Presidential Campaign Ads

In the past week John McCain and Barack Obama have released various campaign ads. Both candidates have been churning out stupid attack ads and have focused very little on the issues. Only 1 or 2 of the ads this week have actually delt with the issues. McCain's ads always try to show Obama as being inexperienced and not able to lead while Obama focuses on McCain being "out of touch" with the middle class.

John McCain-











Barack Obama-

Great Depression II

Today the House of Representatives failed to pass the $700 billion compromise to help bail out the banking industry. After a week of compromise the House last night announced they reached a deal and held a press conference to tell America that they reached a deal on the bail out. The Republican leadership in the House then had their own press conference announcing they would support the bill and they would urge their members to vote in favor of the bill. Well this afternoon the vote was held and it failed 205 to 228. 141 Democrats and 65 Republicans voted in favor of the bill while 94 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted against the bill. After the vote failed the Democratic House leadership and the Republican Leadership had their own separate press conferences blaming each other for the failure to the bill. The Democratic leadership knew there would only be 70 or so Republican votes in favor of the bill, so the bill would not pass unless they could get 13 more Democrats to vote for the bill. During the Democratic press conference they blamed the Republicans for causing the bill to fail, but really the Democratic leadership failed to get their members on board. If all the Democrats voted in favor of the bill and all of the Republicans voted against the bill it would still pass because Democrats have the majority in the House. As the Democrats and Republicans kept blaming each other the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 100 points and by 3:28 the Dow was down 722.17 points. By the closing bell at 4 the Dow was down 595.29 points.

Something needs to be done to fix this economic crisis or we will be in the second great depression. Both parties need to come together to work together and fix this situation. Stop worrying about the upcoming election and work on fixing the nation's problems. Over the weekend both parties finally came together to work on a compromise and it seemed like it would pass until Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi went on a rant on the House floor, where she said "the party is over" for the Republicans. Many reporters on the news thought her speech caused the bill to fail. While all of the this was going on today both presidential candidates seemed to be absent from the debate. Even during the debate on Friday neither candidate really had a plan to fix the crisis other than their normal talking points.

Issue #1, the Economy

This week has been filled with coverage of the economic crisis that our country is going through. The government has been spending billions maybe even trillions of dollars on bailing out failing corporations. This week the stock market fell then rose then fell again until Thursday when the market rose again, ending the week with a 2 day rally that was the greatest rally since March 2000. The rally was due to new plans for the government to help with the financial crisis and possible bail out more banks. By the end of the 2-day rally (Thursday and Friday) the Dow Jones added 780 points or 7.4% in the two day period, the S&P added 3.4%, and the Nasdaq added 3.4%. While all of this might just seem like useless numbers it has everything to do with the presidential election. In 1992 President Bush lost the election to Clinton because the economy was in such a mess and this year the economy is the number one issue for Americans. Clinton attacked Bush on the economy and won, and now Obama is doing the same against McCain. If the economy doesn't improve between now and election day Obama has a much greater chance of winning the election. Americans blame the current administration for the economic crisis, even though much of it isn't their fault. Americans need someone to blame and the President usually is their first. Personally I blame greedy Americans and businesses. I blame it on the people who went out and got loans for 100,000's of dollars and even million dollar loans to buy a house when they weren't even making nearly that much. They applied for the interest only loans hoping they could pay the interest for a couple years then flip it and make a huge profit. Well that didn't happen, the housing market started to fall and interest rates began to rise, meaning that those house payments went up. So people started to default on their loans and the bank foreclosed on their house. So the banks were left with 1,000's of houses that they didn't know what do to with. So now we are left with banks owning 100,000's of houses and no one to buy them. With all those extra houses the banks lose money and then they start to go under. Now the government has a choice to let them fail or bail them out. If the economy continues to get worse Obama has a much greater advantage over McCain, than if the economy was good and foreign policy was the issue then McCain would have the advantage. In order to over come this disadvantage McCain must come out with a sound economic policy, one that puts the workers first and not give into the corporate pressures of Wall Street. McCain needs to attack Obama for his proposed tax increases in times of an economic crisis which will only make thins worse. He needs to attack Biden for his "paying taxes is patriotic" comment. If this doesn't begin to happen with in the next few day and weeks I would say is bye bye to McCain.

Palin, Gibson, and the Bush Doctrine

This week Vice Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin, gave her first TV interview since accepting the nomination. She agreed to let Charles Gibson from ABC interview her over several days in Alaska. Each night of the interview covered different issues, one night energy and the environment, another night social issues, and another night covered foreign policy. The foreign policy interview was the most interesting when Charles Gibson asked Sarah Palin if she agreed with the "Bush Doctrine". After asking the question there was an awkward silence, then finally Palin asked "In what respect, Charlie?" Charles Krauthammer wrote in a Washington Post editorial that "sensing his 'gotcha' moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush Doctrine 'is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense'". When you look up the Wikipedia entry on the Bush Doctrine there are many different definitions, including- ending terrorism, spreading democracy, increased unilateralism in foreign policy, and finally the idea that the United States government should "despose foreign regimes" that pose a threat to the security of the United States. Not just Gibson's definition for the "Bush Doctrine", there are many different aspects to it even if his definition was correct. Krauthammer said there isn't one single meaning to the Bush Doctrine. There have been four different meanings over the eight years of the Bush Administration, and the one Gibson used isn't the meaning used today.

According to Krauthammer's editorial Gibson got it wrong. Krauthammer said he was the first to use the term "Bush Doctrine" in an essay in the June 4, 2001 issue of the Weekly Standard, talking about the Bush Administrations withdraw from the Kyoto protocol and other changes in foreign policy that were to follow. Then 9/11 occurred and drastically changed the interpretation of the "Bush Doctrine".

After Gibson gave his interpretation of the "Bush Doctrine" Palin fumbled in her response, but it was still not good enough for Gibson who continued to ask her the same question by using hypothetical situations like going across the border into Pakistan to chase down the terrorists.

Krauthammer concludes his editorial, "Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know-- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage."

GOP Convention....

The first day of the Republican National Convention was cut short due to Hurricane Gustav making landfall in Louisiana. The Republicans were scrambling because they wanted to show America that they can handle another crisis after their failed response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. On the first night of the convention President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were both supposed to give prime time speeches at the convention. Then President Bush and Vice President Cheney both pulled out of their speaking commitments, because they needed to watch the situation with Hurricane Gustav and to oversee the federal response to the crisis. This was a blessing to John McCain who has been trying to distance himself with the current administration, and bad for Obama who has been trying to show McCain as Bush's 3rd term. While the media was focusing their coverage on Hurricane Gustav the McCain campaign released some shocking news to the country, the McCain's Vice Presidential pick, Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter was pregnant. The country was shocked and it turned into a media frenzy. The left said she couldn't run a country because she couldn't even control her daughter. They also said that she needs to be taking care of her kids instead of running for Vice President. The right mostly praised Palin and her family for being a strong family and praised her daughter for not having an abortion.

On the first night of the convention McCain called on all Americans to come together and support the Gulf Coast. The Governors of the Gulf Coast all left the convention to get their state ready for whatever was going to come their way. This showed America that the Republicans were willing to give up a night of their own convention to focus on the Hurricane and the Gulf Coast, it also showed them that they were well prepared to handle another disaster. By Tuesday morning the damage from the Hurricane showed to be minimal and the Republicans went back to their full convention schedule.

Tuesday night President Bush was given a small speaking role at the convention, but just addressed the delegates by satellite. He gave a short speech praising McCain for his service to the country. Then Presidential candidate Fred Thomson gave a speech describing McCain's military service and his time as a POW during the Vietnam War. The last speech of Tuesday night was by former Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate and now independent Senator Joe Lieberman. He said he was supporting McCain because he would put the country first above his own party.

Wednesday night was one of the most anticipated nights of the convention. For the past 2 days the media was talking about Palin's daughters pregnancy and now it was Sarah Palin's chance to introduce herself and her family to the country. The next day it was announced that 40 million people watched her prime time speech, which was about 2 million more viewers than Obama's acceptance speech the week before. Palin proved that she was a game changer in this race. Before to vote McCain was largely just a vote against Obama, but now she has brought tremendous energy to this election. If McCain doesn't win this year, I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Sarah Palin yet. I would say the convention was a huge success. With the media's attention focused on the hurricane, Palin's daughter, Palin, and other convention news, which left Obama mostly out of the headlines. Which is what the Republicans needed in order to get their message out there and to achieve a sizable post convention bounce, which Obama did not really get after his convention.