Third in line is..."Nancy with the smiling face" (a Frank Sinatra song).

Why it seems so "scary", tells me that everyone fears the unknown.

Do we actually know the true person we are expected to vote for?

Folks, I'm just a rooky here, but maybe I can shed some light, now and then.

My old car which I recently donated to charity had a bumper sticker...just one bumper sticker..."Edwards".

Now I feel like a fool.

Car is gone, so is that sticker...and so is Edwards.

I tell you folks, they sure do fool us all the time.

Democrat, Republic, liberal or conservative...it's politics and chicanery and tricks.

You just get so fed up.

Goodnight, all.

I couldn't have said it better, TV.

Surely, though, the candidates bring their families and personal lives into the arena? If your campaigning involves pictures of your family, if you speak about 'family values', if your personal religious beliefs are part of your campaign, then you can't object when those wanting to know something about your character probe a little under the shining surface.

The strange thing about the McCain-Palin ticket is that McCain brought Palin in to maybe attract disenchanted Hillary voters. However, Palin's stances on every single issue seem to be the polar opposite of Hillary's.

Anyway, she was Miss Congeniality in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant, so that should count for something, right?

Quote:

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Surely, though, the candidates bring their families and personal lives into the arena? If your campaigning involves pictures of your family, if you speak about 'family values', if your personal religious beliefs are part of your campaign, then you can't object when those wanting to know something about your character probe a little under the shining surface.

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Of course we want to know about who's running- their background, their beliefs, the way they conduct their family life. As far as I'm concerned, anything the grown up Palins do or say is fair game.
But even Sen. Obama has drawn the line at attacking a candidate's child, no matter what the circumstances. I remember being furious at the press for making fun of Chelsea Clinton. But that barrage of abuse turns pale compared to what the bloggers are saying about this family...that in reality Palin faked her last pregnancy and in fact was covering for her daughter, who has been so pronounced that way a few months ago.
No decent person would think these tactics acceptable. I certainly didn't think so when the Clinton daughter was involved and I'm not exactly one of their biggest fans. People need to stop acting like playground bullies and compose themselves.

edited for clarity

I don't know what the bloggers are doing, I'm just looking at the mainstream press, and it does seem to me that this is a legitimate story. Someone who says "I am a "family values" mother of four" needs to expect people asking "Well, what kind of a mother are you?"

To me, morality is not really an issue here, but good sense is. They are saying the girl plans to marry the father of the baby, which leads me to assume that he was her steady boyfriend. And I know, as the mother of teens, that when my daughter gets a steady boyfriend, she also gets a reliable birth control method. That Ms Palin did not help her daughter with this shows a lack of foresight, and a - shall I say niaveté? no, I think I'll say "lack of contact with reality" - that is stunning in someone who seeks high executive office.

Since Palin is against sex education being taught in schools and also believes birth control should be by abstinence only, this has got to be a double edged sword for her.

Yeah, I think I'll say "lack of contact with reality"...

Folks, I just can't refrain anymore...I have to jump in on this juicy stuff.

I know, I know...Obama wants this off limits, but this is a discussion forum of everything under the sun, and so...why not?

Little Chelsea grew up now, and followed "Mommy dearest" in her campaigns...and I observed that she was a little snotty, at times.

Now, before anyone blows up on this, remember these little darlings do grow up...eventually, and are going to be prima facia and under scrutiny...eventually.

And now, out of the blue comes Ms. Palin, with sun glasses and bangs... looking herself like a later day Lolitta, and soon her baggage comes out...and I have to place myself in the position (hmn, err...I mean...) what is the youngster in High School thinking...the boy friend...maybe I should get her good and pregy because Mama is a big shot governor, and that just might be my life's meal ticket.

That's my take, folks, for what it's worth.

Our loose morals, going way back to previous decades, brought us to this sad new day.

Your reply most welcome, any which way you see it is fine because I like all of you very much.

What I don't understand is why Palin didn't show her medical records or have whomever delivered the baby make a statement. Why shove your 17 year old under the bus (the campaign one at that)? This could have stayed hidden for a good while. Now it's open to snickers about a state with no sex ed and "Sarah, how's that working for you?"
It's the kind of bad karma that gets Republicans and their anti-gay rhetoric; they end up having a gay child.

There is much discussion in the media about the "Children" of the candidates and how they should be off limits for discussion.
Is the 17 year old Palin girl still a child if she has already done the deed that turned her into a Mom?
I don't think that Mr. McCain and his team did their homework before making their choice, and if they did, they should receive a Big Red F !

I like how Sarah Pawlenty was welcomed to the convention...Oops

Convention? What convention? Oh, that one.

I did see a glimpse of it, you know, Mr. Bush on a monitor not knowing what bowling ball sitting in the Atlantic now will turn into the next Katrina, so he's ever vigilant in his secret hideout.

Getting back to Trigger...maybe we can find a new topic to replace the old, worn out ones like gay marriages...babies making babies.

Funny thing, in a different time it was all about youngsters helping out their parents and grandparents.

Now that nobody can land a decent job anymore, and if by luck they do, then it can be tenuous at best...this has created the perpetual non development of kids.

Factor in this invention I'm now using, and they are fixated on videos instead of being out there earning a living.

And thus we see (and I know of) eighty year olds taking care of their fifty year old kids.

Our new system we live with means that Palin's seventeen year old will always be seen as an infant incapable of living on her own.

She is actually a mom on her own right, but our new society will never see it that way.

She'll always be a kid that's just there, and if she stays out of trouble, then Sarah Palin will be very lucky.

Welcome to our new, computerized society.

I found the following article very enlightening...

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET



ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

___

Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report.

Dear American friends,
I should´t meddle into your political affairs as I´m Argentine but whatever your final choice is, it will affect my country. If I lived in America I wouldn´t vote for McCain. He was a war hero but the world needs a peace hero today. I wouldn´t vote for Obama either because there are many contradictions in his speech. In Argentina every politician wants a change, which means everybody else did things in a wrong way. We had hopes with Hillary but it couldn´t be. You are the world leaders. Act like that.

How does being born in the United States make someone any different, or more capable of being a role model then the next person?

Countries who have clean slates after having thier national debts paid off, or strong farm unions capable of sending messages to the government can have just as much opportunity to become examples for the world.

BxB,

As Americans, we hold the position of leadership that older siblings so tire of being admonished about. This is neither a condescending nor a proud statement. We stand at the forefront, and so are admired, feared, envied, emulated, ignored, or derided, depending on our deportment of the moment and on the one responding.

And with that comes responsibility, if we have any sense of global community. May we carry it with humility, dignity, and courage.

I know enough individuals from enough far-flung countries to know this is a fair description of the average world citizen's take on the USA. Just ask papo2228.

BxBaraccuda...Your code name brings me back to the Bronx, when I was attending Bronx Community College nights, and parking near a vintage Barracuda...and wishing I owned one.

I have tons to talk about, and have been on all the wrong sites.

Now, with folks from everywhere, we can get to the nitty gritty, for sure.

This is an exciting time in America when we can flush out the past and try to focus on a better approach to tomorrow.

At this point, it's still an open race, but I have to give the edge to a great orator in the making, Obama.

This is what we didn't have for a long time, someone who can talk well and relate to us.

It's really a blessing to be gifted like that.

Through good oratory, we get motivation, and the possibility of getting more done and getting everyone involved.

So, stay tuned.

I found it rather insulting that the speaches basically slammed all people who have served their communities and non-profit institutions. When did that become a lowly thing?

Que, Whether or not we are the ones to be looked up, doesn't mean that our examples are going to be the best ones. Great examples can come from anywhere, only looking at the ones set by the U.S. would be in a word, lazy and probably foolish. What works for one countries policies might not work for anothers, there are going to be fundamental differences in the resources of each country and needs of the people. Whether people want to consider the U.S. role models, we are still not the only ones who should be role models. Just looking at National Healthcare is enough to show that we aren't the only good examples. I am guessing there are many complexities for the U.S., beyone just the lobbyists, that are making it tougher to get rolling. Though I know if anyone shows up at an E.R. they will be treated.


I agree open that this is a very close race and I think both candidates will be good for the country if elected.

I do like the fact Obama is a good orator, I just worry that he says what the people in front of him want to hear, and will applaud, rather then what he truly feels.

Dear American friends:
When you vote remember you are going to decide the future of the world for the next four years. MacCain was a war hero but the world requires a peace hero. Obama is not very trustworthy because there are contradictions in his speech. Whoever you elect will have an influence in Latin America as the United States lead the free world. I hope God will enlighten you to choose the very best. As you are leaders show what you can achieve. In my country, Argentina, we are looking forward to your decision.