Third Party & Independents Archives

Were we watching the same speech? It was nothing more than the old mantra of tax and spend. No specifics were given on anything, only the pump up the dems generalities. No wonder the watchblog manager keeps sending messages inviting people to write blogs. This column is supposed to be for independents and yet what we have here is a full-blown liberal democratic blog.

Brilliant on the tactical front? Give me a break.

Obama’s appeal has always been that he somehow transcends usual partisan politics and offers instead unity, hope, and change.

This was an angry, vitriolic speech more appropriate to the Democratic primaries. The delivery only got good at the very end—I’ve seen him give far better on the stump—but this kind of red-meat partisanship is not what Obama needed to make a lasting appeal to independent voters.

Obama’s surprise, I believe, will be a bounce in the polls that utterly and permanently collapses after the Republican convention. The speech was a dud. Mark my words.

P.S.
Take away his telepromter and see how good his speech sounds.

David,

Obama was specific about where he would go for additional revenues and sounded Reaganesque when he alluded to poring over the budget line by line to rid our failed bureaucracy of the waste and abuse of tax dollars that have been the hallmark of the last 7.5 years and Congress’ long before that.

It was a pleasant surprise indeed! I’ve been waiting a long time for some presidential candidate, any candidate, to say this!! Of course, we have no way of knowing if he’s serious about this. I certainly hope he is.

I thought the speech started out a bit week, but got progressively better as it went on. McCain’s going to have a hard time toping it.

If you want to have some fun, compare Obama’s speech to Kerry’s “Reporting for Duty” ramble four years ago. Or try to, because there really is no comparison. These days even Democrats have to realize what a horrible candidate Kerry was…

Glad to see the speech struck a chord with the opposition, as it was designed to do. Thank you.

The GOP is in trouble now. They banked on a divided Convention. It didn’t happen. They banked on Obama - Clinton warfare and even tried to fuel it. It didn’t happen. Now they bank on divisiveness over the Obama speech. It won’t happen except in the circles of hardened GOP loyalists who view America’s future as a team sport of competition for the political parties.

It’s not about that with Obama. And that is why the large portions of the moderate right leaning Independents are going to shift to Obama’s camp between now and November.

McCain wants to assassinate character. Obama wants to solve America’s problems. The choice could not be clearer.

Old Guy, your view is old too, that one cannot be independent and also choose a candidate from any party as in their own best interest. Your old view is ossified in partisan politics. Pray for reincarnation so you can have a chance to be young and flexible again.

Brilliant on the tactical front? Give me a break.

Well, he outflanked McCain on the fiscal-conservative issue. If he keeps talking about the budget, he may win over many Republicans.

Obama was specific about where he would go for additional revenues and sounded Reaganesque when he alluded to poring over the budget line by line to rid our failed bureaucracy of the waste and abuse of tax dollars that have been the hallmark of the last 7.5 years and Congress’ long before that.

It was a pleasant surprise indeed! I’ve been waiting a long time for some presidential candidate, any candidate, to say this!! Of course, we have no way of knowing if he’s serious about this. I certainly hope he is.

So you’ve been waiting a long time for the president to permanently be given a line-item veto? Because that’s what it would take to carry out this absurd promise—which, incidentally, the Democrats have prevented time and again.

Obama might as well have added that he’ll let us all eat as much as we want without getting fat if he’s going to promise things he can’t possibly deliver.

TheTraveler, I agree. I voted for Nader when Kerry was running, because Kerry demonstrated that he could not be persuasive on his feet. Nader was worse than Kerry on this count, but, Nader’s reach to rid our system of party corruption and bribery had persuasiveness built in.

Obama has adopted many of Nader’s perspectives and agenda items, and that is why supporting Nader in the past was an absolutely sound decision to make. Nader is still shaping the debate of the candidates of the two main parties. McCain has even adopted some of Nader’s rhetoric, and that was many years ago. Remember McCain-Feingold, Nader was preaching it long before McCain adopted it.

Loyal Opp said: “So you’ve been waiting a long time for the president to permanently be given a line-item veto?”

No. Absolutely not. I have opposed and will always oppose the line item veto. Obama said he would go over the budget line by line and alluded to using his veto pen to send the Congress back to the drawing board. Obama made no reference at all to the line item veto. And I would oppose Obama if he seeks it.

The line item veto violates the constructs of the Constitution which empowers the people through their representatives with the power to spend and raise revenues for that spending. To grant that power to one person in government clearly violates the fundamental principles, checks and balances and wisdom of the U.S. Constitution.

Were we watching the same speech? It was nothing more than the old mantra of tax and spend.

No, just spend. He’s proposing tax cuts!!! He’s a Democrat who’s actually talking about cutting the budget!!! Obama’s a conservative. If you want tax-and-spend liberalism, look no further than Bush!

Well put, Maureen. Touche’ !

Nearly doubling the national debt from 5.65 trillion dollars to just shy of 10 trillion in less than 8 years of a sitting president is a first for the history books, and will rank right there with the Hoover Administration and Polk’s, and perhaps even Grant’s corruption.

Bush of course blames Clinton for taking the veto pen with him when he left office. I can picture GW Bush up all hours of the night trying to find that damn veto pen all throughout his first 4 years in office. The dullard finally woke up in his second term and realized any pen would do.

David, thank you for the summation. It only took 18 and 20 minutes to get the first reaction from the Republican crowd. I don’t understand how someone can say there were no specifics in his speech, when he was pretty definitive, just short of actual figures and minute details.
Angry??? Vitriolic??? If that is what you think of Obama’s speech, what in the world would you call what McCain and company have been saying the last few days?
I saw not anger, but frustration and just pure being fed up, having had enough and determination to make a change.
He stood up to McCain, without disrespect, but with absolute determination. He is most certainly not intimidated by him !!
And to parrot the baseball analogy….this was another out of the park…..hell no….out of the county Obama statement.
Is going to be a most interesting few days coming up….

Obama said he would go over the budget line by line and alluded to using his veto pen to send the Congress back to the drawing board.

Oh, I see. So Obama is going to pore over the budget line by line and if he sees something he doesn’t like, he’ll just tell his Democratic compatriots in Congress that and they’ll meekly go back to the drawing board, cut out all the pork, and give Obama what he wants.

Obama won’t need the line-item veto to do this! Amazing!! He will just use the same powers of persuasion and speech-making that he will also use to keep Iran, Russia and North Korea in line, and on Osama bin Laden to convince him to come out of his cave.

If anybody’s already drunk the Obama Kool Aid, I suppose this all makes perfect sense. But if so, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell them.

….it is so true about the best defense being an offense. And offensive this is truly going to get. This just shows that you are scared silly that McCain isn’t going to be able to come close to this guy from here on.

I loved the speech.

It exposed Obama’s weaknesses big time, brought him way down off the pedestal where he was pretending to be “above partisanship” and revealed him as just another cookie-cutter far left-pol with tired failed ideas and an anger-management problem besides. I expect that the McCain ad-writers were beside themselves with joy at all the ammunition Obama gave them in this speech.

Fact is that if Obama had recited the Burger King menu instead of giving that sorry speech, the media pundits and Obama-worshipers would still be talking about how, masterful and brilliant it was, the very best thing since sliced bread and cheese in a tube.

The speech was gassy partisan garbage with a heavy dose of Malcom-X style anger sprinkled here and there and dressed up with absurd pie-in-the-sky promises that you’d be embarrassed to tell your four year old at bedtime. The Obama speech was a train-wreck.

Loyal Opp,

So you’ve been waiting a long time for the president to permanently be given a line-item veto? Because that’s what it would take to carry out this absurd promise—which, incidentally, the Democrats have prevented time and again.

Unlike David, I do like the idea of a line item veto. But I agree with him that it’s unconstitutional. It would take an amendment to get a LIV. But Obama wouldn’t need one to cut the budget. Congress bases most of the budget on a budget proposal made by the President. The budget is so massive that the President bases the proposal mostly on the last one, with any changes he wants to make. He’s not cutting Bush’s ‘09 budget, which is already law, but the first one he proposes.

an anger-management problem besides.

He really got to you, huh? The smell of fear is filling the air in here.

Remember, Obama wrote this speech. Not a speechwriter. Obama.

Remember, Obama wrote this speech. Not a speechwriter. Obama.

Riiiight…
I’ve got a bridge. Would you like to buy it?

There’s not much doubt, that now the vicious attacks against Obama are going to escalate. This is an interesting graph…..

http://mediamattersaction.org/swiftboating/

David,

Obama wants to having his cake and eat it too. He has already promised to spend the ENTIRE amount of money we are spending in Iraq (which if ‘off the budget’ though churning up our debt) in a jobs program.

The debt will not decrease under an Obama administration just as it never decreased under a Clinton administration.

So, if your goal, like mine, is to reduce our debt, your hanging on the wrong guy. If, however, you want him to move some numbers around columns, borrow against SS future payouts and claim a balanced budget surplus for political gain… Well, that’s up to you.

And there is a difference between being an indpendant supporting a candidate and swallowing the partisan Kool-Aid. You have to decide on where you fit in that yourself.

LO

Obama might as well have added that he’ll let us all eat as much as we want without getting fat if he’s going to promise things he can’t possibly deliver.

You are correct. It is the lay down and die attitude such as yours that has created a non functional government. You expect nothing of government. Government recognizes that. The result is they give you nothing.

If he delivers just a tiny bit of what he says he will work for, it will be much more than the last eight years have given us. In order to make gains we first have to take back what we have lost. And nobody can fairly deny that much has been lost under republican rule.

LO-
First, let me say that when you can get Pat Buchanan to call it a great speech, then it’s going to have an effect on independents.

This was angry, but not vitriolic, not corrosive. This was anger at years of missed opportunities and failures that most Americans share, and that many watching would identify with.

This wasn’t Obama attacking people on their political stands. When he brought up guns, abortion and other such issues, he didn’t attack the pro-lifers, those who want gun rights, or others. He offered up the notion that there was room to agree.

This was Obama saying enough is enough. And America is saying it in unison with him. He offered unity, hope and change, just not the country unified around the Republicans, the hope for more of the same, or the kind of change you’re comfortable with.

On the budget, I think he’s capable of doing it. He doesn’t need a line-item veto, just negotiation. You see, if they hammer out a deal in advance, they don’t have to bat it back and forth like they’re playing it at Wimbledon. Won’t necessarily be easy, but he’s never promised easy, he’s promised results.

As for Iran, Russia, and North Korea being kept in line, I hardly call what this administration has been doing anything like that. The bluff and bluster about this foreign policy is meant to hide the fact that it’s utterly failed. You folks just want to convince us that if we give you four more years, then it will work out as planned. But you said that four years ago, and ever bad actor you mentioned has gotten stronger.

Obama’s got more than speechmaking ability. Anybody who can sell taping interrogations to cops has some negotiating ability. The Bush Apologists like to imagine that there are no other workable strategies than their wars and their saber rattling, but Obama knows differently, and American remembers differently.

As for Osama? Well, Osama Bin Laden’s still sitting in his cave, as far as I can see. Though it may not literally be a cave. It may be a home out in the open, the way things are going.

Osama’s group operates in many countries, and we cannot invade every one. Nonetheless, it must be destroyed, or rendered so weak that they become a joke. To do that, we have to talk to people, get them to agree with us. We didn’t neglect the diplomatic front when we fought the Soviets, I don’t see why we should weaken ourselves on that front with a mere terrorist group.

Oldguy-
The old mantra of tax and spend, eh? You know, that can have a double meaning. The Republicans and folks on the right use that mantra all the time, trying to characterize folks who have tended in history to run low deficits, if any, and who generally paid for expansions in government, as profligate nuts on a spending spree. And so we have a Republican adding more debt to America’s tab than anybody in history, at the same time growing the government’s expenditures faster than even Carter did.

As for the balance of this column, I think it’s a shame that you interpret independent to mean only “free to disagree with Democrats” in this column.

I think Obama could manage well without a teleprompter, if he had to. He’s got a good memory. But like a speakers notes, a teleprompter helps keep delivery smooth by relieving the person of the need to have to dredge up the words from memory. Obama uses his gracefully, so you barely could tell. McCain’s use was so awkward and stilted (and his background so green) that some compared his delivery to a lawn sprinkler. Stephen Colbert even gave a challenge to viewers, using the green background as a chroma key. This one’s my favorite, and I think it tells you how bad McCain’s delivery is.

Mark-
Yes, he writes some of his own speeches. Some politicians do have that ability, unlike a recent politician I will leave unnamed.

Maureen

No, just spend. He’s proposing tax cuts!!! He’s a Democrat who’s actually talking about cutting the budget!!! Obama’s a conservative. If you want tax-and-spend liberalism, look no further than Bush!

Well said! Many have made this claim, of course republicans deny it at all costs. Of course claiming ideology for them is more of a lip service than actuality.

I guess since I support Obama, understand his plan for change and what that means with regards to the necessity for spending and taxing strategies, that now means I should consider myself a liberal conservative. Is there such a thing? Is that a redundancy? ;)

LO

The speech was gassy partisan garbage with a heavy dose of Malcom-X style anger sprinkled here and there and dressed up with absurd pie-in-the-sky promises that you’d be embarrassed to tell your four year old at bedtime. The Obama speech was a train-wreck.

The speech was fantastic. Your totally partisan views are showing through, you are being silly in trying to convince anyone otherwise. It was a direct assault on McCain and republican policy of the last eight years. He could not have been more clear. He said bring it on, truth will expose reality.

As for the pie in the sky stuff, he did nothing more than recognize what the people of this country want, need and deserve. He defined a direction for the future that we will at some point have to take regardless of the views of any particular party.

If you do not see the need for progress and new direction then by all means stay with your man. But please don’t fault others for wanting a better future.

Anyone able to explain how Obama expects to spend the entire amount we are spending on Iraq now on other programs without increasing our debt more?

Or, were those just campaign promises he never expects to keep, and what does that say to the other campaign promises he has made (and some broken already)?

Which Obama will we get as President?
The far-left liberal with questionable friends and unconstitutional and intrusive views, OR, the new Obama who will not raise our taxes, who now respects the 2nd Amendment, who will not grow govt, who now does not want to force national healthcare onto all, who will now do a phased withdrawal out of Iraq instead of an immediate wreckless one, the one who is now ok with wiretapping, etc…?

The far-left liberal or the moderate who promises us the moon? The only “Obama Surprise!” will be only for those gullable enough to believe it is the latter.

Rhinehold

When was the last time any politician was able to keep all their campaign promises? I have given this a little thought and come to the conclusion that no party will be able to balance a budget anytime soon. We all are and will be paying the price for the poor and irresponsible economic and foreign policy of the last eight years for some time to come. Our only avenue out of this stagnation is to take a proactive approach of intelligently and responsibly moving out of the past and into the future. Our only hope is to lead the way in the advent and implementation of new technology. An approach that will give us a larger degree of independence and insure a world wide demand for the products we produce. It will take sacrifice by all. Hell we are already sacrificing and at the same time stagnating. The only way out of that stagnation is to move beyond the old and work our way into the new.

Obama at least recognizes what is not working and proposes an avenue of escape. McCains ideas are mired in the past and show no recognition of the need for new direction and would have us continue in our current manner. Is ignoring the realities of our situation somehow a fix for what ails us? If so I don’t see it.

I know you are looking for specifics and I do not have them. I seriously doubt anyone does. That still does not change the reality of the situation our country is in today as the result of our ever exponentially growing dependence on foreign borrowing and foreign products.

I am going to ask you if perhaps you have an insight into what specifically it will take to lead us into a better time. Not just a diatribe on libertarian principles, but an actual specific direction with regards to economy, humanitarian needs and foreign relations. I am not looking for argument in this question. I really would be interested in knowing what you propose.

I have given this a little thought and come to the conclusion that no party will be able to balance a budget anytime soon.

None of the big two, I agree. Because they don’t want to, it would be political suicide. For example, here in Indiana, Mitch Daniels was able to win as Governor and in his 4 years he actually balanced the budget (not in a pretend way) when we were in pretty bad shape. Now people want to vote him out because he cut too many programs to do it… People want their share of the free money that government means to them.

and responsibly moving out of the past and into the future.

And that means, I am guessing, Progressive Policies, that bypass individual liberty for the sake of the society?

I know you are looking for specifics and I do not have them. I seriously doubt anyone does.

You are right, I am, and you are again right at least for Obama, he doesn’t. And when confronted with the realities, he will do a lot of the same as we already have. Nothing new, same old rhetoric of new ideas and direction with little to show for it. If there are no specifics, it doesn’t exist, actions speak way louder than words.

All you have done is buy into the rhetoric. I’ve lived long enough to know what that means.

That still does not change the reality of the situation our country is in today as the result of our ever exponentially growing dependence on foreign borrowing and foreign products.

And there are a few ways of dealing with them. Obama talks about the way where he uses the law to block that from happening. Much the same way that Hoover did in the 1920s that led us to the Great Depression with the Smoot-Hawley Act. You’ll see why I am suspect and want specifics.

I am going to ask you if perhaps you have an insight into what specifically it will take to lead us into a better time. Not just a diatribe on libertarian principles, but an actual specific direction with regards to economy, humanitarian needs and foreign relations. I am not looking for argument in this question. I really would be interested in knowing what you propose.

I have given that before, and while not a presidential candidate (though I considered it this year, perhaps in 2012), I can tell you that you have to find solutions that will further individual liberty, not reduce it. That is the only real way.

When I have more than 10 minutes to commit to a comment, I’ll be glad to put them into paper again. But, are you looking for anything specific, not as broad as ‘economy’ and ‘humanitarian needs’?

I don’t listen to what people say when they’re trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Obama a conservative?!? Nowhere in his voting record is he a conservative. He attacks the producers in the economy every time he gets a chance and then hobnobs with corporate bigwigs behind his supporters’ backs. He does what Chicagoans have seen the powerful do for generations. He instills fear in industry and exploits that fear for his advantage.

I’m a very good speaker. I could come up with wonderful socialist platitudes and have liberals rolling in the aisles with joy. But if you want to know what I believe see what I do and say when the spotlight is not shining on me.

2 words, conservatives.
George Bush.
How can any conservative who supported George Bush have any credibility what so ever to critic Obama. A freakin’ monkey could have done better that the Repubs did in the last 8 years.
Occusing Obama of talking about the same old democratic rhetoric when McCain can’t even think for himself anymore.
Give me a break, seriously.

Lee, clean the wax out of your ears and the prejudices out of your thinking. Obama is committed to tax cuts FOR the producers of the economy, the small businesses who hire Americans and have no desire to export jobs or their business overseas.

If you do a little research, you will find that small business is the bulk of producers and employers in America, not the large corporations, especially since so many of them have moved operations overseas to cheap labor markets and tax havens.

A Republican believes it is patriotic to dodge paying for one’s own government, running deficits, and rallying around the lie that deficits and debt don’t matter as Dick Cheney preached to the loyalists. What an utter and complete undermining of common sense, economics, rules of math, and rejection of reality.

But, then, reality of the past 7.5 years is precisely what Republicans have to hide in order to keep some semblance of pride as Republicans. I assure you, most of Americans now get it. Polls show the majority of Americans now prefer a Democrat in the White House. And by November, the majority will choose Obama because the alternative of defending a failed past is no alternative at all.

“It was a solemn promise to America that this election is not about him, it’s about us.”

I find it hard to believe that some people actually believe that. I know the Democrats in Congress don’t believe it.

After the election, all about “us” will become I/we know what is best for you. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it will be.

There was no great national debate on the New World Order. There was no attempt to convince “us” that exporting our jobs to China was actually good for “us”. There was no attempt to convince “us” that bringing in millions of low wage illegal immigrants was actually a great think for “us”. These things were rammed down the throats of “us” by the multi-national corporations and their pets, Democrat and Republican politicians.

When Obama and the liberal Democrats convince me that they are going to hold national debates on the issues and that they are listening to “us” dictating to them rather than dictating to “us”, they will get my support again.

Health care would be a great issue for Obama and the liberals to begin the prime time national debate.

jlw, read your constitution. We have a Democratic Republic, not a direct democracy. We choose leaders to make public decisions for us. That is the bedrock of the American system. All of the candidates in this race have vastly more knowledge about government, politics, foreign affairs than the majority of voters.

If you want to lobby for direct democracy, that’s fine. But, you can’t critique Obama and Democrats for the system which our Founding Fathers established for us. They are granted by our Constitution which the majority of Americans defend, to make the complex and difficult national policy decisions for us, leaving us free to pursue raising families, picnicking, and working to fend off homelessness, privation, and becoming victims to the predators in our society, some of them, politicians.

I personally don’t see Obama as pursuing a fundamental Democratic Party agenda. He has said as much, many times over on the campaign trail. The brilliance of his speech was in marrying the best of conservative and liberal principles into his platform. The fact that more than 80% of Democrats are standing behind him on this, is truly revolutionary. A turning point for America and hopefully American politics.

Unlike McCain, who has failed to learn much of anything since his days in the Hanoi Hilton, Obama has taken in the lessons of the Democratic years in the political wilderness as the minority party in government, and embraced a new platform and agenda that addresses what conservatives and liberals alike can do to reduce gun violence by criminals without sacrificing the 2nd Amendment, to reduce unwanted pregnancies and thereby avoid the abortion issue altogether for those women, to pursue fiscal sanity without abandoning those who lose all resources through no lack of work or effort on their part.

Nearly 1 million working Americans WITH health insurance will file bankruptcy this year due to health care costs. Obama is right. The American system should not punish those who work, and live by the expectations of our society, abandoning them in their hour of need when facing bankruptcy through no fault of their own, but due to failures in our systems to reward work and living responsibly as these nearly 1 million Americans have.

One does not have to trust Obama before he delivers. But, it is illogical to distrust Obama given the consistency of his approach and accomodative positioning to better answers to solving our nation’s and people’s challenges.

The self-fulfilling prophecy is a very powerful phenomenon of human psychology and sociology. The American people must believe things can get better and improve as a precondition to actual improvement. Whoever sits in the White House and Congress is going to need the support of the American people to actually make improvements.

This is fundamental to our Democratic Republic form of government. It is imprudent to predict failure before the effort has even begun to make improvements.