Why McCain will Win

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Jim

That's not why Obama will lose. Campaigning and marketing money builds and then pushes an image. Image pushes votes. If McCain wins, it is the credit of the Republican campaign machine, which is an amazing thing to see in action.

Were it only possible that the same tightly oiled mechanism could be employed once either party entered office. Neither side manages to achieve a fraction of what it promises. Democrats promise more, and deliver nothing. Republicans act, but in ways I sometimes get a headache over.

Lucky am I to live in an area where local government still has the highest impact. Or unlucky, depending.

Do you identify with a party? I usually agree with more moderate Republican ideas, but I do not self-label myself as one. It would feel unnecessarily restrictive.

I just rehgistered as for a Republican for the first time, but that was only for this election. For the first time in my life I found I could not identify a single Democrat as being someone I would ever vote for, and in fact, viewed most of them as dangerous to the constitution. So I knew there was no reason to not register Republican for this election.

Also, I am a big McCain supporter, because he is the only politician I've seen who I believe actually votes by his thoughts and ideals and not by what he thinks will get himslef re-elected. So I wanted to make sure I could vote in the primary in PA, and to do so I had to register as a Republican.

Here is a viref rundown of my views:

National Security - Big stick. Only use it when you have to.

Social Programs - The fewer the better. The basis of a country is not the government, it is the people and the individual. The more you provide for people, the less they provide for themselves and they become comfortable in poverty. I am a fan a few though, and they are as follows:

1) Public Education - Its not as bad as people think and the core issue is broken families, not a lack of funds. We spend more now per student than at any time in history. Money can't make a kid care to learn or succeed in life.

2) Mental Asylums - One of the few areas where I have a huge problem with reagan's policies. He closed down the federal mental asylums, and I think they are necessary but need to be run better than they were before.

3) As Needed Healthcare - We currently provide healthcare for those that really need it, and half the people that qualify don't use it. I believe that those that truly need the government to pay for basic healthcare should get it, but please don't curse the rest of the people who have their care provided by work or payment suffer through the same wait lines and shitty specialist services that other national healthcare plans provide.

4) Roads and infrastructure - No explanation needed.

5) Limited regulation - I am a capitalist, but I recognize that capitalism can be like a starving dog... if you let it, it will eat itself to death. So I believe in anti-trust laws to ensure competitiveness and also to protect the consumer. This is an area where Bush and the newer Republicans disgust me as they destroyed those protections.

This said, I do NOT beieve in taxes or tariffs that PUNISH success. That is nothing more than childish class warfare. We should celebrate success, not have contempt for it. `Contempt for wealth is a trick the rich play on the poor to ensure they will never have it.'

Overall, though, I believe Ben Franklin said it the best:

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

[Renwood]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Public Education - Its not as bad as people think and the core issue is broken families, not a lack of funds. We spend more now per student than at any time in history. Money can't make a kid care to learn or succeed in life.

I work in a public school system, and in a lot of ways, it is worse than people think. The federal mandates that come down on the states, and then on down to each city cause a stupid amount of red tape and wasted funds on repetitive, often duplicate programs. It isn't that there is a lack of money being injected into the system; its that its being injected ignorantly. Federal government throws out a blanket statement, and we're supposed to believe and act as if that works, without any fine-tuning for individual districts and situations.

As a for instance, we were told by the State here (who were told by Federal), that our population of special education children must not exceed 1%. There are some ideas behind this rule, but it doesn't apply to my area, because of the huge influx of military kids that are flooding in as their parents are assigned to the area; that inflates the percentage, and we've now had to go through audits and all this expensive, useless bullshit to determine that, yes, we are a special case. Its been a waste, and meanwhile, the minorities are still falling through the cracks. A department here actually made up an assessment that was okayed by the State, just to be stricken down at the federal level after an initial greenlight.

And yes, the amount of money spent per student is disgusting given what each child actually recieves.

The problem is both the broken families and the lack of money being spent to do something with them, though not for want of spending in other areas.

Fuckin' hate No Child Left Behind.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Jim

Fuckin' hate No Child Left Behind.

It will be interesting to see what happens after NCLB's mandate runs out, and inevitably fails. Its my opinion that NCLB was designed to fail to give the excuse to privatize national education. What do you think?

[Renwood]

It makes the main goal less about teaching and more about making the numbers look good. I think the worst thing is how it discourages any attention to programs that aren't directly tied to pushing up test scores. Gifted classes' budgets here are laughable, and Special Ed, given how fucked the weighting on grading is for the population, are being used more or less to hide the racial gaps in test scores.

Its discouraging to see how education is turned more and more into a business.

[KillerGremlin]

Obama has some easy material to work with. Bush's super low acceptance rating, the war, the causalities and the costs of the war. And then the fact that in two terms McCain will be 80......

We'll see how Obama holds up in debates, right now he has the hearts of America, and that's all that really matters. 3/4s of America don't give a damn about the politics.

I do like McCain, I've read up on him a bit and I've listened to him speak and I've warmed up to him a lot over the past month or two. So, I'm reserving my vote until I see the two duke it out in debate. I really think we need to flush out a lot of the Republicans, because even if McCain is a genuine guy there's still a lot of other not so great people.

[gekko]

Originally Posted by Professor S

The bill we have sponsored would increase monthly education benefits to $1500; eliminate the $1200 enrollment fee; and offer a $1000 annually for books and supplies. Importantly, we would allow veterans to transfer those benefits to their spouses or dependent children or use a part of them to pay down existing student loans.

WHAT??? This bill must pass ASAP!

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by gekko

WHAT??? This bill must pass ASAP!

Unfortunately, that is not the bill that passed. What passed was Webb's(?) bill because it pandered more and delivered less.

[flunkie44]

HILARY FOR PREDIZIDENSHUL CANDIDAIT OF THE WOLRD!!11!

[Angrist]

I find your lack of faith disturbing. And your reviving of threads too.