If I was John McCain

[Kelpten]

If I were to tell you right now that I was John McCain, would you believe me? Really, would it be a huge stretch for the Republican Candidate to be a werewolf fan? Or would you say it's impossible, or that if it were, that he'd never cast off his anonymity just before his election?

So random!

[alphanubilus]

I don't think it would be political suicide for a president-to-be to like horror movies, and favor werewolves... my goodness we already KNOW that half of Washington is already full of them. Now it probably WOULD be political suicide if they suddenly found John McCain dressed up as a giant raccoon while he was at a furry convention.

[Silverclaw]

I don't think it would be political suicide for a president-to-be to like horror movies, and favor werewolves... my goodness we already KNOW that half of Washington is already full of them. Now it probably WOULD be political suicide if they suddenly found John McCain dressed up as a giant raccoon while he was at a furry convention.

I just might vote for him if he did

[Scott Gardener]

It's highly unlikely that John McCain is a werewolf fan. He chose as a running mate the Governor of Alaska who brought back aerial wolf killings.

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press ... rogram.php

I was already voting Democratic before he chose Palin, but getting her on the ticket was a reminder of why I've been a Democrat for the past ten years, when I used to be an equally devoted Republican.

[Uniform Two Six]

Oh fabulous. That's even worse than her stance on ANWR.

[alphanubilus]

Palin... wolf killing... goodness, but then again what is to be done when we unfortunately disrupt the natural balance of Nature.

I am a registered Republican, in a LONG LONG LONG history of democrats, so you can say I rebelled by becoming conservative! No... but I've always been taught to vote for the person you think will best fit the bill, and not the party.

As my blog says... Obama ALL the way...

In reality I'd vote for Donald Duck... and in Switzerland he almost won, because nobody liked either of the canidates!

[Scott Gardener]

McCain himself is a strong and solid choice. I'm severely disappointed in his choice of a running mate. Prior to the announcement, I was already an Obama supporter, but I finally felt that after twelve years of choosing the lesser buffoon (though in retrospect, I have gained a lot of respect for Gore and his contributions towards ecological awareness), that this time around, the pickings were good. Indeed, I feel that this is the most historically significant campaign in decades, and that it's much like choosing between Kennedy and Reagan. But, Palin pretty much kills that.

I'd go on more about why, but no, I'm not going there today.

[Uniform Two Six]

Yeah, I'd have to agree. I've been wanting to vote for McCain for years (I really wanted him to win back in 2000, but he crashed and burned during the primary). I'm a regestered Republican, but I've never been able to stomach any of the candidates the party has nominated. The lunatic asylum wing of the Republican party (fanatical evangelical christians and neoconservatives) have consistently nominated people who would probably have to be running against Hitler or Pol Pot before I'd vote for them. I was so excited that he (McCain that is) finally made it to the final election, and now I'm probably going to have to vote for Obama because Palin is looking more and more like the scum of the earth the GOP always puts up for president. Once more, I have to vote against a candidate rather than for one. This sucks.

[Scott Gardener]

I have no idea how to turn on html in posts here, but for those of you who don't feel like cutting and pasting, just visit http://www.youtube.com/v/iGPFPBmzRrQ&co ... fcfcf&fs=1



[Edit by admin]: Fixed the code. Flash can only be embedded by administrators currently.

[Terastas]

McCain chose Palin, I'm convinced, because he wants to believe that we as Americans are all stupid, and that nineteen million people voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries just because she's a woman. Had Clinton won the nomination instead of Obama, no doubt in my mind he would have chosen a black man as his running mate instead.

So if you told me that you were McCain, I'd be skeptical, but if you could prove that you are, I'd think this was just another shameless ploy to w**** for biased votes under the presumption that we're all stupid and gullible.

And I have nothing but absolute resentment for anyone that votes for McCain and/or Palin because they'd "like to have a beer with him/her."

1) McCain's a Nam vet and Palin's a gun nut. They scare me enough when they're sober, I don't even want to know what they're like when they've had a few.
2) You're never going to get the chance. People voted for Dubya for that reason, now we can barely afford beer thanks to the mess he made of our economy while he's off drinking champagne with his real friends.


I'll give McCain this though; I didn't think I would ever hate anyone more than I hated Bush, but in just a couple of months, he and Bush have divided all of my homicidal fantasies equally between the two of them. What Bush worked eight years for, McCain earned in less than a month.

*stops writing before he starts foaming at the mouth*

[Uniform Two Six]

I'm sure that he hoped to cash in on the disgruntled female vote with Palin after Clinton lost the Democratic primary, but I think the real thrust in choosing her was to shore up the lunatic wing of the Republican Party. Remember that with McCain alot of what McCain has been spouting off recently has been in diametric opposition to what he has been saying and doing before he was actively running for president. I keep trying to tell people I know that you have to ignore anything a candidate says anytime within two years of a presidential election. The last year and a half to two years has been nothing but political spin. Remember that McCain has always had serious trouble with the Republican lunatic fringe (neoconservatives and evangelical christians). He's not crazy enough for them. That's the reason he went down in flames in the 2000 primaries. Palin might be a woman but the real reason he picked her is that she's the exact same kind of psychotic nut that makes up his political base. The thing to remember is that he's got problems with that base because he has a history of bipartisan compromise with the Democrats. And through the religious zealot filter, that reads: "Godless heathen sellout".

[Terastas]

Understood, but here's the problem: McCain had the lunatic superconservatives in the bag already. He didn't have to nominate a VP until after he had won the Republican nomination.

Seriously, was he worried that they might vote for Obama?

The only people Palin caters to through her policies are the staunch die-hard Republican nimrods and psychopaths that can be counted on to vote Republican no matter what kind of idiots are running. The kind of people who are impressed with Palin for her approach to politics would have voted for McCain against Obama no matter who he picked as his running mate; he could have given the VP nominee to Kevin Federlline and they still would have supported him over Obama.

What McCain wanted in a running mate was essentially a yesman with boobs. McCain has literally gambled his entire campaign counting on America to be stupid. I can understand having doubts about Obama, but he couldn't possibly do any worse than McCain would.

[Uniform Two Six]

McCain had the lunatic superconservatives in the bag already. He didn't have to nominate a VP until after he had won the Republican nomination.

Seriously, was he worried that they might vote for Obama?

Not true. The Republican Party was in serious revolt after his nomination. The concern was not that they would lose votes to the Democratic candidate, but that they would lose votes period. The hard-line whack-jobs for a time looked to be ready to go into full revolt and boycott the election. This didn't get alot of play in the media, but it had the party leadership really freaked out even months before he got the actual nomination, when they began to see the handwriting on the wall. There was some hope for a time that the Democrats would nominate Clinton for the simple reason that the neoconservative rank and file hate her with pathological intensity, so much so that they could still be counted on turning out in droves. Obama's nomination put that scenario in doubt. I'm telling you, the neoconservatives and the religious nuts really don't like McCain. Palin was his olive branch.

[Scott Gardener]

McCain himself, most of the time, seems remarkably sensible. For awhile, before the VP picks, I really felt that, this time, we had an election in which we couldn't lose, in which either candidate was a good, solid choice, and that either way, we were in for an improvement. But, Palin is an obvious cater to the fanatics, the gun-toting bible-thumping stereotype--and, I can assure you, they're real. It sounds like a stereotype, but I live in Texas. I see them. And, discussing politics can be very depressing, especially when they go off about how near the "End Times" are. Palin is basically a "Good ole' boy" with a female incarnation. Attempts to market her as "sexy" simply add insult to injury for both women and for men like myself who respect the female half of the human population as fellow people rather than as sex objects.

Argh. I have tried to steer away from getting too militant about my beliefs, but when it comes to people running for office who resurrect as an institution the shooting of wolves, it's personal.

[RedEye]

I wish this election were as simple as a single issue, but it isn't. There are good points and bad points to both sides; and as a gun-toting, rede-thumping Pagan--I can agree that some people who claim Christianity are in the main just nuts with a religion complex.

Sadly, to me, it's once again choosing the one that will do the least damage, be the lesser of two evils, and can most be trusted with the "button". Unfortunately, I'm having to settle for the best two out of three so far.
Either way, we lose; as once again the Parties and not the People are naming the candidates.
Well, we do get the government we deserve, don't we?

[Uniform Two Six]

I'd have to say that I agree. Having to vote against a candidate (or their veep nominee as it were) sucks when what I'd rather be doing is voting for a candidate. I, for one would love to vote for McCain, but am going to vote for Obama simply because Palin scares me. That said, I feel the need to emphasize that I'm not exactly voting for Obama. I'm voting against Palin. I never really liked Obama as a candidate simply because he doesn't have the political network that, say, Clinton has. That's important. The reality is that for all of the President's supposed power, the actual day-to-day functions of the Executive Branch are handled by the cabinet heads. The best president is one who can get the right person in the right cabinet position. Who's Obama going to get for Secretary of State? Energy? Interior? Agriculture? Defense? I have faith in Clinton having a huge list of very qualified people at her beck and call. I'm really worried Obama is going to pull a George Bush and fill cabinet positions with his personal political cronies. Remember Interior Secretary Gail Norton *shudder*? How about FEMA director Michael Brown? I'm more comfortable now that Obama has Biden with him (since Biden has been playing the game for quite some time now), but it's still something that's a nagging doubt for me. You put somebody into one of those positions whose only qualification is that they helped run your campaign in Ohio, and you're asking for trouble.

Anyhow, I'd also have to admit that as dissatisfied as I am about all of this, I'd still like to point out that for all of its faults, our system still works. Which is at the end of the day both mundane and profound. We wind up with the candidates who represent the best compromise that can reasonably be reached among 300 million individuals. Obama didn't get the Democratic nomination because he cheated or something. He got it because there really was a huge number of people out there who genuinely want to see him as President of the United States. I may not think he's a very good option, but there's clearly a sizable chunk of the 300 million who disagree. On that note, I personally would have loved to see Bill Richardson as President. Considering how far he got in the primaries (not far) I'm clearly in the minority on that subject.

On an aside, who would you guys have liked to have seen in the White House?

[Terastas]

McCain had the lunatic superconservatives in the bag already. He didn't have to nominate a VP until after he had won the Republican nomination.

Seriously, was he worried that they might vote for Obama?

Not true. The Republican Party was in serious revolt after his nomination. The concern was not that they would lose votes to the Democratic candidate, but that they would lose votes period. The hard-line whack-jobs for a time looked to be ready to go into full revolt and boycott the election. This didn't get alot of play in the media, but it had the party leadership really freaked out even months before he got the actual nomination, when they began to see the handwriting on the wall. There was some hope for a time that the Democrats would nominate Clinton for the simple reason that the neoconservative rank and file hate her with pathological intensity, so much so that they could still be counted on turning out in droves. Obama's nomination put that scenario in doubt. I'm telling you, the neoconservatives and the religious nuts really don't like McCain. Palin was his olive branch.

Oh trust me, they would have gotten over that logic soon enough. And not because of anything McCain did, but just because they would have made the same "lesser of two evils" argument many of us are currently making.

What McCain has essentially done by choosing Palin is drive away the independents and undecided voters just to make the support he already had even louder; he gave the appearance of a strong campaign, but what he really did was shoot his campaign square in the a**.

Under Bush, the Republican party was purged of moderates, independents, and anyone with a mind for politics over business in general. Now the Republicans have only one talent: B.S. The McCain campaign is a walking time bomb, but by holding a proverbial microphone to their fanatical supporters and by bullying the media, they can convince people otherwise. Palin's only success at the debate was meeting the exceedingly low standards that had been set for her; she didn't vomit, wet herself or drop the N-bomb, but she still looked absolutely pathetic, but after the debate they got three Republican meat-heads to talk about how impressed they were with her. The McCain campaign isn't even a campaign anymore; it's a big fat lie. If you polish a turd, it's still a turd.

It's reached a point where even Republican meat-puppets in the media like Howie Carr couldn't defend it anymore. Even people that I thought would be neoconservative to the grave are starting to waver. Even the most racist of the racists that I know are wavering, and even the most violent of the violent femmes I've ever had to suffer the presence of have made clear that they hate Palin with every bone in their bodies. Even the retards of America are not as retarded as McCain expects them to be.

So that's what Palin has done: made happy and louder the people that would have just reluctantly voted for him anyway, but completely alienated the people he should have been reaching out to in the first place. Palin is the Kimbo Slice of politics: all the fanfare in the world won't hide the fact that she absolutely sucks.

[W'rkncacnter]

This is a hell of a topic to put my first real post on, but here goes...

To start, I don't like to argue. Not only because this is the internet, and winning an argument here is about as meaningful as successfully catching some popcorn you have thrown up in the air in your mouth, but also because it is my firm belief that the greatest detriment to human intelligence is disagreement.

That being said, I don't actually see anyone here arguing, which (I suppose) makes it alright for me to say what I think on this subject.

I think that both Obama and McCain would be good presidents. Their policies are based on logic and reason (and where they aren't there's room for correction; you can't expect someone to do everything right), they are relatively good in the realm of sociability (although, to be fair, Obama wins here; he could break through brick walls on sheer charisma), and they know how the American government system works (again, in fairness, McCain wins here, having been in office of government longer than Obama has been out of college, and having voted almost three times as much as Obama if not more).

I support Obama, but this is really only out of policy; his ideas seem to be better suited to solve American problems today than those of McCain.

Now, about the first post on this topic. I think that a true politician should keep personal opinion and legislative opinion on far sides of his brain. I understand why politicians have to try to appeal to a portion of the population, but the ultimate lawmaker would (once he is in office) make laws that don't just help his base, but the entire electorate. With that in mind, I could give a flying fig that McCain would be a werewolf fan (although it would be strange if true). What I care about is that he keep his opinions and beliefs to himself when writing laws.