Obama the Socialist?

Sen. John McCain’s new dig at Obama is that he wants to “spread the wealth” and that that makes him a socialist.

When I heard this, and learned that people could actually be buying into this, I laughed. 

Firstly. If anyone, and I mean anyone, supports an NFL team that isn’t successful and calls Obama a socialist or “redistributing the wealth” they might as well give up on the “socialist” NFL.

The NFL has revenue sharing you see. What that does is it takes all the money it makes from TV and distributes it amongst the teams. Major League Baseball, AMERICA’S pastime, does the same thing. 

Look. Obama may be very liberal, and I understand that doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. But to believe that he wants to redistribute wealth and make America a communist state? Really? Does anyone pay attention? Do people realize that a BAIL OUT would be the same thing? Doesn’t McCain support the bail out? 

I believe John McCain, like Republicans in the past eight years, has been put in a tough place. George W. inherited an America that had some problems, but those problems were probably overshadowed by the good economy. But, the dot com boom finally busted and 9/11 happened. I don’t know how unlucky you could get to start a presidency. 

Something similar happened to McCain. See, the conservative way of doing things isn’t doing so well right now. After eight years of George W., people are sick of Republicans. This will be mirrored by the way the Senate races go. McCain is the leader of an unpopular party and happens to be a very liberal conservative, if that makes any sense at all. 

McCain had to solidify the base, which is what the Palin pick did, and he’s done that pretty effectively with his new “socialist” message. I suppose it worked, but you don’t have to go that far.

It especially hurts when Obama is not going to raise taxes for the middle class. 

Basically:

Obama is not a socialist.

McCain has no choice but to say these things.

Don’t fall for campaign spin from EITHER CAMPAIGN. 

To further the above point, McCain isn’t Bush.

Don’t stick to one news source.

I think my last point is the best one. Don’t only watch MSNBC because the ultra liberal view can blow your mind. Don’t watch too much CNN cause they are slanted to the left a little as well, though it’s not as obvious. Don’t watch too much Fox News cause there is far too much yelling, and I don’t think it’s good to watch people yell a lot. 

Ultimately, I got off track here… but everyone needs to look things up for themselves and ratify their sources before listening to one thing and running with it! Gah.

What It Takes

If you were to have the opportunity to compete for your dream job, would you? Would you do whatever it took to get that job? 

These are the questions that should flutter in your head as you look at the coverage of the election this year. Sure, American politics can get dirty and Republicans and Democrats may go at it quite a bit, but that’s what it takes. Who wants it more?

Often, we admire people who put their hearts and souls into attaining something they dream of. In fact, we tend to admire athletes and sports teams that do whatever it takes to win. Teams that scratch and claw their way to the top. Even when they have little chance, or everyone tells them they can’t do it they do it anyway. Look at the past two Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts. The Giants were going against the undefeated New England Patriots and no one thought they could do it. Yet, they did. The Colts had a horrendous run defense, yet they turned it around and won it all.

This could be what’s happening to the McCain campaign.

I was watching Obama’s interview on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and something interesting caught my ear. Obama said something to the effect of: I believe the American people will realize McCain represents the past and Bush policies. Now, either Obama is being way too political or he’s making a huge error. To beat McCain, he’s going to have to smash the American people over the head with constant links to the current President. Not only that, but he’s going to have to do one important thing.

He’s gotta keep it simple.

McCain is doing his job and is doing it well. He’s up in the polls, his VP pick is dominating the current media coverage, and he’s finally united and energized his base. John McCain is leading his party and leading it well. He’s actually doing it a lot like the NY Giants did. He’s scratching and clawing. He’s even resorted to hiring former enemies. Enemies that ran against him in 2000 when he ran against George Bush in the primaries.

Before the Republican National Convention, all the pundits had counted McCain out. He had no chance, Mitt was going to take it. Well, McCain easily cruised through the primaries and became his parties nominee. Now, he’s closing in on November with a lead in the polls. His VP has been a hit so far and his ads work. Sure, they might not all be true (when do politicians tell the whole truth anyway?), but they work.

In the end, he could come up short. Look, his VP pick’s honeymoon period still isn’t over, but if she passes all the tests and remains a rock star he has a very good chance at becoming our next President.

And all he’d be doing is whatever it takes.

Rebuilding the Republican Party

Astounding is the word I think after watching the Republican National Convention, and it’s not because of Sarah Palin’s speech. It’s not because of Rudy Giuliani’s speech. It’s not even because of John McCain’s acceptance speech.

It’s because Bush is no longer welcome.

He didn’t attend the convention. Instead, he stayed in Washington, D.C. and addressed the RNC via satellite. 

In tonight’s acceptance speech, McCain didn’t even reference him by name.

They’re slowly rebuilding themselves. 

The choice of Sarah Palin excited the conservative base and started the rebuilding. Conservatives suddenly became excited for the ticket that they were once skeptical of. Now, I understand not all conservatives like Palin because of her lack of experience and certain scandals brewing about her, but I digress.

McCain has capped off this rebuilding by essentially denouncing Bush in his speech tonight.

There’s a question remaining, however:

Will the rebuilding and the mentioning of ‘change’ actually work?

The Nation Will Move On

Effective on June 14th, 2008 same-sex marriage will be recognized in California.

And Americans will get used to it.

People are naturally afraid of change, and I do believe that is one of the biggest reasons same-sex marriage isn’t popular… well, besides religion too.

But ultimately, people will get over it and I do believe same-sex marriage will be allowed all around the country and conservatives will stop using it as a talking point in their politics.

Why do I say this?

Because in reality, there is no true debate against same-sex marriage.

Look at Massachussetts. Nothing bad has happened there. There have been no reports or anything of anything bad. In California, nothing will happen. People will get on with their lives.

As for the sanctity of marriage, current divorce rates in the US are at about 50%. That’s not very sanctimonious.

Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Canada have all legalized same-sex marriage. And ALL of them have lower divorce rates than the United States.

This nation will move on from same-sex marriage as a political talking point and be a world leader in it as well. As soon as the majority of states allow same-sex marriage, the more other countries will begin to allow it.

Obama captures 9 more superdelegates

And he brings the Democratic primaries an inch closer to ending.

One of the ’supers’ was a former Clinton supporter as well. If the majority of the ’supers’ support Obama this primary season could end as soon as two weeks from now.

In the meantime, Obama and McCain have essentially begun the general election swapping blows on whether Obama is endorsed by Hamas and if Obama is age-ist or if McCain is losing his bearings.

Oh, boy… there will be some fun come November.

Even more fun considering McCain’s pastor supporters may be more controversial than Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Rev. John Hagee, a McCain endorser, has claimed Hurricane Katrina was created by God to punish New Orleans for its homosexual sins.

On the other side, Rev, Rod Parsley has called Islam a “false religion” and has essentially called on Christians to wage war on the religion.

Right, now it’s time to sit back and wait for the backlash… I mean, there has to be backlash. Right? …right? Media? Hello?

Limbaugh should be ashamed.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” was aimed to cause some mischief during the Democratic Primaries last night. The goal of this “operation” was to disrupt the primaries and help Clinton, who he used to think was the weaker opponent for Senator John McCain to face in the general election, win the two states.

Well, it doesn’t look like that worked out today.

So now, he changes his tune a bit.

According to Politico.com, which happens to be a great political website, Limbaugh now believes Obama is the weaker opponent. He also took a shot at former Senator George McGovern, who today switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama and called for Clinton to drop out, saying that “McGovern in his lifetime wants to see someone lose worse than he did,” referring to when McGovern was the Presidential nominee for the Democrats.

Absurd.

This guy is absolutely absurd.

He probably has an audience because he is absurd. Now, why is he absurd? It’s very simple.

He called to cause disruption in the Democratic Primaries. He wanted to cause some unrest. He wanted to play with people’s right to vote. That is what is absurd.

Our troops die to protect our democratic rights, which includes the right to vote. World wars have been fought to protect the right to vote. The right to vote is a fundamental part of this country and democratic philosphy and he wants to play with it like some play thing. He wants to see how far his influence goes for ego reasons and decides to play a very shameful game with the democratic system.

It goes against the very core of America. I understand not voting for either candidate to get your message out. I understand voting for the other party because you’re not happy with yours. But, for the life of me, I will never understand voting to cause “chaos.”

It’s absolutely absurd.

State of Emergency

Pakistan is under a state of emergency. Lawyers are being locked up. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s supporters are protesting and being arrested and beaten for it.

A state of emergency. Why?

Well, Musharraf will tell you that the bombings that have killed many people in Pakistan are to blame. It’s just too dangerous with Al Qaeda and the Taliban around causing trouble! Not to mention some of Bhutto’s followers stirring up additional trouble.

That’s not it though, nope… it just doesn’t feel right. I mean, the supreme court of Pakistan was supposed to weigh in on the controversial way he won Pakistan’s recent election (98% of the vote… how many people receive 98% of a vote in a democracy?). Is it a mere coincidence that a state of emergency was declared and they can’t convene and weigh in on the election?

Let’s just hope stability is brought back to Pakistan. A destabilized Pakistan allows Al Qaeda and even the hidden Taliban to grow in the country and gather support. Oh, and it kind of takes everyone’s mind off of Iran. Yeah, remember them? Yeah, well Iran now has 3,000 centrifuges up and running. Centrifuges are machines that are used to enrich uranium. Mhm.

Oh, and Pakistan has around 50 nukes in their arsenal. Imagine if Pakistan were to fall down the gutter even more. Could some radical get their hands on a nuke? Could the military take over the country and possibly get into things with India? Imagine if a nuke from Pakistan hit India. India happens to be our ally, by the way, which means a world conflict could occur.

These are just possible outcomes of what could happen here. We’re in a tense time. Let’s hope we can help Pakistan restore some order.