Democrat National Convention

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by cured

It makes sense...their convention is next week. I wouldn't call it smart, just appropriate.

it was no coincidence. i checked CNN and CNN mobile after the speech. mccain's name dominated every headline.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by cacophony

very savvy campaign strategy on the mccain campaign's part tonight. they released the information that mccain has settled on a VP running mate and timed it to reach the media in the gap between biden's speech and obama's speech. so now all of the media pundits are spinning their wheels talking about, "who could it be?" and repeating mccain's name when they would otherwise be winding up to obama's appearance. and in fact CNN spent several minutes showing the convention floor but mccain's news and name is all over the crawl. they're now back to talking about obama but i guarantee they'll revisit mccain's news as they're trying to come up with enough brainless chatter to fill the moments before the speech.

the announcement included a statement that they wouldn't reveal the name until tomorrow because tonight is obama's night. smart. they'll reveal the name tomorrow and usurp some of the continuing rehashing of obama's speech and get mccain's name rolling around and taking some of the spotlight back.

i've got to hand it to them. pretty smart move.

Very clever of them, though pretty much all the news sources I've seen today are pointing out that McCain's VP announcement/speculation has been timed to pop Obama's balloon.

Latest speculation by the way is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

[Troy McClure]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Very clever of them, though pretty much all the news sources I've seen today are pointing out that McCain's VP announcement/speculation has been timed to pop Obama's balloon.

Latest speculation by the way is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Every major news source is confirming that it is her. Interesting choice.

[Deckard]

Wow, that's a VERY clever move by them.

[cured]

She's pro-life and she's a woman but she's also 44 and a heartbeat away from the presidency. So much for needing experience. She's got ties to the oil industry and her husband is in the oil biz. That may be fodder for the democrats.

Now that she's in the fight, though, she's going to be given a trial by fire. She's going to be debating Joe Biden soon and when that conversation heads into the foreign policy area, is she going to be regurgitating talking points handed to her on a sheet of paper or is she going to demonstrate some insight that can parry whatever Biden says. After all, one of the them is the chair of the senate foreign relations committee, the other is a fisherman from Alaska.

[cured]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Most of us know Obama is not the Second Coming, and we realise that after a couple of years, we'll/you'll probably be feeling let down by him in the way that Tony "things can only get better" Blair let us Brits down. He will almost certainly disappoint when it comes to the degree of change he can realistically offer, and it would be easy, in anticipation of that, to buy into the mood of cynicism about him. But for now, at this point in time, this guy – to me at least – seems so many streets ahead of the choices America has previously had in their presidential candidates (issue of race aside), it would be a tragedy if they just let him slip by and voted in the Republican.

The big bonus about an Obama victory would be there is a democratic congress looking to redeem themselves. They've been at odds with the Bush administration and Obama will have the party backing to actually push some of these ideas through. If the US troops are pulled back in late 2010, well, that's right before the next election cycle starts and he has a finger to wag in the GOPs face.

He isn't the messiah but, standing next to Premier Bush, he certainly seems like it. I think it'll be great for our country in regards to race relations and the re-enfranchisement of minority voters who think this is just a white man's game.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Wow, that's a VERY clever move by them.

interesting the way each candidate has selected someone to counterbalance their perceived weaknesses.

obama's perceived weaknesses - he's inexperienced, he might be a muslim, and he's *gasp* black. so he picks a sparklingly white roman catholic with 35 years experience.

mccain's perceived weaknesses - he's old, he's the same "old white guy" type as every other politician, and he's entrenched in washington. so he picks a young, contemporary woman who presides over a state that's as far from washington as you can get.

too bad she's under investigation for abuse of power.

[Deckard]

...although she's "cool" about that.

Apparently.

My initial reaction is that Clinton supporters - not only those who were still dead set against Obama, but also those who painfully switched their allegiance to him - might now drift away.

It will be interesting to see how widepread views like this (from the BBC story of it) actually are....

I was leaning towards Obama but with this choice I think I've changed my vote
Tim, Stanford, USA

[gambit]

I get the feeling that McCain picked Palin largely because she's a woman. He's been running commercials lately trying to appeal to those people who would've voted for Clinton, so on the surface, I can see a good chunk of people changing their minds and voting for McCain because of Palin.

[cured]

I can't talk politics at work anymore. The women here are stupid. One told me they'd vote for McCain because he has a woman on the ticket (they've never heard of her and don't know her positions) and others said they won't vote for Obama because they think he was mean to Hillary. Another woman, a smart co-worker of mine, told me that voting based on gender doesn't mean people are less informed, it's just their choice. The level of absurdity around here is absolutely horrifying.