American Stories, American Solutions

[Bond]

So, who watched Obama's 30-minute commercial? Thoughts?

Here it is incase you missed it:

[GameMaster]

A lot of staging but that's probably common nowadays.

[Angrist]

I heard 'Naomi Campbell' when I skipped through that. Must be about the oil commercial she did.

[DeathsHand]

Did he just go 30 minutes without even mentioning John McCain or am I crazy?
Because all I remember from McCain's 30-second commercials is him talking about how Obama is a crazy left wing terrorist-hugging socialist who doesn't even know how to ride a bike and still gets carded when he tries to buy booze.
And the pictures of him happily staring off camera while the voice over talks about how he's the better choice.

[TheGame]

Yeah he basically ignored John Mccain in that ad. Which I personally like, at this point I doubt mud slinging will help anyway.

[Professor S]

I'm not a huge fan of mudslinging in campaigns, but in reality Mccain has little choice. In terms of campaign dollars, McCain is overwhelmed by a 3-1 margin or more. Statistically, negative ads are more effective than positive ones, and having so much less to work with, I understand why McCain's camp has concentrated on the negative.

Quite literally, Obama can afford to be positive in more of his ads, but he still has a great number of negative ads as well. Only his percentage is less than McCain.

Back to the 30 minute infomercial, I watched about 10 minutes of it but then shut it off. It was so damn manipulative, with sob stories and meleodramatic voiceovers and music. Its like he took notes from Michael Moore. Obama would have been better served if he treated that 30 minutes like his positive campaign ads and simply sat down and had a frank conversation of his policies and views in detail. Overall, I'm not sure that with such a long election cycle and politically weary country, that infomerical helped him or hurt him.

McCain may be negative when it comes his ads, but Obama was achingly negative when it comes to his view of America. I simply don't agree with his world view or his solutions to his perceived world view.

And I'm sure that opinion shocks none of you at this point

[TheGame]

I have no problem with negitive ads, as long as the negitivity has something to do with political decisions the person made. Negitive ads that create fear, questions a person's faith, or implies that the person running is anti-american or a terrorist are the negitive ads I don't like... And the republicn party is the one that's still constantly playing these cards.

Obama may have a lot of "negitive" ads, but all his negitive ads are relevant to Mccain's political career.. And if Obama went the route of guilt (on the religious/antiamerican side of things) by association like Mccain did, he has more things to pick from that Mccain did while he was a senator.

If Mccain wins like this, then politics are going to stay screwed up for a long time.

-EDIT-

By the way, what is anti american? Isn't america a democracy, therefore what defines america would be the people's needs/votes based on what time period they are in? Isn't America set up to where everyone has a voice for what america should be?

The only people who are anti american are terrorists, or people who undermine democracy. Neither Obama or Mccain do this.

I think people are confusing capitalism with democracy. Both Mccain and Obama are in favor of helping make america a beter place, but they have different ways of expressing how to do this. I'm conservative, but I would ot say change is anti american, in fact the fact that we can change based on people's opinions IS what makes us stand out from the rest of the world.

[Professor S]

Game, I think you're confusing some e-mail smear mongering and 527's with approved McCain campaign advertisements. McCain has concentrated primarily on Obama's record and political associations, and only dipped into the Ayers pool (which I think is legitimate) for short period of time. McCain even went so far as to state that Reverend Wright was off limits. Considering some of Obama's past associations that are rife with potential for attack, I think McCain has shown amazing restraint.

If you want to hold McCain responsible for every wacko message out there you would have to do the same for Obama and the 527 messages about Palin murdering wolves.

[TheGame]

No, I'm only judging off of 100% Mccain approved ads, and what himself and Sarah Palin say at events. Their ads are built to make people scared of Obama, and it doesn't focus on the issues that matter. And the whole deal with Ayers is not relevant, the only reason they brought it up is because they wanted to imply Obama is a terrorist. The board itself was head by a republican.

But the whole calling Obama anti-american, or saying he has antii-american views is very much an outrage. How is his view on america negitive?

[Jason1]

The new McCain ad will call Obama a Communist because he shared his toys in Kindergaden.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

No, I'm only judging off of 100% Mccain approved ads, and what himself and Sarah Palin say at events. Their ads are built to make people scared of Obama, and it doesn't focus on the issues that matter. And the whole deal with Ayers is not relevant, the only reason they brought it up is because they wanted to imply Obama is a terrorist. The board itself was head by a republican.

But the whole calling Obama anti-american, or saying he has antii-american views is very much an outrage. How is his view on america negitive?

You're obviously overstating things for effect. Neither McCain nor Palin have ever called Obama anti-american or has anti-american views. Ever. In fact, when confronted by a member of his own party at a rally, McCain went out of his way to alay any fears that Obama might be a "terrorist" as you call it.

Using your logic, you could say that Obama's negative ads are accusing McCain of being a fascist as all he cares about is rich people and he'd rather fork himself in the eye than piss on a homeless person if they were on fire. Is that an overstatement? Yes, and so is your emotional reaction to McCain's ads.

McCain has specifically attacked Obama's judgement on the Ayers issue, and it is an issue, as Obama and Ayers did more than just sit on a board together. Now Ayers is anti-american and unapologetically so, going as far as to bomb and kill innnocents and only stopped because he acidentally killed his wife when making a bomb, and Obama once called him a friend when it was politically convenient. If that isn't fit for examination when it comes to someone's personal judgement, I don't know what is. As for your complaint that a Republican headed up the board they sat on, unless that Republican's name was John McCain it's irrelevant to this discussion.

McCain's claims were about idealogy more than actions. Very little is known about Obama's ideaology in practice, because he has so little public experience. The little that he does have rated him the #1 leftist in the Senate by the National Journal. McCain has even purposely avoided Reverend Wright as I stated earlier. You can't disregard Obama's past political associations and friendships, because quite honestly thats pretty much the only record that McCain can use because Obama's senatorial record is so short.

Even I've never claimed that Obama was anti-american, just a politician that holds socialist views and wants to essentially flip the constitution on it's head. Honestly, thats dangerous enough.



Thsi is the second time I've posted this interview and I'd love to hear eveyone's thoughts on it.

[TheGame]

I won't directly argue with you, since judging by your last replies I'd probably will not get a responce until after the election is over. Plus I'm getting ready for work and don't feel like digging through videos to find a responce. :P As for Palin though, I'm pretty sure when she was asked if Obama is a terrorist, she said no but that she believes he may have anti american views.

As for the whole "redistributing the wealth" deal, you should look up and see what the difference is between Obama's tax plan and Clinton's was. And when you see how similar they are you should ask yourself why at this point they're using terms with Obama like 'socialist' and 'redistributing the wealth' but they didn't use it with Clinton.

Maybe its because it was working back then, or maybe its because 'redistributing the wealth' implies something else. I'll let you think about that one.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

I won't directly argue with you, since judging by your last replies I'd probably will not get a responce until after the election is over. Plus I'm getting ready for work and don't feel like digging through videos to find a responce. :P As for Palin though, I'm pretty sure when she was asked if Obama is a terrorist, she said no but that she believes he may have anti american views.

Ok, now that you said that I know who you're talking about but it wasn't Palin. It was a lady politician from Florida on Hardball.

As for the whole "redistributing the wealth" deal, you should look up and see what the difference is between Obama's tax plan and Clinton's was. And when you see how similar they are you should ask yourself why at this point they're using terms with Obama like 'socialist' and 'redistributing the wealth' but they didn't use it with Clinton.

Maybe its because it was working back then, or maybe its because 'redistributing the wealth' implies something else. I'll let you think about that one.

Obama's tax plan more severely punishes business than Clinton's did, but thats beside the point. As President, Obama doesn't make laws, he can only sign them or veto them. Saying that, your statement assumes two things:

1) I think Obama's tax plan is legitimate policy, and I don't based on his past actions, not his current rhetoric. Plus, even his current rhetoric gives those that don't pay taxes "tax credits", or a free money collected from other taxpayers, which is literally redistribution of wealth and a socialist philosophy. There is no arguiment in this. Clinton NEVER did this, so he never redistributed wealth. There is a difference between progressive tax systems and literally taking mone from one person and giving it to another, which is what Obama proposes.

2) That even if Obama is honest in his policy statements, Obama will veto the spending and tax bills that the Pelosi and Reed led congress will throw his way. Obama wants to raise spending $1 trillion... the democrat bill that was put in front of Bush and was vetoed was $3 trillion. Remember that Clinton worked with a Republican led congress during his tenure and helped pass many of their bills. There will be no such checks and balances this time around, especially if the dems get a 60 vote majority and the filibuster is eliminated.

[KillerGremlin]

30 minutes is 29 minutes too long for me.

[BreakABone]

Just curious if we will have a GT election thread today or tomorrow?