Questions about Barack Obama as the Democratic President Nominee

[DarthRetard]

With all due respect, I'm not so worried about him not knowing what Memorial Day is for, but the fact that he bowled a 36. Do they not have bowling alleys in Illinois? Jeebus, that's like, like.....choking on a pretzel.... ;-) Little double-party humour for ya.

Back on topic, we really are talking about Obama and his merits. I'd take this thread as a chance to clarify who Obama is and what he's about. We're not talking about Bush, we know he's not this board's favorite president, probably right down there with Warren G. Harding.

Should Obama have gotten delegates in a state where his name was not on the ballot? I don't really think so.

What I don't like about Obama is his willingness to feed off of others' advice and criticism. While it is in one aspect a very, VERY good thing, I find it also a way for others like Ted Kennedy, or anyone else, Rep. OR Dem, to influence their own politics if sly enough.

We may find that to be untrue if he's elected, and only time will tell, really, but please don't rip into us conservatives if we're a little unsure about candidates. IDR was simply inquiring into the candidate, and while making some claims that are a little ill-informed (think we've all done that before), there's no need to bash her for being concerned about a candidate who was at one point very unknown in the public eye, and has now been thrust into the pole position as the driver for Team Democrat.

[CancelMyService]

Hey, the Michigan and Florida state Democratic parties knew what the consequences were to having their primaries earlier, they did it anyway thinking there wouldn't be any, and then cried when what they were told would happen did in fact happen.

As far as Obama goes, he seems like someone who's willing to listen to all sides which is refreshing after so many years of "agree with my party or you hate America" politics. He's willing to attempt to mend the fences torn apart by cowboy diplomacy, and I don't mean with our "enemies" but with places like Europe who's opinion of us is at an all time low.


To me McCain just symbolizes another four years of the same old stuff, only in a more eloquent package. He's pretty much said he'd continue everything Bush is doing all while still getting the "OMG WHAT A MAVERICK!" pub from the media.

What worries me is the normally reasonable folks who will vote against their self interests due to all the FUD spread about Obama. A scary amount of people still believe the Muslim stuff. My mom, who's voted Democrat since 1992 at least will be voting for McCain since she honestly and seriously believes that a black President will only be for helping black people and no one else.

[Amethyst Hunter]

In regards to Obama, and being that George Carlin just passed, and someone made a very good point about how all the good ones go too soon yet the assholes continue to thrive on,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/...l_dobson_obama - Here is a perfect example of someone who *should've* dropped dead. In the very literal sense. I guarandamntee that a lot fewer people will miss this rat turd as opposed to Carlin.

[AFPheonix]

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.

That's interesting. Apparently Dobson forgot that Jesus himself said that he had not come to do away with the Law but to complete it. Then there's that little blurb from Paul to Timothy that exhorts that all scripture is useful for instruction.

So, what part of the Bible are you going to ignore next, "Dr." Dobson?

[BlaqueKatt]

To me, Obama isn't the God-send that everyone makes him out to be and he can be ignorant. (This past weekend, basically admitted (though in not so many words) that 1. He didn't know what Memorial Day was and 2. He talks to/sees dead people).<snip>

Do we really want a President who more than likely hates the white race for the sins of their fathers? (As the Bible says: The sins of the parents should not be visited upon the children & the sins of the children should not be visited upon the parents).

and you can add in the fact tat he has lied about his religion, and has lied about who his grandmother is. Hint his grandmother Madelyn Dunham is white(and raised him-he refers to her as "a typical white woman"-whatever that means )-the woman he claims is his "grandmother" and who the press interviews did not even meet him until 1986-and is not related to him at all, she is the third wife of his grandfather-and has this man for a cousin.

And per some records his white ancestors owned plantations/slaves.
" As an historical aside, Anna Dunham's forebears were slaveholders, one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 Census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves."
Rootsweb for the dunham family

[CancelMyService]

Pretty much all of my mom's side of the family are assholes, does this mean I could never be President based on the quality of the folks who happen to share sections of my DNA?

[Boozy]

I suspect I could find a handful of distant relatives of McCain's that aren't so great either.

This is exactly why the US is going to hell in a hand basket. You let the Karl Roves of the country decide on the discourse.

There are hundreds of reason to oppose or support both candidates, whether they be economic or foreign policy, health care, education, or social security. Issues that will deeply affect everyone's lives.

But these issues don't get discussed, because the Roves know that "OMGELEVENTY!!! Obama has some loose familial connections to bad people!" plays better in the press. It's sad.

[AFPheonix]

I refer to the neighbor that I grew up next to as Grandpa, even though he's not related to me. He was still more of a grandpa to me than my long-dead real grandparents buried up in Canada.
So what if he didn't get to meet his step-grandma until later in his life? So what if she's not his "real" grandma? Who the fuck cares about any of this kind of drivel?

[Amethyst Hunter]

and you can add in the fact tat he has lied about his religion

How so? If it's that O NOZ Muslim Terrorizt crap, don't even bother. That's bullshit and it's been proven a dozen times over as such.

and has lied about who his grandmother is. Hint his grandmother Madelyn Dunham is white(and raised him-he refers to her as "a typical white woman"-whatever that means )

1) I doubt he intended "typical white woman" to sound as bad as it looks, especially if she raised him,

2) Unless his purported relatives are handfeeding him To-Do lists the way the Shrubbery's people do with him, I'm not inclined to think that they pose much (if any) of a threat. They aren't running for the presidency, Obama is. It's his views that I'm most concerned with.

Boozy has a point in that it's the policy views that should take the most priority, not all this other crap (especially if it's been proven to have absolutely no worthwhile basis whatsoever). It's why I am, still at this point, undecided as to who I will vote for come November (if I even decide to vote at all). But hearing stupid meme shit like "O NOES HILLARY WANTS TO KILL ALL PREBORN BABIES!" or "O NOES OBAMA IS AN IZLAMIK TERRORIZT!", well, that just makes me want to vote FOR them all the more.

[MMATM]

I for one am tired of all Obama and McCain bashing equally. I think that Obama's campaign deserved the nomination over Clinton's because her campaign slung more mud during the primaries whereas his focused almost exclusively on himself, and I was thinking of voting for McCain for the longest time purely because he seemed to know what he was doing and because I have much respect for veterans.

Then Obama took the presumptive Democratic nomination and I paid more attention to the candidates themselves than to their campaigns.

There's a lot of talk along the "IZLAM TERRORIZT" vein from pro-McCain anti-Obama personalities, and plenty of mud being slung, but beneath all that McCain is still a decent candidate and I believe he has little or no interest in defacing Obama's image. On the other hand, Obama's supporters (or anti-McCain types) favor comparing McCain to GW, which while more accurate than the aforementioned "TERRORIZT" connections, is hardly relevant. (They're both old, white, and Republican. We get it. Move on.)

In all seriousness, a Presidential election should boil down to what the candidates' plans are to run the country for the next four years, and whether or not those plans are feasible. Not whether they've philandered and gotten caught (McCain) or whether their wife's thesis in college was on a racially heated topic (Obama). Not whether they (McCain) look like the Democratic version of Public Enemy #1 or (Obama) the Republican version of Public Enemy #1. Certainly not who their family was or what their pastor(s) once said.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Nobody wants to be President except for complete idiots. Once you've come to terms with the fact that the only people who will ever run the US are complete idiots, it makes things much easier to swallow. [Insert pretzel joke here.]

[powerboy]

Honestly, who cares about who is president? All they are is the face of the government. Everyone says that Bush is dumb, or he did this or that. Wrong, it was the government - they have the say on everything.

[AFPheonix]

No, not wrong. The president is directly responsible for a lot of bad policy decisions, and indirectly responsible by appointing complete idiots to cabinet posts.
As the leader of the executive branch and the armed forces, he is directly responsible for every moronic military move we've made in the last 8 years.
As leader of his political party, he is indirectly responsible for the tons of shit legislation that he proposed and that his lackeys in congress passed.
He is responsible for at least one craptacular supreme court justice nomination. (While I don't agree with Roberts often, I respect the man. Alito can go right to hell, though)

[powerboy]

You do know that the government officials can and do veto the president, don't you? With that, he is the face of the government.

[Boozy]

I'll admit, as a Canadian I am not as well-versed in the US government process as some others here. But I thought it was the president who got to veto stuff? Does it go both ways? How the hell do you folks get anything done?

[IDrinkaRum]

We have checks and balances within out government. The 3 branches check & balances themselves. We choose the people who populate the White House, the House of Representatives, & the Senate. The HoR and the Senate can pass bills all day long. The President can veto said bills all day long. Then the vetoed bill goes back to the Houses & they can override the veto if they want to. It normally goes smoothly unless the Pres & the houses are populated by different political parties, therefore, they have different ideas of what the States need.