4 for the Republicans
The Brooks family has put four in the Republican columns. Most of us voted yesterday about 11:00 and were in an out in nearly no time at all despite having a brand new voter with us. Papa voted this morning on the way to work.
We were greeted by all sorts of signs...oddly very few for the presidential candidates. LOTS for David Hall who is taking on 24 year incumbent Joe Haynes for State Senator in our area. Haynes must be feeling the heat because you really have to read the mailers to catch a clue he's a democrat.
This new type of sign caught our eye. One could easily assume, since it was right on the boundary line and exceptionally plain, that it's an Election Commission sign. Don't expect non-partisan help if you call it. It seems dishonest to not include some notation that if you call that number the Obama campaign will be answering. These signs could open up the door to an interesting array of signs not normally seen at voting places.
It was also curious to see that all the Democrats had first billing on the ballot. Aren't these usually in alphabetical order?
11 comments:
So, have you looked at your 401k lately? Do you really think this country is better now after 8 years of a Republican administration? Does it concern you at all that polls by the BBC, Pew, and Gallup show 22 countries - including all America's traditional allies - want to see Obama as president? Does it concern you that a vast majority of nations see the US more negatively after 8 years of Bush?
You think an aging president that thinks in cold war terms, who finished in the bottom 1% of his class is better than a person that graduated Harvard Magna Cum Laude and is respected internationally?
What does this say about your judgment? Or perhaps there are other factors?.
Yes, I've seen my retirement fund. You think I'm unaware of our financial situation? Don't understand that stock market investing is loooong term investing because it goes up and down?
I blame 2 years of Democrat control of the purse strings and their unwillingness to listen to John McCain regarding Freddie & Fannie.
What, you think I voted for McCain despite thinking he was the best choice?
No one should vote for president as if it was an international popularity contest. Leave that nonsense to Trump and his bathing beauties.
And if you're trying to malign the simple faith of Tracy in God...maybe you should do some You Tube searches for those even more zealous and adoring Obama disciples. How do you rate their faith?
Thought regarding the financial crisis:
I've heard a lot of conservatives claim that the financial mess we're in now is due primarily to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. From all the data I've seen, this argument is either 1) empirically false or 2) a great deal more subtle than any conservative I've read making the argument has suggested.
No data I've seen suggests that the conservative argument holds water. For instance, subprime lending peaked between '04 and '06. In 2006, more than four-fifths of subprime mortgages were given by private institutions, not ones with government-backing like Fannie and Freddie. Likewise with subprime loans given to low and middle-income families. It's true that Fannie and Freddie got in on the game, in the end, but they were late to it and, compared to private institutions, a small factor.
Of course, some conservatives respond by citing the CRA, which they claim forced those poor, private institutions to give out bad loans to spendthrift minorities. Of course, that makes sense neither chronologically - the CRA was passed in '77, decades before the peak of subprime lending - nor legally, since investment banks weren't even affected by CRA.
Now, it's possible that there's some additional data that leads the argument in question to make sense, magically showing how Fannie and Freddie were really to blame. But the consistency with which conservatives haven't mentioned any such data leads me to suspect that it doesn't exist.
(And, whereas McCain talks about warning about Fannie and Freddie beforehand, Obama was writing Bernanke about how the subprime crisis as a whole needed to be addressed, well before the present, financial plummet.)
Likewise, given that Democrats took control of Congress in '06, at the end of the peak in subprime lending, the logic behind their being to blame for the problem is also, at the least, highly counter-intuitive.
"And if you're trying to malign the simple faith of Tracy in God"
No Kay, listen to what she says... "I can't imagine a President with the name Obama... his father was a Muslim, that should get to everyone."
Does that attitude represent you, Kay?
Colin Powell framed this election and attitude quite eloquently:
"Well the correct answer, he is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is ‘what if he is?’ Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that’s not America." - Colin Powell
It appears to have shaped up as an election of Hate vs. Hope, inclusion vs exclusion, future vs. past.
Tracy Kurlee represents the worst of America, the republican party that has become the 'white KKKristian party.' And they certainly have earned an butt kicking this election, and that's exactly what they're going to get.
I want to thank you for your support of Bush, without his miserable failure, the party of change and hope would not be poised to capture both the Presidency and overwhelming control of congress as they are now.
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Obama before you ever get to whether he's a Christian or not I don't need to go there and won't be dragged there by someone who cannot provide legitimate reasons to vote FOR Obama.
At this point I'm more concerned about his relationships with Mr. & Mrs. Wm Ayers, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pflegar, ACORN and others before I'm concerned about his relationship with Jesus or Mohammad.
But you don't seem real concerned about McCain's association with Phil "deregulator" Gramm, Charles "swindler" Keating, Carly "Golden Parachute failed CEO" Fiorina... when the conservative WSJ says that McCain can find out what went wrong on Wall St. "by cross-examining the people riding on his campaign bus."
But no, you'd rather eat the GOP slop of some innuendo, a vague terrorist 'anti-American' connection that Obama supposedly has. I thought you were a bright person.
Doesn't it mean anything to you when the Nobel Prize winner in economics says, "Remember, McCain's chief mentor on economics is Phil Gramm, the arch-deregulator, who took special care in his Senate days to prevent oversight of financial derivatives -- the very instruments that sank Lehman and A.I.G., and brought the credit markets to the edge of collapse."
"But no, you'd rather eat the GOP slop of some innuendo, a vague terrorist 'anti-American' connection that Obama supposedly has. I thought you were a bright person."
Jeez, William, I have no idea why you're not proving convincing, here.
I mean, I think the "scary associations" card that the right has tried to play against Obama is just as illegitimate and politically degenerate as you do, I'm sure. But raving on about the questionable associations of the other guy or gal isn't the answer. It's neither rational nor pragmatic.
If Obama's not "anti-American" (which he's not), calmly explain why those allegations are bogus. Don't start to rant and demean the person you're talking to. That's not going to convince anyone. It just reinforces awful stereotypes about both sides of the political divide.
As far as I'm concerned, I'd much rather see a Republican throwing a million bad arguments against Obama than see a Democrat use a single one in support of him. The Republican is just wrong; the Democrat, through his arguments, tars and corrupts the truth he supposedly wants to defend.
I mean, I think the "scary associations" card that the right has tried to play against Obama is just as illegitimate and politically degenerate as you do
Excuse me? Huge difference.
Is Obama planning to use William Ayres, Rev, Wright, Tony Rezko in his cabinet? Hell no.
However, McCain has been hinting that Gramm is to be next Treasury Secretary. Gramm the guy who deregulated financial products called credit default swaps - unregulated swaps have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown. Educate yourself.
Again, no reasons to vote FOR Obama.
We will vote on election day, though I'm second guessing that tradition in our family, especially since I'm to report for jury duty the day before.
I plan on voting for Obama, Lamar Alexander, Jim Cooper, and Gary Odom. I think the two metro charter changes are useful, so I'll vote yes on them.
I plan on voting Obama for several reasons. I'm not voting on economic issues. Am I completely comfortable with the way Obama will spend money? No, but the Republicans' record on spending hasn't engendered any faith in their plans either. I prefer the kinds of judges Obama will nominate, I prefer Obama's foreign policy, and those two areas are more important to me than these economic ones. I would have liked to hear more about balancing the budget, protecting our right to vote, and diminishing the influence of lobbyists, other issues important to me. Like Powell, I've not cared for the tone of the McCain campaign. At times, the "Country First" campaign seems to have little regard for a significant number of Americans. Not that it's all them, but moreso and harsher, IMHO.
I'm voting for Alexander because, while I may disagree with him on some issues, he's not a party hack; he's a decent guy in a fairly conservative state, so I don't see enough cause to "fire him."
That aside, I do believe, at this point, losing power might be one of the best things for the GOP. I think it needs to refine its fiscal conservatism and be able to promote its conservatism in a more positive way. The same notion may be true for state Democrats: I'm not really sure what they stand for. As a fellow Tennessean once said "Defeat can serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out."
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