<p>Newjack - appreciate your post #34 & the fact that it seems the rest of the world would know America isn’t racist if Obama is elected is a valid point. But doesn’t his nomination as the canddate of a major party count for anything? (What - we’re “racist” now if we don’t elect him??}.</p>
<p>We can’t discount our image in the rest of the world, but “what everyone else thinks” can’t be the deciding factor. </p>
<p>BTW - I liked McCain’s grocery store visit & the scenes in “smalltown America”. He really is a man who is trying to stay in touch w/ real Americans. When it comes down to it, that is really more important than foreign photo-ops.</p>
<p>And you asked about his working w/ real people - being in charge of a large squadron (the largest in the Navy) doesn’t just involve making sure the planes are flying - every single person in the squadron (pilots & support personnel too) has a FAMILY & their needs & concerns must be addressed - every single day. It is a HUGE undertaking, which most def involves real people.</p>
<p>And don’t forget, as a Representative & a Senator, he would’ve had years of dealing with constituents’ concerns. Those are real people too. </p>
<p>And anyone who has participated in a campaign has MAJOR experience in grassroots organization - so you see, McCain really has way more experience as a “Community Organizer” than Obama!</p>
<p>bz, you make a good point about McCain’s experience, and of course, having lived longer than Obama, he has more experience. But there comes a point when one has enough experience to move on to the next stage. It’s like doing math exercises. After one has mastered the concept, one ought to move to the next one. Some students need to do more exercises in order to master the concept and thus move somewhat slowly; others need fewer exercises in order to master it.</p>
<p>So the question is not whether one candidate has more or less experience, but whether either has sufficient experience for the responsibilities he seeks. And neither has the experience of being POTUS. It would perhaps be better if we focused on the decisions they’ve made, the policies they have advocated/are advocating.</p>
<p>In my opinion, no. People like Hillary Clinton were trying to argue that Obama should not have been nominated despite the fact that he had more delegates, won more states, and more votes depending on how you counted them. She also tried to argue that because some, if not many, working class whites were prejudiced Obama should not be nominated, which to me is a bit insulting. She was basically saying that we shouldn’t confront racism and instead just focus on winning.</p>
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<p>There is no way that McCain could ever be half as effective as Obama is on the world stage. Look at how poor of a job McCain did with the Dalai Lama. McCain just doesn’t look like a president.</p>
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<p>That visit was cheesy.</p>
<p>Anyway, McCain is not in touch with the average American. I bet that photo-op was the first time McCain had been to a grocery store in awhile. McCain has never been an average citizen. Dad and grandfather were both admirals; married a billionaire; etc.</p>
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<p>First of all, I’m not even sure if this all is true. Second, it’s totally different than being a community organizer. You’re trying to compare helping people sort out there lives to commanding/leading a bunch of pilots.</p>
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<p>He’s not helping people on a personal level though like Obama was.</p>
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<p>Go visit Obama’s website. He has plans on there too.</p>
<p>Obama is clearly a man with lofty ideals and a great speaking ability.</p>
<p>Only one major problem is: He has NO experience to base his decisions on.</p>
<p>Before you write that one off, consider this?</p>
<p>Would you hire a chef, a truckdriver, a cabbie, a doctor, a lawyer with NO EXPERIENCE for a VERY IMPORTANT AND POWERFUL JOB?</p>
<p>I doubt it.</p>
<p>Obama has no legislation with his name on it. This means he is devoid of ideas to improve the country, at least ideas which are worth putting on paper and adding details to them.</p>
<p>So do you really want someone to operate on you who has NO experience governing anyone, anywhere, being commander in chief when he has not even been a private, being the most powerful man in the world but having no ideas which are practical enough to write down? [lack of legislation and governing]</p>
<p>Many can have a silver tongue, including Elmer Gantry, Hitler and many others. But last time I checked a silver tongue doesn’t count, except when the Dr. asks you to say. "Aaaahhhhh’ !</p>
<p>I guess I should have operated on that sentence about “operate on you with no experience governing”. I guess Dr’s don’t have to have that kind of experience. Sorry just didn’t finish my medical idea.</p>
<p>Good thing I wasn’t operating on anyone, right?</p>
<p>Newjack - I’m not going to try to dispute each of your responses b/c it would be too incoherenet unless I post all of my points too & that’s too complicated (not that I couldn’t do it - it would just be a pain for everyone to try to read).</p>
<p>I’ll just make a few points -
First of all, rest assured that my description of working w/ “real people” as the head of a squadron is entirely true & accurate - what, you don’t think there is more to a squadron than just planes & pilots? And if you don’t think that families left behind while spouses are deployed need help “sorting out their lives” then maybe you should check out “Navy Relief” or visit a Family Service Center on base somewhere. (I bet you could get permission to go on base as a volunteer).</p>
<p>Also - addressing constituents’ concerns as a Congressman IS indeed helping people on a personal level. Those are real people with real issues turning to someone who can actually get somethng done about them. What would Obama have done as a “community organizer” but turn to a congressman for help to address their concerns!</p>
<p>Excited is for rock-stars. I really don’t get excited about going to my doctor. Do you? However doctors have to do important diagnoses and treatments and solve complicated human-machine problems.</p>
<p>I don’t get excited about going to my mechanic. But he certainly is necessary. Being able to excite is nice. However it is NOT a qualification for solving important world-changing problems.</p>
<p>Sorry my answer isn’t more exciting for you!</p>
I agree with bz here, and disagree with newjack. Most of what a congressman does is constituent work, and often on a highly personal level. </p>
<p>But Obama has plenty of detailed plans, too. In fact, it has been said that McCain’s economic plan would not have passed muster in the Democratic primaries.</p>
<p>The problem with citing Hitler is that his silver tongue counted too much, not that it counted too little. Or is WWII of as little importance as a visit to the doctor?</p>
<p>As I said, neither Obama nor McCain have the experience of being POTUS.</p>
<p>Excited gets you to vote. Excited gets you engaged; excited gets you to post on CC. I was excited enough about what I’d learn to get to my doctor. Good thing I did, because the next step was surgery. Apathy would have killed me.
Apathy may kill McCain’s chances of being POTUS.</p>
<p>Ha, what a crock! You clearly don’t understand the concepts. Take Bush 1 and Bush 2. Bush 1 and his Administration negotiated the multilateral system very deftly in prosecuting the first war in Iraq. It didn’t make us any less strong – and we weren’t looking to be loved or weakly say “can’t we just all not fight” – but instead strengthened our image. We brought the world along, costs were shared, goals were shared, but we were the leaders uncontested. Bush 2’s Administration took the attitude that for all intents and purposes we didn’t need the rest of the world and we could prosecute the Iraq War largely on our own without a lot of burden sharing or buy-in. It has cost us a lot more, and opinion of our country – and the view of it as a leader worth following – has diminished. Yes, of course, we had the firepower, but now, when we ask for cooperation, collaboration, or otherwise push our views in the world, our strength is diminished.</p>
<p>We need a president who understands this complex interplay. And, as Barack is, he needs in my opinion to be anchored in a realist view of the world and foreign policy (which by the way is a very centrist, even historically Republican, view), but also understand how we’ll have our interests served and get much more of what we want if we attend to the soft power end of the spectrum.</p>
<p>McCain doesn’t appear to understand this, given he parrots a lot of Bush’s line. Clearly, too, BZ you don’t understand since you missed the entire point of my post and reverted to talking about some kind of “kumbaya” foreign policy that you think Obama upholds. He clearly doesn’t.</p>
<p>But what exactly do they do to address their constituents’ problems? In my opinion, the difference between helping the community as a senator and as a community organizer is similar to the difference between volunteering at a soup kitchen and donating money to the soup kitchen. One is quite personal while the other is not.</p>
<p>Also, I think that another key difference is seen in the way senators and community organizers address problems. Community organizers are more pragmatic and make decisions based on economics while senators are more goal-oriented. For example, if someone seeks out a community organizer to help them find an affordable place to live, the community organizer will literally help them find a place to live where they can afford the rent–which is rather pragmatic. If this same person asks a senator for help, the senator will start pushing for legislation to make housing more affordable–not pragmatic and is clearly goal-oriented.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to disagree. I don’t expect a president to work out all the details of an operation. I expect him to lay down a general policy–after getting advice–and letting others fill out the details; it’s the difference between strategy and tactics, policy and implementation. So a congressman may decide to help constituents but leave the implementation to his staff. But the decision to help rests with the congressman. Decision-making is key.</p>
<p>what do you mean a political or economic solution? Unless you think that a community organizer gives away his own money, all solutions are going to be political in nature, whether they involve city hall or Congress or getting people to organize their own community against crimes or to plant a community garden.</p>
<p>I have made no bones about supporting Obama. But I do not think it is helpful to demonize or belittle McCain in order to make the case for supporting him. And that is precisely why I have been disappointed that McCain has spent last week attacking Obama rather than making his own case.</p>
<p>Dude, I was being facetious - or don’t you understand sarcasm.</p>
<p>Anyway, I agree w/ must of what you posted after that. I don’t think you can really equate Bush w/ McCain tho’. And even tho’ people try to say, "Neither McCain nor Obama have actually been president, therefore have no experience as such, I would contend (once again) that McCain has probabaly been Bush’s staunchest critic. He probabaly knows EVERY MISTAKE Bush has made & what he’d do differently. </p>
<p>But getting back to your points about "Soft Power & “Hard Power” (very nicely described & well-related to Bush I & II, btw), don’t assume that McCain is naive about the use of “soft power”. He historically cautioned Pres. Reagan against sending the Marines to Beirut in 1983. Had Reagan listened, the tragedy of those Marines being killed as they slept (by a bomb-laden truck driven into the barracks) would not have happened. McCain advocated a different approach. He’s been well-versed on the background & issues in the Middle East for many years - he alone would know the proper approach (i.e. the best balance b/w hard & soft power).</p>
<p>Let’s just assume that Obama is the greatest authority in the world on the use of “Soft Power” & diplomancy - how beneficial is that if he has no knowledge at all in the use of “hard power”? It takes a *balance<a href=“which%20I’ll%20grant%20GWB%20didn’t%20utilize%20productively”>/i</a>, and clearly McCain, given his broad base of knowledge in Foreign Policy, would be the BEST at balancing the two.</p>
<p>Now, I have to disagree with you. Recently, McCain has been reduced to playing catchup with Obama, though after attacking him first: see Afghanistan; see Iraq withdrawal time table. And where he has not played catchup, the White House has done for him: in Iran and North Korea by engaging in negotiations. McCain has advocated creating a League of Democracy which would be either irrelevant or counterproductive; booting Russia out of G8 despite the fact that the US needs the cooperation of Russia in order to address a whole range of issues. </p>
<p>His foreign policy knowledge may be broad; his wisdom is debatable.</p>
<p>Newjack - I never said that McCain worked in a Family Service Center - I brought that up as a suggested destination for you to gain an understanding about how military families face lots of day-to-day issues which must be continually addressed by the Command.</p>
<p>BUT - you can bet your camoflage bandana that McCain absolutely knows what goes on at a Family Service Center!</p>
<p>I’d even suggest that McCain has a GREATER understanding of the issues that face real people, families & “average americans” than Obama, b/c Obama really is only familiar w/ Chicago & his prior district (which some claim he didn’t even do anything to improve or help and left in a terrible state of affairs) while JM has been addressing myriad constituent concerns for many years.</p>
<p>I disagree. I think the president should be able to set the agenda on his or her own. The president should need advice only to figure out how to best implement his or her plans and to better understand the consequences of his or her plans so that he or she can reconsider them.</p>
<p>That’s why I am especially bothered by McCain’s saying he knows little about the economy because it means that he can’t adequately question the advice he’s getting.</p>
<p>Also, you do expect him or her to be aware of the details, right? </p>
<p>Personally, that’s why I feel more comfortable with Obama. I think that Obama’s intellectual curiosity and appreciation of the intricacies of issues would lead him to be more aware of the consequences of implementing his plans.</p>
<p>When I listen to McCain’s rhetoric it seems as though everything is “yes and no” to him which leads me to think that unlike Obama he does not appreciate or understand that issues are more complex than “yes and no.”</p>
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<p>An economic solution takes into account constraints whereas a political one does not. Basically, a politcal solution is merely a goal whereas an economic solution is a plan.</p>
<p>As for the rest of that, I’m not quite sure how to respond because some parts don’t quite make sense. Most solutions are not political in nature and organizing people isn’t always about politics. Also, are you talking about the state Congress now? State representatives to the national Congress are supposed to focus on national issues not state issues.</p>