The scariest thing I've ever seen

[gambit]

Holy fuck.

[BeautifulBurnout]

Pretty dumb for sure. They really are just spouting rubbish and in a very aggressive way. Reminds me of the old National Front vs Anti-Nazi League days.

I think part of the problem is that in the States candidates have something like 5 or 6 months of solid campaigning (if not more) before the elections, whereas here in the UK they campaign for 5 weeks and that's that.

IMO that means that there is less time for resentments to build, badmouthing to be done and mud to be slung at each other through tv ads and the like. Also I don't believe organisations other than the parties themselves are allowed to fund advertising either, which makes a big difference. Each party has a certain amount of airtime allocated to make their point.

[gambit]

People would love 5 week elections here. Everyone keeps moaning and wishing the election is over already, and bear in mind, this actually started 20 months ago before the primaries.

Personally, I'm worried for Obama and his family's safety. I just want to tell him to not wander random neighborhoods anymore for fear of another RFK-type shooting.

[//\/\/]

the bongo who runs www.thebluesite.com couldn't see how the guy with the monkey was being racist!!!

[gambit]

Oh god, I got an email a few months ago comparing Michelle Obama to an ape, and the person who sent it thought it was just a silly joke, and another person got angry when I pointed out it was racist.

[kagenaki koe]

i'll feel really sad if these are those folks that will give McCain the win.

on a lighter note:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...nDancing33.php

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

I think part of the problem is that in the States candidates have something like 5 or 6 months of solid campaigning (if not more) before the elections, whereas here in the UK they campaign for 5 weeks and that's that.

IMO that means that there is less time for resentments to build, badmouthing to be done and mud to be slung at each other through tv ads and the like.

while the advantages of this are clear, a candidate like obama would have have a much tougher time winning, in fact he would have pretty much lost the primary against hillary if the campaign time was compressed. I guess you could argue that a grass roots movement against status quo takes a lot longer to gel than a more incremental approach to policy change.

[//\/\/]

not exactly a great advertisment for democracy, is it?

[Sean]

I wish McCain was right when he said that it's only a fringe element at his and Palin's rallies that were this extremist and bigotted, but I don't think he is. It seems to be a clearly notable portion of the crowd.

Thankfully, I've seen nothing comparable from Obama rallies.

[cacophony]

you could argue that rally attendees represent a small portion of the total republican voter base. and if the bigoted attendees make up only a portion of that portion, you do end up with a "fringe element" responsible for the offensiveness.

we have to be careful not to do the same thing that happened when hillary didn't get the nomination. it was easy to look at the hillary rallies and say, "wow a lot of women are angry and will vote for mccain if she doesn't get the nod." but in reality that very visible, very vocal group turned out to be an itty bitty minority and most of her supporters won't defect after all.

just because these people are visible and vocal, we can't automatically decide they represent the whole.