really? You said I joked that the person who owned 8 houses (McCain) doesn't like someone that is just like him (Romney). Financially speaking that is. Bad joke I guess
As a right leaning moderate that really doesn't know how he'll vote in November I will say that McCain choosing Tom Ridge would all but seal the deal for me. I hate his Pro-Choice stance, but he's extremely popular here in Pennsylvania. Plus, he's never lost an election. That's a good stigma to have on your side. I'm also a Romney fan. I don't think he'll choose him, though.
Yes, I did. I thought McCain delivered. His answers were clearer and more concise than Obama's. The one thing I can't stand about Obama is the way he beats around the bush, ducks questions and tries to figure out the best way not to offend anybody. I'm not wild about McCain but I did appreciate his right-to-the-point style of answering most of the questions. What did you think? I know there's a thread for this but I forget how most of you responded.
The flipside of this is Jack Cafferty's comments on it: I think he made a big mistake. When he was invited last spring to attend a discussion of the role of faith in his life with Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, McCain didn't bother to show up. Now I know why. It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we've all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand. Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not? Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day. He was asked "if evil exists." His response was to repeat for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will pursue him to "the gates of hell." That was it. He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question -- his wife is worth a reported $100 million -- he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich. One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none. Not saying it's right or wrong, just the opposing view.
You should read the thread. Thanks for the honesty and civil answer. I felt McCain really didn't explain any of his responses. He answered the questions, but I felt like he was speaking to a specific group of people and not all Americans. It was sound bites to assuage the religious right.
If that's the best criticism Cafferty can come up with against McCain I think he just helped me make my point.
If you asked 15 million different people what their faith means to them there's a good chance you'll get 15 million different answers. I won't hold it against him for not boring us to death with some lengthy, lethargic rant about it. Religion is a sensitive topic. I know it's kind of the whole point of the debate in the first place but most of the questions weren't so personal. Speaking of personal, how do you hold it against him for citing a failed marriage as his biggest moral failure? He pledged a lifelong bond to somebody that ultimately failed. How does this not qualify? The evil and rich questions sound merely like nit-picking to me. Nothing to see there.
I think the point was that you got to watch McCain for an hour, one-on-one with a a friendly interviewer, and you got nothing but stump speech material. Not a single unique insight of any sort. In many people's eyes, that's not a "good performance" if the goal was to learn about the candidate and what role faith plays in his life (which was the point of the forum).
On a night where Obama completely fumbled the abortion issue, stuttered, stalled and dodged his way through the night and after just about every analyst declared McCain the winner it makes sense that the criticisms of McCain are firing up. So badly to the point where the Obama camp essentially accused him of "cheating". Sounds more like damage control to me. Oh well, I understand this board is overwhelmingly liberal and as I said: i'm just a right leaning moderate. I have nothing really against Obama. I'm not wild about McCain. Just saying in regards to this specific forum I thought McCain looked much sharper.
Um, back to VP? If Lieberman is a serious choice... can the GOP get over calling him "Loserman" from 2000-2002? Is that not significant? I think he is like the J-Howard of politics, so I welcome that choice for McCain.
Please let it not be Lieberman. I like the guy and it would certainly be an interesting choice, but it all but seals the election for Obama. I personally think McCain should select a woman as his VP, assuming Obama goes with one of the rumored white dudes(Bayh, Kaine, Biden). McCain's choices are pretty much Hutchison and Palin. And of those two, I actually think Palin is the ballsier and better choice. She's younger, has a maverick image in the GOP which suits McCain, and this is the one election where being from a state like Alaska actually helps since it reinforces the issue of energy and domestic drilling. Her two negatives are a lack of experience and a lack of exposure to the American public. The former is nullified by Obama having none himself and the latter can be remedied at the convention.
Well, his poorly disguised pandering obviously worked on some level. But I'll repeat: Anyone who cares what was said in that idiotic forum should be kicked in the nuts.
