Who's "us" though? There's 300 million people here. I bet if you asked around for what constitutes an "intelligent decision for those in power", you'd get lots of different answers, and they'd often be completely contradictory. We're always going to suffer from this problem so long as the determining factor of what constitutes an intelligent decision is that it's "for us". Heck, there are certainly some decisions, which I would have labeled as acutely intelligent, that ought to have been made by people in power that went 'against' us, out of simple fairness to future generations and the debt we've willfully incurred and are passing onto them.

IMO, your thread was okay until the end, which was a patent false dichotomy and was correctly placed in this trash heap of a thread. I've seen this a lot -- forum member makes a pretty good OP about the causes of the Iraq War, for instance, then turds it up right at the end with an open question to the forum like: "Did Bush start the Iraq War because he hates Arabs or is he just a ******?" These inevitably degenerate into garbage and it's entirely the OP's fault for mucking up good content with a terrible lead-in designed to do nothing but generate stupid arguments. IMO, any thread that ends with "Is Obama scamming you or is he just a dupe?" is going to be a trainwreck, and you should have the good sense to realize that. So put my vote in the "Wookie did the right thing" column.

The other thing to keep in mind is that this forum would be filled to the brim with election nonsense if it weren't contained, and people who want to talk about anything not related to the election, the candidates, and their respective plans wouldn't have a medium on 2p2 to do it if the mods weren't merging things here.

Yeah, I wasn't thrilled with how I worded that.

us = the people of this country as a whole and the us of future generations

I want to separate what I'm saying from any implication that I mean everyone should somehow be made perfect by government. The main idea is too many of our elected officials are more interested in themselves than the US and its people. They do as much as they have to in order to stay in power in an almost reactionary way, and to make matters worse they're far too often empty suits. I think it's dangerous for us to continue electing them.

Right, but I'm not asking what they think right now. Part of my problem is the system is rigged in such a way that ordinary people aren't given real choices or information much of the time, as if that's supposed to help move us forward. When everything is about winning the real issues are often pushed so far down the public at large can't see them. The current media shares a huge about of blame for that.

The only positive thing we might get out of the current economic situation is that it may help bring about a return to real debates and journalism. I've seen a few encouraging signs of that already.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carniv...8/10/bull.html

Rasmussen tracker 52-44 Obama

Those Rasmussen state polls yesterday concerned me a bit. I need someone to post Nate's assessment about the impossibility of winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote by >2.5% because I can't find it. And why do I always believe the worst polls in regard to obama ? The neo-cons are in my head.

I'm sure this was meant to reassure about McCains health but lol. Probably belongs in Palin thread , but at this point anything is general election chatter other than Troopergate.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/lieb-palin-ready/


Lieberman: ‘Thank God’ Palin won’t have to ‘be president from day one.’»

In an interview with Connecticut reporters, Sen. Joe Lieberman expressed concerns about Sarah Palin’s readiness to assume the presidency if John McCain were unable to:

[W]hen asked by The Advocate if Palin is ready to be president from day one, Lieberman said “thank God she’s not going to have to be president from day one. McCain’s going to be alive and well.”

Asked a friend this... what do you think (maybe this has been talked about in the 538 comments) Nate would have had Kerry/Bush's winshare at on Oct. 25, 2004? I guess this was before the OBL video, but still, might be interesting to think about for a frame of reference.

It is amazing how lukewarm and cautiously optimistic Dems are this year. Anytime you try to convince them that it's basically over, they shout you down with "we thought that about Kerry!" I'm like... well, you shouldn't have...

So has anyone actually voted yet? I hit up the early voting last week to avoid any bullsh*t on the 7th. It was a fairly painless experience.

Well, good thing you didn't wait until the 7th.

I absentee'd.

I presume Obama still focuses on McCain, but does Biden start using this quote? If so does he note Lieberman said this, or just a "prominent McCain supporter"?

McCain Communications Director Gave Reporters Incendiary Version Of "Carved B" Story Before Facts Were Known The nutso woman was a volunteer but communications director Peter Feldman is (was? has he been fired?), I assume, a paid staffer.

You apparently missed ike's triumphant return to politics. Barack Obama did the same thing himself when it came to that "kill him!" story at the Palin rally. But actually, not Obama himself, just all of the MSM. Or something. He was probably being sarcastic, but it didn't make any sense even if he was. Either way, add one more in the ike's victory column over the Politics forum

Does that get him up to one yet?

Obama 52, McCain 40 in CO -- Rocky Mtn News poll

Obama 49, McCain 46 in OH Newspaper/Univ. of Cincinnati poll

U. of Cincinnati had M+2 in their last poll, so that's a pretty big shift.

This is pretty much what's left of the GOP:

I don't get how you can keep praising Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin for their remarkably honorable decisions to keep their babies. It wasn't a ****ing decision. If it was, then your whole platform is just ******edly hypocritical.

Best part:

Seems like Burke could be a solid contender in the 2012 GOP Iowa caucuses at this rate.

Right, OP, Shawnee, Lenexa, Leawood, Mission, etc. are all pretty much the greater kansas city area (yes I know it has a specific boundary), or maybe me and my friends just referred to us as KC for ease. And while they probably all lean republican, I'd say it's a pretty close split. The state still does 35% or so each election cycle, and none of that is coming from west of K10 aside from Lawrence and maybe Manhattan.

Lol. Like the rest of the city, huh? Glad you got out, I'm still working on that aspect. And yeah, Johnson County is like a hippy's nightmare. Nice place to raise a family though...

And Rocky Mountain news poll was +3 McCain in August. The new Colorado result might mean we're going to see several more ~double digit leads there if we believe the "McCain camp thinks Colorado is a lost cause" speculation of this week.

Well, they haven't really pulled out of CO, since McCain was there yesterday. Hell, they haven't even pulled out of Iowa. Palin is campaigning in Sioux City and Des Moines today.

Right, not abandoned like Michigan, I just remember reading comments around blogs from "sources" in the campaign, with the implication an assault on PA was necessary as a last ditch effort to mitigate the IA/CO/NM + Kerry victory scenario. Formally abandoning any of IA/CO/NM (maybe not IA?) would probably be news cycle death, and morale death, so I'm not expecting it anytime soon.

Of course I have no idea who to believe half the time. That PA fake-out scenario DE posted last night would be hilarious if true.

Great cover story on McCain in the NYT Magazine today. Long, but worth reading.

This was posted earlier when it was first posted online by them, but yeah, it's great.

The knives are out, watch your back Senator McCain