I think Obama is the first candidate to figure out that the American populace is getting tired of all the negativity surrounding elections. If anything, attack ads are likely disenfranchising people and making them less likely to vote, imo. Like I said before, Obama's been doing a great job of keeping his composure and not losing sight of what he wants to accomplish. Not too shabby for a n00b.
Obama does not believe in running a negative campaign, and thus is why he has never lost his cool or launched any negative attack ads on TV to date. He just doesn't believe in it, and feels its not what America is looking for right now. He is tired of dealing with the 'Swift Boat' politics of 2004, and knows that if we truly are to change as a country, that we need to create a 'transparent' Washington that is honest, truthful and no longer as secretive nor corrupted as the current Bush administration. In his first term as president, Obama plans to take a look at every bill that Bush has passed during his 8 years of presidency and overturn any bill or policy that he feels violates the United States Constitution. He also wants to make sure that every American citizen has broadband internet (as part of his US Technology initiative), and as a part of this he will be holding bi-annual "Web Fireside Chats" where he will be able to communicate directly with the American people as our president as a new type of "state of the union" address if you will. Basically he wants to create an America that not only we (but also the world) can learn to trust again. He wants to have an uncorrupted Washington and therefore make this country something our forefathers would have been proud to be a part of. And quite frankly? That's amazing. And btw, he's no n00b. He might be young but I suggest everyone looks at what he did during the Illinois and United States senate. He's supported a lot of great and positive bills during his tenure as a politician. [youtube]ieMsulD6Tnc[/youtube]
I don't think he's a n00b, that just seems to be the only point of contention people can muster up against him... my attempt at humor. He seems very ambitious. I look forward to seeing how many of the things he has planned come to fruition.
All I ask is that if you are American, and of legal voting age, and that if support Obama that you vote for him in your primaries when they come to your state. All of this support wont matter if we can't get him to get the Democratic nomination, so we need all the support we can get right now. And heck if you wanna support other people in this thread, don't be afraid to. This may be the Obama thread right now, but we are open to hearing about anybody in here =).
Holy shit folks. Keep this in mind, this is only speculation but... Hillary might be dropping out of the race Oh shit.
Trouble is, the Florida primary is in a bit of a clusterfuck. Our genius governor decided to move the date up and break Democratic party rules. This basically means that no matter how well a candidate does in Florida, they're not allowed to receive any delegates from the state. So, Florida delegates have no vote in the choice for who gets the democratic nomination. All Charlie Crist had to do is set the date back seven days, and all would've be good, but no, Floridians have to settle for a less meaningful vote, because the state government is stubborn. It's all rather ridiculous, imo.
I can't vote yet.. I think I have to register or something.. But OBAMA seems like a good choice, but I'm not very big on abortion.. so yeah.
I am so happy you said what you said. My parents and I have always held the belief one should vote for the best possible candidate regardless of their political party (because, honestly, they don't mean anything anyway). It just so happens this time, Obama seems to be the best candidate.
It should be noted that Obama does not only take money from the "average joes like you and I". He is the second top recipient of Health Industry money of presidential candidates (behind only Hillary), with over 2 million dollars coming in. This doesn't necessarily mean much (every major candidate is on that list), and probably shows only that the health care industry is willing to buy out whomever appears to be winning the Presidential race, but to say that Obama only receives funds from the average person is a mistruth. Source: http://opensecrets.org/industries/recips.asp?Ind=H&cycle=2008 Personally I haven't decided whom I support yet. Obama is excellent at giving inspiring speeches - which in my opinion generates a significant portion of his support, after all, Bush's humorous attempts to learn the English language did start to get old after a while... In any case, I haven't heard anything particularly earth shattering from any of the candidates to truly set them apart. It is nice that he never voted in support of the war though...
Look closer: http://opensecrets.org/politicians/sector.asp?CID=N00009638&cycle=2008 Under health he has taken only a mere $2,000 from PACs, and a striking [FONT=Arial, Helvetica]$2,686,638 [/FONT]from individuals. If you look at other fields, some have $0.00 from PACs, yet in the individuals field he is always getting extreme amounts. Now you look at Hillary and she has taken over 16,500 from PACs just in Health alone. That's a decent difference. Only reason Hillary has more individual under health is because she out raised Obama in one quarter.
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean much either. The "individuals" themselves could be ranked highly within the health care industry, have high stakes in it, or submit anonymously (couldn't they?). Still is an interesting point though.
You could be very right about that. Still, either way...Hillary has accepted far more than Obama. There's a decent difference between them numerically...almost half a million more.
So only a few hours left until the results of the NH primary start to pour in. Even though there appears to be less delegates in NH than Iowa, this primary has me more nervous than Iowa ever was because Iowa was just a caucus and not a primary. Tonight is the moment of truth.