The Final US Election Thread

[TevashSzat]

I've had a thought I've been pondering for a while now:

Why do all of these politicians always try to represent the "common man" or try to seem like "Joe the Plumber."

Come on, the mere fact that you are running for president and have a half decent shot at winning it means that you are anything but a "common man." I understand how they want to perceive as they understand the feelings and needs of the average person, but the thing is as politicans who have been in Washington for a few years, their perspective has already been changed. Yet again, their mere ability to be a politician distorts their perspective and seperates them from the "common man."

Another thing is why do the public want a president that seems like the common man? You are electing a person that will greatly impact the direction of the country for at least the next four years and is perhaps the most powerful person on the planet and you want a "common" guy to do it? I don't know about you, but I would move to a different country if some random cab driver or even Joe the Plumber gets the job.

The reason that don't everyone want a president who isn't just mundane? We want a charismatic leader, a smart one, someone who understands things that we don't. Thats why we have a government, because the average person cannot govern well.

Wanting a "common man" president is like wanting a mundane doctor. Can't you argue that a doctor who has much more in a common with a normal person will have greater empathy and thoughtfulness? I wouldn't care how different my doctor may be from myself. I just want the best doctor out there who went to a good school, studied alot harder than I did, and spent way too much money in medical school because I want to be cured and feel healthier, not be better comforted as I lay there dying.

Okay, semi-rant done there. Just some thoughts....

[Lemur]

Why do all of these politicians always try to represent the "common man" or try to seem like "Joe the Plumber."

It's just one of those quirks of democracy. You know in your head that the leadership should be comprised of the best and the brightest, but hey, aren't they kinda smug? Aren't they a lot like that egghead kid in class who always knew the answers and raised his hand before everybody else and went to a good college? And don't you kinda hate those elitist bastards?

That's how we wind up with either

1. Smart people who pretend to be folksy and common, or,
2. Genuinely ignorant anti-intellectuals

Sadly, the fakes are the better option here. (Examples: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama.)

The genuinely ignorant, incurious and common are just kind of ... whatever. They're great on your church charity board, but you really, really don't want the nation taking marching orders from them.

Or maybe you do.

(That video is insane, isn't it? What's tjhe story with the gay black Amish man thanking Sarah Palin for the "dignity she showed"?)

[Lord Winter]

Looks like Gates is staying as Secertary of Defence.
Kudos to Obama for keeping around a comptent guy instead of having to breif a new guy to the job just for the sake of partisen politics.

[Lemur]

Yet another Catholic pastor commands his flock to confess for the sin of not voting Republican. This is getting to be a trend ...

"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," the Rev. Joseph Illo, pastor of St. Joseph's, wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21.

The letter was sent to more than 15,000 members of the St. Joseph's parish. It is one of 34 parishes in the Stockton Diocese, which has more than 200,000 members in Stanislaus, San Joaquin and four other counties. [...]

A Greenville, S.C., priest told parishioners earlier this month that those who voted for Obama risked placing themselves "outside of the full communion of Christ's church" by their vote.

That priest's action was supported by his diocese, the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., which said the priest was simply asserting church teaching.

But the Most Rev. Stephen Blaire, bishop of the Stockton, Calif., Diocese, said he disagrees with Illo. He said Catholics should not feel compelled to disclose how they voted to their priest.

Blaire said Catholics who carefully weighed many issues and settled on a candidate, such as Obama, who was supportive of abortion rights, were not in need of confession. He said confession would be necessary "only if someone voted for a pro-abortion or pro-choice candidate -- if that's the reason you voted for them."

"Our position on pro-life is very important, but there are other issues," Blaire said. "No one candidate reflects everything that we stand for. I'm sure that most Catholics who voted were voting on economic issues.

"There were probably many priests, and I suspect many bishops, who voted for Obama."

[Lemur]

Looks like the graphic design from the '08 U.S. election is getting ripped off by the French. Curse you, Gallic plagiarists!

[Marshal Murat]

Lemur, what I want to know is why they create signs in English for a French general public?

[seireikhaan]

Well, if you notice the fine print above the slogan, that is actually in French.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I must repeat what I asked Vladimir about that French army blog. How on earth did you come by this?
Are you all reading French blogs nowadays?

Sarkozy may desperately wish he was American, but even he realises that a president using an English slogan has the political life span of a US senator admitting he's been having a homosexual affair with Hugo Chavez. Or of an Arkansas governor who's been photographed with the works of Darwin. Or of a British PM who uses anti-terror laws to intimidate his parliamentary opposition. (Wait...not the last one. )

These 'Sarkobama' posters, as they have been dubbed, aren't official. They are quite the mystery!

They suddenly appeared all over Paris last week. Nobody has claimed them. The UMP was suspected at first, I myself suspect the Communist Party, both deny.
The slogans are leftist, environmentalist: 'Producing a clean ecological source of energy? Yes we can!', 'Create one million jobs? Yes we can!'
It is clearly a well-prepared and expensive campaign, not the work of a few students. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility. Does this mean there are more surprises in store then? Oh, the suspense of it all!!

[CrossLOPER]

Lemur, what I want to know is why they create signs in English for a French general public?

1. It's an effective slogan, best kept as is.
2. Dar sum reeeedin' peepole.

[Louis VI the Fat]

New revelations!

The British used enhanced interrogation techniques in a war on terror against.... Hussein Obama.



And what does this all mean for Guantanamo, US foreign policy, and British / American relations?

Barack Obama is no admirer of British colonialism, to judge from his writings, but the discovery that the British authorities tortured his grandfather may well deepen any animosity.

In his bestselling memoir, Dreams from My Father, Mr Obama does not conceal his disdain for British imperialism and his anger at what he sees as the brutality of colonial rule in Kenya. Almost every reference to Britain or the British is negative.

He briefly describes Hussein Onyango Obama’s detention by the British, but in a way that suggests he either did not know, or did not wish to reveal, the extent of his grandfather’s suffering at British hands.

Tale of family torture may strengthen Barack Obama’s animosity