attended the event in hopes of luring some independents. Instead, he came across as disingenuous with his nuanced, indirect answers. Obama played defense the entire night, whereas McCain was in good spirits, had concise answers, and had very informative responses. All of the media outlets scored this a TKO for McCain. When the MSM is willing to say that (and go against their man -- Obama), then it's real.
Round up 15 of your conservative friends. I mean damn, in the bet thread, over 30 people were on SamFisher's side, and you still chicken out. You're just a coward. Pathetic one at that.
Sorry to have to say this, but I will never again tolerate you accusing someone else of "spinning." My take from the forum was that I liked McCain more than I thought I would and Obama's safe answers just don't stand up in comparison. You want to be President because your mother told you to be empathetic.... huh?
I wonder how McCain's answer of "Defeat Evil" flies with evangelicals? Is McCain single handily going to cast out Satan? Because evil isn't going anywhere. It's the same thing as everything Bush has done. Have a war on a tactic. You can't have a war on terrorism, and you can't have a war on evil. But, that's the road McCain would take us down. He'd send out our troops to die in a war against evil that can't ever be won.
But you weren't his target audience - you've already made up your mind. I didn't see the forum (not sure how many people did given that it was Saturday night and head-to-head against Michael Phelps), but his target audience would have been two groups: 1. Undecided (and younger) evangelicals who are less focused on abortion/gay rights as the only religious issues. 2. Neutralizing voters who are lukewarm about McCain but would be more likely to come out to vote against Obama, especially given the whole "Obama is the anti-Christ" campaign. Part of the key to McCain's strategy would be to fire up the evangelical base - they'll never get excited about McCain, but they could get excited about voting against Obama. His goal was to neutralize that block and maybe reach out to moderates. Since I didn't see it, I have no idea how did he on that, though.
I thought the above his paygrade line was really good actually, its impossible for anyone to know for sure where life starts, only god does. Evangelicals are tired of voting for anti-abortion republicans and their empty promises, they have been voting them in for the past 30 YEARS and NOTHING has changed on that front. America will never outlaw abortion, it just won't happen, and most common sense evangelicals have come to accept that.
