so what, take a pull whenever you hear someone mention "Washington Insiders" "Pork Barrell" or "When I'm president....."

You have to get through the primary to be able to be elected. It was necessary.

Just a few thoughts:

Everyone is talking about lowering taxes of some sort, there's little talk about decreasing spending.

Somehow the Abortion issue is above Obama's pay grade, is that his way of saying he wants a raise?

The War, no one likes it, it's a clusterfuck. We're there, how do we step up and get the @#*$ out. I've heard no really good plans from either side here.

Who do you trust, a veteran or a lawyer? Both have probably been shot at.

If either win, does the 2nd Amendment go away? Probably.

If you guys secede, does anyone notice?

*disclaimer* some of this is serious, some humor, you're all smart enough to sort that out.

It was "dick waving" not "dick swinging" (that's what tools on the vortex do to Randy.)

Regardless, of course the parties are going to bicker and argue, they're diametrically opposed. That's what they do. Also I can see reason behind your distrust of the New Jersey Democratic party. I'm not wholeheartedly a democrat, but in it's current incarnation, I wholeheartedly despise everything the republican party has become. So I'm getting on board with the only people that have any chance of unseating them from power. It also happens that Barack Obama is one of the best candidates I've ever had the chance to vote for.


You are absolutely correct that saying "X sucks. Y is our only hope," does nothing to offer solutions. So I'll offer up a couple of reasons why I believe McCain sucks and Obama is far and away the better candidate.

The War
 The war costs us billions of dollars a month, over 4,000 US soldiers have lost their lives (most since the declaration of Mission Accomplished,) and tens of thousands more have come home with serious injurty, both physical and mental. Conservative estimates of the loss of life for Iraqi civilians is at 100,000. Other estimates are as high as 500,000. There are 4.5 million refugees as a result of our invasion.

John McCain is on record wanting to invade Iraq within a month of Sept. 11, 2001, despite the fact that the Hussein regime had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks. He wants to maintain a military presence in Iraq for "..up to 100 years if necessary.." and is in a giant hurry to "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." He has accused Obama of "cutting and running" because Obama thinks we need to set a timetable for withdrawal. An opinion that had every right wing shill accusing him of being a "Defeatocrat." However, since that time Pres. Bush and Prime Minister Al-Maliki of Iraq have agreed to 2011 as a target date for withdrawal. John McCain, still disagrees with setting a timetable, even though the freely elected leader of the sovereign nation we're occupying has said "maybe it's time to go."

Barack Obama was against the war from the beginning. Believes that the invasion of Iraq has been a giant distraction, nothing more than giant waste of money and life. He believes that our military strength has been squandered in a quagmire of an occupation, and that the people who really attacked us on 9/11 have been ignored and been able to regroup in Afghanistan where things are getting quite out of hand of late. While he wants to get us out of Iraq as fast as possible he's always said "I will be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting into Iraq."

Taxes
Despite John McCain's claims to the contrary, Barack Obama will most likely not raise your taxes. There's an equal chance that you'll pay more under John McCain than you do now.  Here is a handy tool for figuring out what your income tax burden under an Obama administration will be --> http://obamataxcut.com/ it's based off of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center's assessment of both candidates proposals. There's a link on the page that explains it all.
This helps too (originally published in the Washington Post)

 
Obama will "raise" the taxes on the highest bracket by allowing the Bush Tax Cuts to expire. John McCain, after being staunchly opposed to those tax cuts when they were proposed, now believes they're the best thing since sliced bread. And will raise Capital Gains taxes to Clinton levels (about 20%, but I'm not sure)

Government Reform
During his first week in the Senate, Barack Obama started working on ethics reform. In doing so he pissed off plenty of people from either side of the aisle. He worked with Tom Coburn (hardcore R from Oklahoma) to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, a bill that created a Google-like search engine ( http://usaspending.gov ) and database to track approximately $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans. In his speech last night, John McCain promised to veto the first porkbarrel bill that came across his desk as president, and to let the people know who the guilty parties that wanted it passed were. Well, thanks to Barack Obama and Tom Coburn, we don't have to wait for John McCain to tell us. We can find out on our own. From the beginning of his campaign, Obama said he would not take any money from lobbyists, he hasn't. His campaign has sent more than a few refunds to people who donated small sums but were still registered lobbyists, or had been recently. He's generated record amounts of donations from over 2,000,000 people. The average size of each donation has been less than $100, and closer to $20, but I haven't seen a firm number on that recently. He is the de facto head of the Democratic Party now, and as such has stopped the use of 527 groups by the party to launch petty attack ads.

John McCain's staff is rotten with former lobbyists. His chief economic adviser Sen. Phil Gramm, (from TX, retired) is probably my favorite. He was one of 5 cosponsors of the bill that has been linked to the Enron shitstorm by exempting energy trading from federal regulation (aka The Enron Loophole.) At the time the bill was being worked on Phill Gramm's wife was on the board of Enron. (Clinton was the president at the time the bill was signed, so he holds some accountability as well.) He co-sponsored a bill that reduced government involvement in the banking industry put in place after the Great Depression. This bill has been linked to the current mortgage crisis. From 1995-2000 Gramm received over a million dollars in campaign contributions from the banking industry. During which time he was the Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee. In 2007 he was paid $750,000 by UBS (big Swiss bank that's made a bunch of money at the expense of the middle class.) If McCain is elected, one of my biggest concerns is that this man might become the Secretary of the Treasury. After he called Americans whiners regarding the mortgage crisis, I'm pretty sure there won't be much compassion in McCain's economic policies.  McCain's Foriegn Policy adviser is another fine example of "Mavericky Reform." Randall Scheunemann, lobbied for the nation of Georgia for four years, including for about a year after he joined the campaign staff in early 2007. Georgia has paid Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, LLC, nearly $900,000 since 2004, including $200,000 for an eight-month contract that began on May 1, two weeks after McCain issued a strong statement criticizing Russia and supporting Georgia.



I've been at this for about an hour now, so I'm going to stick a fork in it for the time being. If you need any clarifications, have questions etc. I'll gladly expand on anything. I've just got other things that need accomplishing today. 

Wow, alot to read at 4am.
Personally Palin scares the everliving shit out of me.

I'm tired and need to drive to Baltimore now.

Oh, and this if weird too...
=

I'll sum my points and where I stand now getting closer to the election. I've been driving my wife crazy the last few weeks with reading the news everyday and comparing articles written about both sides.

McCain is, without a doubt, a decorated war hero and United States patriot. He's also been a US Senator for MANY years in, arguably, good standing. I truly believe he would be a better President than Bush (as it wouldn't take much  ) and has the potential to "right the ship." Now of course the flipside, I believe he made a quick, party influenced decision in selecting Palin that I believe will cost him the election. Palin's experience is far less than Obama's and the Republican party practically plays that card everyday towards Obama. If inexperience is an issue with the opposing candidate than what made it ok to choose Palin?

Obama has no doubt had the spotlight on him becoming the face of change. In the most recent months, it's been very easy for the Democratic party to hop on the bandwagon and express displeasure with our current leaders. I like the fact that Obama, and only Obama, distances himself with the die hard left wing and actually expresses why he feels this way and what he plans to change. He continually expresses his gratitude and respect to John McCain for his service as a soldier and a senator. I think that goes a long way, in addition to the fact that I can relate to some of the things he wants to change. 

Obama is on the democratic ticket. Not that I'm Republican, as my family and I have no political affliation, but NJ has done nothing but absolutely skew our opinions of democratic party leadership. In recent years in NJ, our US Rep's and local councilmen have been split 50/50 and things have been slowly but surely getting better. As middle class Americans in this state, we've been on the recieving end of nothing but pay out the ass for scandals, scams, and more taxes with no resolution in sight. Don't give me the shit "oh, just move out of NJ." It's not easy to pick up, leave everything you know, family, a great job, etc. so we're stuck with the history that has been placed in our laps. We do have the power to change it and it has been, hopefully for the better.

That's it in a nutshell.

Truthfully. Yes, I will. I've recently read some interesting things about him and if you remove the party lines bullshit, he's a very humble person in his views on reform, etc.  I think pre election I was too blinded by the media's portrayal of the Clinton - Obama duel. Plus, I was never a fan of the Clinton's, more-so Hillary.

What would like in return? Even though I'm not going to H2O I will gladly send a case of beer  with your name on it. 

I want you to go to H20.


Or vote for Obama, though it doesn't really matter. New Jersey isn't in play for the Republicans.