US Election Coverage 2008

The Truth said:

Don't start playing the race card it won't work. In fact playing the race card only hurts Barack Obantu. He will be seen as another race bait politician and that is the last thing he needs right now. It's amazing to me that you couldn't come up with any other logical explanation of why Obantu is struggling in the polls right now when he clearly should be way ahead other than Americans are not ready for a black president. Americans gave Obantu a chance, they voted for him in the Iowa caucases but remember that was before his dubious associations came out in the open. So Americans aren't as racist as you are painting them to be. I believe Americans would vote for someone like Colin Powell very easily so it is not Obantu's race that he is struggling in the polls. Go back and look at the reasons I listed on this thread.

Click to expand...

You know nothing about America's politics. Do your research careful before you write anything on this board or better change you name to LIAR. Here are the facts.

Yes it's politically incorrect but race matters

Anatole Kaletsky

American Presidential elections have been compared with reality TV series or game shows, in which a gaggle of jumped-up nonentities aspiring to be celebrities are ritually humiliated in public and offered entertaining opportunities to self-destruct, until only one survivor remains. But this time round, a much more elevated analogy is sadly apposite.

The 2008 US election has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, in which noble heroes and heroines are forced to follow a course to catastrophe, divinely preordained as punishment for sins and blunders committed by their forefathers in the dim and distant past. In acting out their ineluctable doom, the eloquent protagonists do not just destroy themselves but also their cities, their nations and even their entire civilisations.

If this description sounds too grandiose, consider yesterday's results from the Pennsylvania primary. The outcome seemed to be precisely calibrated by the gods to maximise the agony of the Democrats. It gave Hillary Clinton just the support she needed to stay firmly in contention, but not quite enough to turn the tide in her favour.

Worse still, this result underlined the fear that senior Democrats have long been aware of, but have never dared to express in public: America may not yet be ready to elect a black President. Worst of all, it has created conditions for the possible election victory of a militarily belligerent and economically unqualified Republican candidate who supports many of President Bush's worst policies. Given the Bush Administration's domestic and foreign failures, the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the slump in the economy, the possibility of a Republican victory in November would seem to overturn every principle of proper democracy - and also the hope of America and its system of government being rehabilitated in the eyes of the world after the Bush years. The fact that Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are both such impressive candidates, intelligent, sincere, articulate and in command of the issues, while John McCain does not qualify on any of these criteria only makes matters worse.

That Mrs Clinton will now carry on with her campaign is not just probable but essential. For the voting in Pennsylvania confirms that she has a much better chance than Mr Obama of winning the White House for the Democrats. According to the Associated Press exit polls published yesterday, 16 per cent of white Democratic voters considered race an important factor in the Presidential election and 43 per cent of these said they would either vote Republican or not vote at all, if Mr Obama were the Democratic nominee.

Susuviri said:

FYI mku FMES:

The race between John McCain and Barack Obama, for all the talk of a post-convention Republican surge and Democratic jitters, remains pretty much where it was a month ago and mirrors the presidential contest four years ago.

The national polls, taking into account the margin of error, show voters split between the candidates, with fewer than one in 10 still undecided.

The big change is a newly energized Republican base after McCain selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a running mate. Democratic enthusiasm for Obama and his vice presidential nominee, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, was already high.

The template for this year is the 2004 campaign between President George W. Bush and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Obama has the lead in blue states -- those won by Kerry last time, according to surveys taken after the nominating conventions. McCain has a lead in most red states. A notable exception is Ohio, where polls differ over who is ahead.

``The trial heat may indeed be close, but many of the key measurements on which elections turn suggest that the Obama situation is far from deteriorating,'' pollster Peter Hart says. ``Presidential elections often revolve around a gut decision about how Americans feel about the candidate.''

Top Democrats say that while the presidential race might be narrowing, they are maintaining leads in at least four House races with incumbent Republicans.

Click to expand...

The race shouldn't even be close at this point. Obantu should be way ahead of McCain but he isn't. He is a weak candidate. Given the current state of things in America, Democrats should have breezed through to the White House on this election. Even if Obantu pulls the ultimate miracle and wins the election, it will be hard for him to accomplish much with a divided country. Couple that with his income redistribution policies, he will be the worst, the most ineffective president in American history.

Bubu ataka kusema said:

You know nothing about America's politics. Do your research careful before you write anything on this board. Here are the facts.

Yes it's politically incorrect but race matters

Anatole Kaletsky

American Presidential elections have been compared with reality TV series or game shows, in which a gaggle of jumped-up nonentities aspiring to be celebrities are ritually humiliated in public and offered entertaining opportunities to self-destruct, until only one survivor remains. But this time round, a much more elevated analogy is sadly apposite.

The 2008 US election has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, in which noble heroes and heroines are forced to follow a course to catastrophe, divinely preordained as punishment for sins and blunders committed by their forefathers in the dim and distant past. In acting out their ineluctable doom, the eloquent protagonists do not just destroy themselves but also their cities, their nations and even their entire civilisations.

If this description sounds too grandiose, consider yesterday's results from the Pennsylvania primary. The outcome seemed to be precisely calibrated by the gods to maximise the agony of the Democrats. It gave Hillary Clinton just the support she needed to stay firmly in contention, but not quite enough to turn the tide in her favour.

Worse still, this result underlined the fear that senior Democrats have long been aware of, but have never dared to express in public: America may not yet be ready to elect a black President. Worst of all, it has created conditions for the possible election victory of a militarily belligerent and economically unqualified Republican candidate who supports many of President Bush's worst policies. Given the Bush Administration's domestic and foreign failures, the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the slump in the economy, the possibility of a Republican victory in November would seem to overturn every principle of proper democracy - and also the hope of America and its system of government being rehabilitated in the eyes of the world after the Bush years. The fact that Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are both such impressive candidates, intelligent, sincere, articulate and in command of the issues, while John McCain does not qualify on any of these criteria only makes matters worse.

That Mrs Clinton will now carry on with her campaign is not just probable but essential. For the voting in Pennsylvania confirms that she has a much better chance than Mr Obama of winning the White House for the Democrats. According to the Associated Press exit polls published yesterday, 16 per cent of white Democratic voters considered race an important factor in the Presidential election and 43 per cent of these said they would either vote Republican or not vote at all, if Mr Obama were the Democratic nominee.

Click to expand...

Again why did Obantu win the Iowa caucas if Americans are racist as you are painting them to be? This poll you quoted by the author of your article references the Pennyslvania primary. That was way after Obantu's dubious associations came out in the open. I am suprised only less that 7% of Whites said they wouldn't vote for him. I would expect it to be more.

Bubu ataka kusema said:

Okay 🙂 and what is best for America and the whole World is Obama and not Mcsame who voted more than 90% for Kichaka's policies and will inherit most if not all of the same bad policies.

Click to expand...

Obantu's policies are even worse. I have said it before and I'll say it again, McCain wouldn't be my first choice but by far between him and Obantu, McCain is the lesser of two evils.

Susuviri said:

There's also an interesting article in New York Times that gives insight to Palin's modus operandi, very interesting and very devastating for GOP! I think the independent voters will take a second look at her much more closely! Especially about cronyism reminds everyone one of.... DUBYA and Darth Vader aka Cheney. Read it here is a taste of the article

Na huyu mume wake anaonekana kuwa na influence kubwa sana na anamtune vyema mke wake na remote control (not so subtle remote control!)

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said.

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.

Click to expand...

LOL...the more Sarah Palin is irritating liberal media's bowel movements the better it is for McCain. The more the media and the Obantu's campaign is attacking this woman the more endearing she looks to her base. I expect a massive voter turnout in November throughout middle America, American small towns voting for McCain-Palin ticket just because of this woman. If that happens, don't expect Obantu to carry any traditional red states in the electoral college map.

Susuviri said:

More BAD news for McCain - anazidi kuumbuka na kudhibitishiwa kuwa ni ZERO katika economy!!

Greenspan: Country Can't Afford McCain's Tax Cuts

Alan Greenspan says the country can't afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain — at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.
"Unless we cut spending, no," the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked McCain's proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

"I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money," Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. "I always have tied tax cuts to spending."

McCain has said that he would offset his proposed cuts — including reducing the corporate tax rate and eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax that has plagued middle-class families — by ending congressional pork-barrel spending, unnecessary government programs and overhauling entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

Democrats pounced on Greenspan's comments, in part because McCain professed last year that he was weaker on economics than foreign affairs and was reading Greenspan's memoir, "The Age of Turbulence," to educate himself.

"Obviously he needs to go back to that book and study it some more," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said during a conference call arranged by the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Click to expand...

Can America afford Obantu's proposed tax cuts for 95% of Americans? The fuzzy part about that is 40% of Americans don't pay income taxes so in essence the tax cut is an income redistribution. Obantu and the democrats just don't get it.

Bubu: mi nakwambia you are wasting your time na huyu Truth, mimi nime-ignore ingawa ananitafuta sana. He does not deserve your attention. Anaongea bila kuwa na interest yoyote na ukweli.
BTW uliangalia TV show ya Roland Martin? Aliongelea hii ishu ya race, age and gender na kuna jamaa from Georgia aliongea free kabisa kuhusu racism yake: "The only Black Man I have seen bring change was in a cup". Kaazi kwelikweli! Lakini it's good, I am sure that within Obama campaign they counted with this, and remember in Iowa, whites voted for Obama as they did in New Hampshire etc. MI kwa kweli sijakata tamaa.

The Truth said:

Again why did Obantu win the Iowa caucas if Americans are racist as you are painting them to be? This poll you quoted by the author of your article references the Pennyslvania primary. That was way after Obantu's dubious associations came out in the open. I am suprised only less that 7% of Whites said they wouldn't vote for him. I would expect it to be more.

Click to expand...

Liar, in most of the opinion polls the sample is about 1,000 people. Yes, there is more than 7% of Americans who will not vote for Obama just because of his color but most will pretend not to support Obama's policies rather than telling the truth.

Susuviri said:

Bubu: mi nakwambia you are wasting your time na huyu Truth, mimi nime-ignore ingawa ananitafuta sana. He does not deserve your attention. Anaongea bila kuwa na interest yoyote na ukweli.
BTW uliangalia TV show ya Roland Martin? Aliongelea hii ishu ya race, age and gender na kuna jamaa from Georgia aliongea free kabisa kuhusu racism yake: "The only Black Man I have seen bring change was in a cup". Kaazi kwelikweli! Lakini it's good, I am sure that within Obama campaign they counted with this, and remember in Iowa, whites voted for Obama as they did in New Hampshire etc. MI kwa kweli sijakata tamaa.

Click to expand...

Nakubaliana na wewe ngoja niachane naye. Naona anabwabwaja tu bila kuwa na facts zozote.

Bubu, Susuviri,

Pamoja na kuwa Kerpal anaudhi, lakini ukiondoa urangi rangi wake, mara nyingine huwa ana point bora kuliko Billy Kristol!

Bubu ataka kusema said:

Nakubaliana na wewe ngoja niachane naye. Naona anabwabwaja tu bila kuwa na facts zozote.

Click to expand...

Akili ni nywele kila mtu ana zake. Lakini hawa Rethugs wanazidi kumtwisha mzigo Kisura wao, sasa atakuwa non-news. Bado anasoma speech ileile ya convention na anarudi vitu ambavyo vimekuwa debunked na media nzima imemponda for lying. The Bridge to Nowhere! I think that it's great! Give them enough rope to hang themselves!
Take note this is from Fox News hata wao they have called out Palin for not telling the truth!

Those lines are back, Fox News reports:

In her first campaign event since she left her native state of Alaska, Sarah Palin brought back some lines to her stump speech that she took out for the hometown crowds in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

She told the cheering crowd of a few thousand here that she and her running mate are reformers. To prove her maverick past she repeated an anecdote wildly told on the trail, but eliminated in Alaska. That she got rid of the Alaska Governor's private jet and put it on EBay. She does not add that the plane did not sell on EBay and it had to be taken off the website and then sold through a broker.
She also brought back a line about one of the more infamous pork barrel projects in the country, "I told Congress thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere and if our state wanted a bridge we would build it ourselves."

Click to expand...

Rev Kishoka, YNIM and Bubu: my favorite story of the ady! Karl Rove awageuka McCain!! Sasa mambo yamepamba moto!!

When Karl Rove is saying your political ads have gone too far, you know you must be doing something dishonest.

The former Bush chief strategist, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said that John McCain had stretched the truth in his recent round of attacks against Barack Obama, in the process opening up the Arizonan to a round of effective counter-attacks.

"McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test," said Rove. "Both campaigns ought to be careful about... there ought to be an adult who says: 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?'"

That Rove would acknowledge truth in these complaints is somewhat remarkable. The man known as Bush's brain made a reputation of slinging mud at the opposition and waiting for it to stick.

Sure enough, the Obama campaign weighs in... gleefully.

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove - the man who held the previous record - said McCain's ads have gone too far," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Click to expand...

Kaaazi kwelikweli!

Susuviri said:

Rev Kishoka, YNIM and Bubu: my favorite story of the ady! Karl Rove awageuka McCain!! Sasa mambo yamepamba moto!!

Kaaazi kwelikweli!

Click to expand...

Karl Rove alitaka sana kuwa campaign manager wa Mcsame, sasa inaelekea akatolewa nje. Pia inaelekea walikuwa na matatizo yao tangu kinyang'anyiro cha mgombea wa Republicans katika uchaguzi wa 2000. Sijui nani ataibuka kidedea kati ya Mcsame na Rove. Huu tunaweza kusema ni mkono wa Mungu kwa Obama 🙂, sidhani kati yetu kuna yeyote angekubali kama tungeambiwa Karl Rove angemsaidia Obama katika uchaguzi huu. Kweli siasa ni mchezo mchafu!
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln5RD9BhcCo&feature=related[/media]
LOL! Karl Please keep your day job 🙂

Du!!!!!!!!!

Campaign confirms Palin did not go beyond Iraqi border
Posted: 05:30 PM ET

Peter Hamby and Rebecca Sinderbrand


A Palin aide confirmed details of her foreign travel Saturday.
(CNN) – Sarah Palin did not visit troops in Iraq, a spokesperson for the Republican VP nominee confirmed Saturday, as new details emerged about the extent of the Alaska governor's foreign travel.

In July of last year, Palin left North America for the first time to visit Alaskan troops stationed in Kuwait. Palin officials originally said her itinerary included U.S. military installations or outposts in Germany and Kuwait, and that she had visited Ireland. An Alaska spokeswoman for Palin had said Iraq was also one of the stops on that trip.

The Boston Globe reported Saturday that Palin visited the Iraqi side of a border crossing - but never journeyed past the checkpoint.

Earlier: McCain defends Palin's experience level

Earlier, campaign aides confirmed reports that Palin's time in Ireland on that trip had actually been a re-fueling stop.

The Obama camp – which has increasingly accused the McCain campaign of deliberately lying in ads and on the stump – was quick to highlight to that story, along with a news report that explored whether the McCain campaign have been sending out wildly inflated crowd estimates.

The McCain team has twice pointed to law enforcement as the source for those estimates – but the same officials denied to Bloomberg News that they had provided the numbers cited by the Republican nominee's campaign.

"The McCain campaign said Governor Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, but now we know she supported it," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement. "They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?"

A Palin spokesperson also confirmed Saturday that the governor had visited Mexico on a personal vacation trip. She has also visited Canada.

UPDATE: The McCain-Palin campaign issued a statement late Saturday in which they said Palin had traveled into Iraq, although she did not go beyond the border crossing:

"Last summer, Governor Palin travelled to Kuwait where she visited Alaskan National Guard troops deployed to the war in Iraq at Camp Arifjen. While she was there she travelled to the K Crossing on the Kuwait-Iraq border, and a quarter mile into Iraq. According to the General who travelled with her, while she was there she presided over a re-enlistment ceremony of an Alaskan National Guard soldier. En route back to the United States, she travelled to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. While in Germany, Governor Palin visited wounded soldiers at the Landstuhl military hospital. She then returned home. She has also visited Canada, as well as Mexico for a vacation."