What is McCain thinking!?

[Hunt]

<p>I think the election is Obama’s to lose. Any Republican would have a huge uphill battle to win after Bush. McCain is probably the best situated to do it, but it’s going to be very difficult, unless Obama helps him.</p>

[HiWei]

<p>

Has anyone noticed that just the talk of getting more oil drilling started has lowered gas price about 5%? That’s a start. An orderly process to opening more good fields could bring the price down another 10-20% as the price fall below $100 again.

</p>

<p>??? Oil prices didn’t drop because of the remote prospect of oil drilling? It’s been dropping because of the poor economy in the U.S. will (and already has) dragged down the demand for oil. Less demand, lower price. If we make a concerted decision today to start drilling for oil, that oil will hit the market in no less than 8-10 years. If you look at the process that we have to go through (exploration, testing, bidding for different sectors, testing again, building massive rigs, and finally drilling and pumping), we’re no where close to having talk of oil drilling affect the gas price.</p>

[pafather]

<p>“this election is about Obama, whether one likes him or loathes him or worries about him. To some, he represents the promise of something different and to others, the risk of someone too different.”</p>

<p>Different from what? If you mean most people won’t vote for him because he is half-black, then I would disagree. If you mean different from the middle of the road or different from what most people think, then I would agree with you. Although Obama has only been in the Senate a few years, it is very clear that he is among the most leftist and liberal of all Senators. For all the talk he has regarding reaching across the aisle, he is extremely liberal. Furthermore, if he is elected President, the House and Senate are overwhelmingly Democrat, so he doesn’t need to “reach across the aisle.” Rather, he needs to keep the House and Senate from veering too far to the left. Does any reasonable person think that the most liberal person in the Senate is going to prevent it from passing the most liberal laws of all time. And Obama would definitely nominate more Supremem Court Justices like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, rather than Roberts. If you think that Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Obama represent mainstream America, then you are mistaken.</p>

[barrons]

<p>All the more reason to start yesterday. Just because it takes time does not mean you don’t get started. It took 20 years to build most of the Interstate Highway System. That did not keep them from starting it in the 50’s. </p>

<p>The economy has been reported widely to be in recession for nearly a year now.(even though not true) so the idea that any recent changes have impacted the price this month is silly.</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>

As liberals/progressives, I do not know how anyone here can suggest it would be wrong for us to do more drilling off our shores or on our land, but absolutely necessary for “developing countries” like Venezuela, Libya, Iran and Iraq to increase production.

</p>

<p>The economies of those countries are completely different from the economy of the United States. It’s necessary for those “developing countries” to increase production because it’s how they can make money to invest in their infrastructure and in developing other aspects of their economy such as manufacturing.</p>

<p>

Has anyone noticed that just the talk of getting more oil drilling started has lowered gas price about 5%? That’s a start. An orderly process to opening more good fields could bring the price down another 10-20% as the price fall below $100 again.

</p>

<p>Ummm… that is because the price of oil is based upon speculation–which is a bit shady since there is little regulation of this. </p>

<p>I don’t think that the prospect of drilling for oil in new areas is what is driving down prices. There are too many things at work. One is that demand is falling since prices have been going up. Another is that there has been a lot of talk about regulating oil speculation and closing the Enron loophole.</p>

<p>

Unlike Ambinder, I’m not suspecting this 86-year old woman of even a whiff of racism; she just does not feel comfortable with someone who has not been in the limelight for long and whose biography is so different from that of public figures to which she is accustomed. But it is just this lack of familiarity that draws the media to Obama.

</p>

<p>She’s 86. She’s probably a little bit prejudiced. Sorry, but it’s true. She also probably voted for JFK even though at the time he had not been in the limelight for long.</p>

<p>Also, It’s a fallacy that Obama has not been specific about his life and his policies. If the lady is not prejudiced, she’s a bad listener or has trouble comprehending what Obama says then.</p>

[Woodwork]

<p>

She’s 86. She’s probably prejudiced as heck.

</p>

<p>That is just too rich to be left alone. </p>

<p>To be clear:</p>

<p>– Her ‘prejudice’ --one would presume-- is believing that because Senator Obama is of a particular race he must be beneath her “high” standards.</p>

<p>– Your ‘judgment’ --one would presume-- is thinking that because she is of a particular generation she must be beneath your “high” standards.</p>

<p>There’s a lesson in this.</p>

<p>.</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>Woodwork:</p>

<p>I actually changed that post to say she’s probably “a little bit prejudiced.”</p>

<p>Anyway, I would think that most people in my generation would agree that people who grew up almost 90 years ago are more likey to have racial, gender, sexual-orientation, religious, etc. prejudices.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>Come on, Woodwork. A person who is 86 was born in 1922, and was already in her 30’s at the dawn of the Civil Rights era. It’s not an insult to recognize that such a person will have grown up with racial attitudes different from people today. In certain areas of the country, this would be true of virtually every 86-year-old.</p>

[marite]

<p>Well, I don’t know which part of the country this old lady is from. And make no mistake, Obama IS different, if only because of the color of his skin and his biography. </p>

<p>

If the lady is not prejudiced, she’s a bad listener or has trouble comprehending what Obama says then.

</p>

<p>Most voters do not read every last article by or about candidates, tune in to every debate, no matter what their age or their political leanings. I give this woman plenty of credit for trying to articulate her feelings about Obama. They’re probably no less informed than that of a lot of people, including of people who have made up their own minds for or against Obama (listen to the howls of outrage from the netroots, for instance, as if Obama had betrayed them instead of their glomming their own beliefs onto him).</p>

<p>PAdad: I actually don’t think that Obama will turn out to ACT very different precisely because I think he has a deep conservative streak, as Larissa MacFarquhar noted in her New Yorker profile last year.
[Profiles:</a> The Conciliator: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_macfarquhar]Profiles:”>Barack Obama, Before He Was President | The New Yorker)
But lots of people think he IS different and therefore will ACT different. And that is an important component in decision-making.</p>

[Woodwork]

<p>

Come on, Woodwork. A person who is 86 was born in 1922, and was already in her 30’s at the dawn of the Civil Rights era.

</p>

<p>fwiw, </p>

<p>good people did not first come into being in 1964…even if the computer mouse did.</p>

<p>.</p>

<p>I, for instance, was born in 1959. As were, I believe, a good many of our fellow posters.
That was 5 wondrous years before your genesis of the New Man. </p>

<p>If for no other reason than this, I would be forced to protest this obvious and unwarranted bit of ageism.</p>

<p>Your age is not equal to your being.</p>

<p>Although in your defense it has been said by thinkers greater than I that existence is not a predicate, I will continue to believe in freewill.</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>New topic:</p>

<p>Why is McCain falling for Obama’s trap? Obama is being reluctant to admit he was wrong in not supporting the surge so that he can counter saying that he was right from the very beginning in not supporting the war which is a much more popular position. Obama and his surrogates are letting McCain run with this so that when Obama counters the counter attack will receive more press coverage.</p>

[marite]

<p>PADad:</p>

<p>This is the passage in the Larissa MacFarquhar profile that particularly struck me: </p>

<p>

In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative. There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good. Take health care, for example. “If you’re starting from scratch,” he says, “then a single-payer system”—a government-managed system like Canada’s, which disconnects health insurance from employment—“would probably make sense. But we’ve got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that’s not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they’ve known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside.”

[Profiles:</a> The Conciliator: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker](<a href=“Barack Obama, Before He Was President | The New Yorker”>Barack Obama, Before He Was President | The New Yorker)</p>

<p>And the following:

Obama’s voting record is one of the most liberal in the Senate, but he has always appealed to Republicans, perhaps because he speaks about liberal goals in conservative language. When he talks about poverty, he tends not to talk about gorging plutocrats and unjust tax breaks; he says that we are our brother’s keeper, that caring for the poor is one of our traditions. Asked whether he has changed his mind about anything in the past twenty years, he says, “I’m probably more humble now about the speed with which government programs can solve every problem. For example, I think the impact of parents and communities is at least as significant as the amount of money that’s put into education.” Obama encourages his crossover appeal. He doesn’t often criticize the Bush Administration directly; in New Hampshire recently, he told his audience, “I’m a Democrat. I’m considered a progressive Democrat. But if a Republican or a Conservative or a libertarian or a free-marketer has a better idea, I am happy to steal ideas from anybody and in that sense I’m agnostic.” “The number of conservatives who’ve called me—roommates of mine, relatives who are Republicans—who’ve said, ‘He’s the one Democrat I could support, not because he agrees with me, because he doesn’t, but because I at least think he’ll take my point of view into account,’ ” Michael Froman, a law-school friend who worked in the Clinton Administration and is now involved in Obama’s campaign, says. “That’s a big thing, mainstream Americans feeling like Northeast liberals look down on them.”

</p>

[Woodwork]

<p>Marite,</p>

<p>your first box-quote is extraordinarily reassuring. It sounds real, honest and pragmatic.</p>

<p>The second, less so. It has something of a market-spin to it.</p>

<p>But these days, half-good is a vast improvement on no-good.</p>

[marite]

<p>Woodwork:</p>

<p>I thought so, too.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>“good people did not first come into being in 1964…even if the computer mouse did.”</p>

<p>I agree with that, but the fallacy is that saying that a person has racial biases means she is not a good person. Most people, good or bad, have biases that derive from the common views of the place and time they grew up. It’s not an insult to recognize that simple fact.</p>

[Woodwork]

<p>No, the fallacy is saying that a person is a racist due to nothing more than their place or time of birth. That is the spirit of racism itself.</p>

<p>So, according to this progressive math, Jesus must have been an out-of-this-world if not of this world racist. Same for his apostles, mother and crew.</p>

<p>All born way before the civil rights era perfected man into its final evolution as the “me generation” of baby boomers and gen Xer’s & Yer’s. lol</p>

<p>.</p>

<p>.</p>

[Newjack88]

<p>Woodwork:</p>

<p>I think you are missing the point. The point is that someone born almost 90 years ago is more likely to harbor racial prejudices–knowingly or even unknowingly–than someone born 20 years ago. It’s a fact.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>Saying that somebody has racial biases is not the same as saying they are racists. Are you saying that people aren’t affected by the prevailing views of their time and community? As for Jesus’ racial biases, go read Mark 7:25-30.</p>

[mini]

<p>Packers or Steelers? (Why is the media coddling McCain?)</p>

[garland]

<p>My H’s guess is because they need a real race–can’t let McCain fall apart yet; it’d kill the ratings.</p>