Funk Babblings

Of the three presidential debates this fall, the third one was definitely the most entertaining, though I'm not sure how enlightening it was. I did learn some things though, at least about John McCain....

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Forgot one!
11. He blinks secret messages to his followers, presumably in some variant of Morse code.

This guy scares me more than ever. Luckily he's unlikely to win -- as long as everyone votes and, when possible, contributes! (And even then, there could be trouble.)

Full debate transcript here.
Full videos here (in 17 parts).

The New Republic:
"Stop kidding yourself: John McCain is a pro-life zealot."

(This is way later than I intended, but hey, the polls have only been open for half an hour!)

First things first: In the grand scheme of things, the positions of Clinton and Obama are pretty close. Despite what you may have heard, both have detailed plans on all manner of issues, those plans and their overall positions are fairly similar, and those plans will inevitably get modified if they ever even make it through Congress.

Each has a life history that prepares them for the global stage. Both are highly intelligent. If you're concerned about ability to accomplish their goals, Obama's legislative record is actually more impressive, writing and passing legislation on all manner of important issues. There's plenty of substance there if you care to look.

On the life experience issue, I should also note that Obama has (at least) as much life experience as Bill "The Man From Hope" Clinton did in 1992 (when he was the same age Obama is), and John F. Kennedy did in 1960 (when he was three years younger).

But my major goal in voting today is to make sure the Democratic nominee will win in November. The biggest reason for that is the Supreme Court -- in replacing Sandra Day O'Connor with Sam Alito, Bush has pulled the court to the scary-right, and there's no doubt that McCain would continue that. McCain is also the guy who wants to stay in Iraq for centuries and joked about bombing Iran, as well as somehow keeping an image as a "maverick" while staying in lock-step with Bush.

So the first thing I look at (both last time around and this time) was the polls vs Republicans. Yes, it's early and things can change, but many of the candidates are already well-known, so those polls haven't changed a whole lot (especially when you consider the margin of error). It's striking that, rather consistently, Obama has polled better against McCain than Clinton has.

Then I look at the way they run their campaigns. The Clinton and Obama campaigns look very much like the Kerry and Dean campaigns four years ago, except that Obama learned from Dean's mistakes. Clinton is running a swing-state campaign, ignoring the "red states", and taking for granted the "blue states". Obama is running a 50-state campaign, bringing voters over to his side not by shifting his positions to the right, but by framing his views in ways that appeal to people who normally vote farther right. The 50-state strategy not only gives a better shot at winning a lot of states we might not otherwise win, but also gives a better shot of helping Democrats win House and Senate seats in Republican seats. More Democrats in Congress means more chance of a Democratic president actually getting their goals accomplished.

In addition, Obama's campaign has shown a remarkable ability to plan ahead, while Clinton's campaign was apparently unprepared to go past Super Tuesday, and has repeatedly been caught by surprise by the quirky rules of various states (such as Nevada and Texas). When the rules that were in place from the start have turned out later to have unfavorable consequences for her, her campaign has even sought to change them after the fact. (Watch for the coming fight over Michigan and Florida delegates, despite everyone knowing the rules ahead of time, those states flouting the rules, and therefore everyone knowing that those contests wouldn't count.) We don't need another president who tries to change the rules after the fact.


It's probably too late to change anyone's mind, but for all these reasons and more I intend to vote today for Barack Obama. And in November I'll happily vote for whichever of the two is still standing.