<p>I am amazed, he will be judged not on his ability to govern, but b/c he might be gay! Would he have been a better candidate if he brought out a string of women with illegitimate children to convince people he isn’t gay? This is the same as people believing Obama is a Muslim!</p>
<p>I believe Mcain will wait to announce his choice for VP till after the Dem.convention. He needs to know who Obama will have on his ticket. Right now he is testing the summer waters with Crist, Romney, et all. Remember all the earlier conversations about Rice when it looked like Hillary might pull ahead in the delegate count?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>b&p: I could not agree more. Unfortunately, these people are the Republican base right now–or at least the right wing. Myself, despite all his pandering flip-flops, I think Romney would make a good VP. Although he’s been trying to run away from his record, he was pretty good as a MA governor. McCain’s has admitted that economics bores him; it does not bore Romney. His personal life is unimpeachable. As far as I am concerned, his being a Mormon is not an issue as I am not religious. I cannot see Jindal or Giuliani. Crist would be a great choice in many ways, but the possibility that the GOP’s right wing may not accept him may not make him viable.</p>
<p>How is the Massachusetts health care going? That is a big issue for me and I know Romney put through your state insurance plan. Is it working? Problems?</p>
<p>There is more than 63 million hits for an “I had sex with Obama” search. Not sure if the amount of hits any search gets is all that relevant.</p>
<p>It would be scary to choose a VP with the possibility of him/her sinking your campaign. Must be quite a task. </p>
<p>Any prognostications about who Obama will choose?</p>
<p>I am curious as well…</p>
<p>mercymom:</p>
<p>The health care program is facing rising costs and the current governor has been trying to persuade businesses to assume more of those costs–not a very popular policy in this economic climate. Part of the problem is that the state grossly underestimated the number of uninsured. Knowledge of how much it costs to strive for universal health care is one reason I though Obama’s was more likely to succeed than Clinton because of its more limited goals (I also liked it on more libertarian grounds).</p>
<p>Interesting, Marite. Here is the one area where I swing almost completely left, health care. It is the one issue where I think everyone really is “entitled”, and I’d like to see true universal coverage. I will have to look into some of the Mass. facts more. Ideally, I would like a single payor system, but I’d settle for something like the entire country being covered by the equivalent of the federal employee plan. There are so many things I do not think “everyone” is “entitled” to (such as free college, since not everyone should even necessarily go to college, another issue for another day), but everyone should be entitled to decent health care they don’t have to worry about paying for. It’s not like car insurance, you can adjust your life to do without a car, and thus need no car insurance. But everyone needs health care. It’s criminal that in this country so many do not get it.</p>
<p>I really liked Hillary’s health care plan. The scope of it would have insured that it worked, imo. It is interesting that Mass. is having problems. I have read that Taiwan has a good system. But they too are having cost issues. Food for thought.</p>
<p>I hope McCain picks Jindal. That way McCain loses the vote from the racist white people who are opposed to Obama simply because he’s African American. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Should we than believe that African Americans are only voting for Obama because he is black?</p>
<p>This country is in for a world of pain if people believe that McCain won because of racists, or if Obama wins it is because the African American society carried him. Please tell me how we as a nation can heal under those premises? That kind of remark scares me to the core!</p>
<p>mercymom:
I’d love to see universal health care. The problem is whether to hold out for perfection and risk getting nothing (Hillarycare) or go for partial results and hope to expand on them. I am mindful of the difficulty of sustaining health care if there are enough holdouts. But I am equally mindful that many Americans will balk at mandatory health insurance and so will their members of Congress. The MA plan passed because MA is a liberal state and a relatively affluent one. I find it hard to believe that it would pass in many other states. Hence my willingness to endorse a more gradualist approach.</p>
<p>bulletandpima:</p>
<p>You’re being incredibly naive if you think there aren’t people out there voting against Obama simply because of his race. In West Virginia, 23% of the people who voted for Hillary Clinton said that race was a factor in their decision.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I hate stupid questions. </p>
<p>First of all, African Americans have voted for white candidates ever since they could vote, so it’s pretty much impossible to make this case. Also, even if this were true, what does it have to do with people voting against Obama because of his race.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You know what kind of remarks scare me to the core. Remarks like this, “Should we than believe that African Americans are only voting for Obama because he is black?”</p>
<p>Why? Because it is such a poor counter argument.</p>
<p>Also, it’s true that McCain will lose votes if he chooses Jindal simply because Jindal is Indian. Why wouldn’t this be the case if people are voting against Obama because of his race?</p>
<p>Lastly, the case that African Americans carried Obama to victory could not be made all that convincingly. There is no state in which Obama could win by carrying only the African American vote. No matter what, Obama needs white votes. This, however, is not the case with McCain. McCain could win the election without receiving a single African American vote.</p>
<p>(Just another example of how Barack Obama is all about building a diverse coalition, whereas his opponent is not.)</p>
<p>I have heard nothing about McCain picking a running-mate in the next few days. There’s no reason to. With Obama abroad this entire week with “the” press, McCain would get very little coverage during the days afterward compared to later on and will have wasted his major opportunity to create excitement about his campaign. The best time to do it, according to many people and I agree, is right after the Democratic convention to steal some of their fervor; plus McCain would have a few days to mull over the Dem VP to make sure that his bases are covered. Personally, I’d look for the Republican VP the Monday after Denver.</p>
<p>And I really think it’s going to be Romney. The other candidates are fairly attractive as VP candidates as well, but no one brings to the table as much as Romney does. I know McCain can’t stand Romney, but Romney forgave his own $45 million debt. I don’t think he would have done that if he didn’t think he was close to getting the nomination.</p>
<p>There is no way McCain will pick Jindal. As Newjack88 says, there are people who will not want to vote for a non-white candidate. In this election, there is a real danger (for the GOP) that those people will vote for Bob Barr, who is already attractive to gun nuts and the like (Barr’s running mate is a white male, by the way). McCain will not take this risk.</p>
<p>“Also, it’s true that McCain will lose votes if he chooses Jindal simply because Jindal is Indian. Why wouldn’t this be the case if people are voting against Obama because of his race?”</p>
<p>First off you are assuming people are voting against Obama because of his race. People are voting against Obama cause they don’t like him, think he is too liberal and too weak on foreign policy. Second, no one has been voting so far regards Obama except Democrats, so you have no clue how Republicans will vote in a general election on Obama. Republicans haven’t had a chance to weigh in on this except in opinion polls. Third, what a ridiculous statement to make, McCain will lose cause Jindal is Indian. Jindal is the golden boy of the Republican Party. He’s the future and the future is now. Jindal is wildly popular among the Republican base and the evangelicals love him. Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol all want Jindal. The base will turn out in droves for McCain/Jindal and the fundraising will go out the roof.</p>
<p>mercymom, There are absolutely many people who will not vote for Obama because of race. There were Democrats in the primary who voted based on race. There are also Republicans who will not vote for the Republican ticket if Jindal is on it because of race. As conservative as these people are, they don’t want a non-white in the position to become president. They also would not vote for a Jewish president or VP. It is that simple. I have talked to some of them. They would rather stay home. It’s sad and hard for many to believe but race is still a huge consideration for some.</p>
<p>They won’t have to stay home; they can vote for Barr, who is already polling 6% nationally. That could make the difference in close states. I don’t think Nader or Cynthia McKinney will do nearly that well this time.
Edited to add: If McCain does choose Jindal, my respect for him will go up, because I believe it would be a principled decision, not a strategic one.</p>
<p>cartera, you may have talked to “some of them”, but I am related to a huge family of Republicans on both sides, and I live in a Republican dominated city in a Republican dominated state. I not only listen to News and Notes, I listen to Rush Limbaugh (occasionally) so that I find out what everybody is saying. If you say that the Republicans you know don’t want a non-white in the White House, then fine, I believe you, but my evidience is that those people are in the minority of the Republican Party. Jindal is way more popular than the average Democrat either thinks or would like to believe. Plus, and I hesitate to say this, he is Indian and not African American. If people are as racist as you think they are, that is a crucial distinction. Jindal allows some people to feel less guilty about not voting for a black candidate cause they can tell themselves he is dark, so of course they’re not racist. It is ridiculous we are even having this conversation.</p>
<p>And as I am sure that at some point someone will mention Jindal pushing through that creation science law, well the only people who that will turn off are the kind of high minded intellectuals who adore Obama (altho it turns me off frankly), once again, sad to say, that law will be a gigantic plus for some Republicans, the very ones who are having a hard time warming up to McCain. Personally, I like Mitt Romney, but he is a Mormon and he got that health care package thru in Mass. Two big negatives for the type of Republican McCain needs to get behind him. Honestly, Republicans care less about race than the average Democrat would like to believe. They care about taxes, money and self reliance. If you buy into the ideology and run with it, they will love you no matter what color you are.</p>
<p>Ok all of you folks are so enlightened that you’re choosing Obama because you’re so much better than the unwashed, unenlightened masses, WHY are you voting for him? Is it his experience? Not likely. His legislative track record? Don’t think so? His history of reaching across the aisle? Yeah. No. Then what? His jump shot, which I hear is very good? His eloquence? Well that upspeak is quite annoying. </p>
<p>I personally know many liberals for whom self esteem is all and it is profoundly important to them that they be seen as different, better, smarter than ordinary folks. Some of those people NEED to vote for and support Obama and to create a scenario where others are racist (and therefore less smart, enlightened, etc.) to hold themselves up and apart. But the thing is this: many of them are not holding Obama (or their decision) to the same standard to which they would hold another candidate (white), because the whole thing isn’t about the candidate it’s about them. They have to b first among the lemmings to scream to the world “look I’m not racist because I’ll vote for a black man!!” but really, they don’t see his humanity or his possibilities, just his skin. Because that’s the only thing that sets Senator Obama apart from lots of other under-qualified liberals supporting the same views.</p>
<p>There ARE people who won’t vote for Obama because he is black. There ARE racist Americans on the right. But there are also racist Americans on the left, some of whom will vote for him only because he’s black, not because he’s qualified. However, not everyone who chooses not to vote for a candidate that they find unattractive is racist. It only becomes an argument when you need to elevate yourself by stepping on others or when you are secretly afraid that you’ll need to have a story in which your candidate loses for reasons other than incompetence and inexperiernce. Cause then it’s not your fault for picking your candidate for questionable reasons.</p>
<p>Slam away. Call me a hater, which I’m not. Call me a McAiniac, which I’m really not. Then go back and read your own posts outside of the echo chamber.</p>
<p>The thing about Jindal is that we love him. Yep. There are republicans who want to show the world that we’re not racist too. You’re totally wrong on Jindal. He’s got issues with regard to religion and we surely don’t want to take the inexperience card out of the deck, but let me tell you, republicans not only love Bobby Jindal, we love to love him AND high-five each other about the fact that we have him.</p>