<p>Aren’t Audis expensive to repair?</p>
<p>“Aren’t Audis expensive to repair?”</p>
<p>I imagine that they are today, especially given the shape of the US dollar.</p>
<p>The Audi 4000 was essentially a Volkswagen. When you opened the hood, you’d see the VW logo all over the place. The 1.7 liter engine (how many cars have engines that small today) was the same engine as the VW Rabbit. So the cost of parts wasn’t that bad. The larger Audi 5000 (of 60 minute fame) was quite a different animal and I don’t think that it had a lot of parts in common with most VWs. Audi went upscale in the 1990s moving from their performance image into the luxury image. It annoyed past owners but turned out to be the correct move financially. I have a friend with an A6 and M3 and he tells me stories about bills that make me glad to have a Toyota.</p>
<p>The thing is if carmakers could build something with 36 MPG, and plenty of room and creature comforts back in 1982, why can’t they do much more today?</p>
<p>Qualification to be commander in chief for wars in Iraq (next 100 years?) Iran (bomb, bomb, bomb…) Afghanistan and now Georgia? Yeah, right.
What about qualifications for conducting foreign policy in such a way as to protect US interests and avoid needless wars?</p>
<p>Would the suckerfishes swim against the tide if Hillary was the VP choice?</p>
<p>The newer Avalons are the best bang for the buck in a family car both for initial cost and gas/maint.</p>
<p>I doubt we’ll see any higher percentage of Dems voting for Mr. 100-Year-War-That-I-Can’t-Recall than have voted for Reps in Presidential elections previously, or at least no more than the “race premium” than exists in the electorate generally speaking. Whether Obama is able to overcome the race premium is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>But (and I am not one), the Dems are generally going to romp in this year’s election - Senate, House, Govs, states. A combination of George Bush, huge increases in Black/Latino registration, and Rep retirements are going to swamp the Party of Family Values.</p>
<p>VP makes no difference in my vote. It doesn’t make an inexperienced, unqualified candidate qualified to be Commander-in-Chief.</p>
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<p>Don’t be so hard on McCain!</p>
<p>Let’s be fair - he has lots of experience (most of it indicating poor judgment), but, for better or worse, he probably doesn’t remember.</p>
<p>"But when it comes to mental performance, McCain’s age carries risks. Twenty-two percent of Americans 71 and older are affected by mild cognitive impairment, a decline in brain function that causes memory loss and can lead to dementia. Further, 35 to 40 percent of older adults have neural deficits that lead to poor decision making.</p>
<p>Are McCain’s malaprops signs of something worrisome? After all, everybody commits gaffes. Barack Obama has said there are 57 states in the U.S., called Israel a great friend of Israel, and mixed up which concentration camp his great-uncle helped liberate. So it would be not only gratuitously cruel but dumb to blame McCain blunders like his call to “deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies” on his age. But many of McCain’s verbal mistakes over the past few months fall into a different category: Though unintentional, they are errors of political expedience.</p>
<p>In just the past six weeks, McCain has referred repeatedly to Czechoslovakia as though it still existed and to Vladimir Putin as though he were still president of Russia. More significantly, he has claimed that Iraq borders Pakistan, that the Anbar Awakening occurred after the surge, that the Iraq war was America’s first major armed conflict since 9/11, and that, unlike Obama, he would prefer to speak outside the country only after being elected president. </p>
<p>In May, McCain incorrectly said the U.S. had drawn down its forces in Iraq to pre-surge levels. In March, he wrongly claimed that Iran was training Al Qaeda operatives. Last April, he mistakenly said General David Petraeus regularly drove around Baghdad in an unarmored Humvee. In each of these “McCain moments,” political life would have been easier for the candidate if his statements were true. But none were.</p>
<p>What might be happening in McCain’s head? Gerontologists and retirement planners have learned that aging brains compensate for cognitive decline by relying on templates of familiar knowledge more than problem solving. That’s usually a good thing, but neuroscientists have also found that memory loss can lead people to substitute incorrect information. This phenomenon, called confabulation, rather than being random, often takes the form of untrue “facts” that make them feel better — giving them what scientists have called “the pleasantness of false beliefs.” So are McCain’s stumbles simply misstatements, or evidence of a mind filling in blanks with wish fulfillment? Well, we really have no idea. But neither does McCain: His aides told reporters in May that he has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years."</p>
<p>–New York Magazine, 8/15</p>
<p>Age discrimination based attacks are “the tired old politics of the past”.</p>
<p>Well, McCain has a longer past than Obama, that’s for sure! :)</p>
<p>Reports now surfacing that the Dems may tap John “Liveshot” Kerry as the VP pick. That would be sweet. I could vote against him twice in the same day.</p>
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<p>No way. …</p>
<p>Why “no way”? They are Democrats. They always shoot themselves in the foot. Heck, they tapped John Edwards last time. Kerry is as inner circle as you can get. He epitomizes the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine John Kerry as Obama’s VP Agent of Change. Kerry represents tired, old Washington politics.</p>
<p>ID: You’re right about Democrats’ penchant for self-immolation. We’ve got a long and noble history of it. 
However, we don’t generally bring back proven losers. The Dems are much more likely to seek out a brand new “loser-in-waiting.” I’m praying it won’t be Bayh or Caine. One looks like a plasticized, middle-aged Ken doll, the other like Jimmy Hoffa’s son.</p>
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<p>The problem with the Democratic Party is that the leadership is so out of touch with the American people they would be better off staging all their campaign events in Germany.</p>
<p>Did you catch Howard Dean calling the Republicans the “White Party” this week?</p>
<p>"Age discrimination based attacks are “the tired old politics of the past”.</p>
<p>He IS the tired old politics of the past, except that, for him, given his disabiliy, they are the present. That’s the whole point.</p>
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<p>Well, that was stupid. … Still, I’ve thought the same thing at times. Common sense tells me there are Republicans of all ethnicities … but when the camera pans the faces in the crowd at a GOP convention, the impression you get is of a sea of white. The Democratic conventions look more like the melting pot America is supposed to be. … Also, for the debates this year, the Republicans lined up a bunch of middle-aged-to-old white conservative males–while the Democrats offered up a woman, an Hispanic, an African-American, a madman, a plagiarist, and a vertically challenged guy.</p>