Obama does fine, McCain not so much. But what does “win” mean, anyway?
I watched the debate tonight. I know there are a couple of you that won’t agree with me, but here’s the deal: Obama won, and won pretty damn big. And I actually wanted McCain to win. Not because I’m a fan of his, but because I hate agreeing with large crowds of baristas. I guess I’ll have to console myself by taking the incredibly arrogant position that I, in fact, have good reasons for thinking Obama won. On the other hand, he could have pooped the stage called McCain “Captain Dusty Farts” and the trustafarians would have still picked him as the winner.
Big reasons for me?
- Let me tell you my friends, having the government buy your house to at an overvalued price so it can resell it to you at its current market value is the most retarded fucking idea I’ve ever heard of. I shouldn’t have to explain why, my friends. And it would be stupid even if the government wasn’t broke.
- Also my friends, if I had to hear McCain explain one more time how Americans are the smartest, best workers anywhere, so of course we’ll win, I was going to suck back a jar of mayonnaise.
- Two words my friends: “that one.” Creepy. Reminded me of a pissed off dad.
- Too many attacks on Obama rather than simply answering the questions, my friends. McCain just sounded whiny. And by the way my friends, does anyone actually believe that what Obama said was that he was going to attack Pakistan (and by the way, did that seem ironic to you? That McCain was bringing up talking first, and Obama was talking about crossing the border to cap Bin Laden?)
- Obama actually appeared to listen to McCain my friends, while McCain looked like he was just waiting to criticize him. It looked disrepectful my friends.
- Well my friends, McCain seemed really fucking old. Old age, old ideas, old stories, old sense of humor. Sorry.
- Obama didn’t screw anything up. And he seemed smarter. Way smarter, my friends.
- Me. My friends, I’m an avowed disliker (is that a word?) of both parties and all four candidates but my gut tells me Obama would be a much better President. Of course then I calm the fuck down, stop acting like a horny schoolgirl and start considering some of his actual positions, and my bowels clench up and I start compulsively farting and twitching.
A few more thoughts: Obama’s health care plan is completely flakey, his class warfare shit makes me want to power-puke, the simplistic regulation/de-regulation argument is a pandering pile of dog discharge that means absolutely nothing, neither of them said jack shit about a realistic way to deal with the economy – which isn’t surprising since they were both in favor of the horrible $700 billion bailout package – and we heard nothing really new from either of them. I will say that McCain’s close was pretty good. But so was Obama’s.
Question: What does “win” mean anyway? Is the winner the person who looked best, answered best and appeared most Presidential? Or is the winner the person who did the best job of swinging people over to voting for them?
Answer: It doesn’t matter, because That One won either way.
I think my reactions were identical, except the farting and twitching
I don’t do that. I’m a lady.
You know me… I hate talking politics. I really tried to look past the visuals. The old man hobbling across the room with his old hands and blue veins, thinking,”if he dies then Palin is Pres??”
And Obama acting like a cool cucumber, being calm, appearing knowledgeable, looking confident.
If I take all the visuals away and think of the policies, I still want to run for the hills. I think there is no ONE that will do right for all. Maybe we should just vote for the one who will do the least damage. That’s why I can’t stand talking politics, because now my knickers are in a twist, my legs feel tight and my stomach is gurgling.
nice post.
I absolutely agree with Jo. How many times can you watch that poor man hobble across the stage wielding the spastic old man finger at Obama?
My sister pointed out that whoever dressed McCain forgot to give him a neck, resulting in a “turtle-like” aura and seriously, the whole “my friends” mantra really did make him seem even more like a scared turtle hiding behind his shell (of rhetoric).
Frankly, the only thing missing was McCain clicking his dentures and telling us about how things were when he was a kid. You know, like when the rich got really big tax breaks, government bailed out big business while crapping on the little guy and having a military background seemingly made you a shoe-in for president. Oh wait, did you say that is actually what’s happening right now, you know, in the present?! Really?!
Jo: Your stomach gurgling means the farting begins shortly.
Ally: The major difference between our opinions is that I don’t see the government crapping on the little guy. There’s a difference between not bailing people out of trouble they’ve brought on themselves and crapping on someone. I’d also just caution against knee-jerk aversion to tax breaks and big businesses. We all know that economies are complex, and it’s just not that simple.
I think people need to realize that the government has been selling the wrong American dream. Not EVERYONE needs to own a damn house.
We’ll have to agree to disagree here unless you mean the government is not physically taking a steaming dump on we, the little people.
The issue is not necessarily home-ownership per se but the makings of homeownership. Such as mortgages provided to people based on souped-up appraisals and allowing people to refinance for more money than their homes are worth. The whole mortgage industry is corrupt and that’s just the half of it.
And how is it that the “little guy” did NOT get crapped on in this $700b (excuse me $840billion) bailout? Riddle me this Batman…how exactly did this little bailout help secure the market? The answer: the stock market (which is a farce anyway) is in shock and scrambling to get their shit together while entire countries (like Iceland) are preparing to declare bankruptcy and our enemies are watching a supposed “super-power” sink faster than Amy Winehouse on a binge…
Ally: Ooh, no – we don’t disagree about anything you just said, really. I inferred you meant something else when you said the gov’t was taking a dump on the little guy. It sounded like the class warfare stuff I’ve been hearing too much of lately.
Let me elaborate my position:
As I said in my post, the $700 billion bailout is horrible. What you said about bad mortgages being written is correct, though to be fair the appraisals were often accurate AT THE TIME. The problem was that people bought homes expecting the value to continue going up, so they bought well outside of their price range. Often with only like 2% down I might add.
Which makes the McCain buy/sell plan a real “fuck you” to people like me that actually saved up enough to put 20% down in a responsible way, because it’s the people that didn’t that the he proposes to bail out individually. They aren’t talking about writing me a check for fifty to a hundred grand to cover the depreciation in my place….
And I ain’t Batman, which probably explains why I don’t think the bailout secured batshit. I don’t know why you think I was in favor of it… To me it appears that they only want to get banks lending money again so that everyone can get back to running up debt and artificially supporting the economy. Like I said – they’re selling the wrong dream. The FHA shouldn’t have been writing those loans, and Fannie and Freddie shouldn’t have been buying the shitty paper. It was like one of those stupid pyramid schemes back in the 70′s and 80′s where only the last person holding the bag got hosed. As long as you could keep getting people involved (or keep re-selling shitty loans) it worked great.
But then, I’m not an economist, so I’m probably too stupid to understand it all. Not like Treasury Secretary Paulson who, when he ran Goldman, was one of the guys that went to the SEC in 2004 to get them to allow investment banks to leverage themselves to a far greater extent than ever before. Why? To buy mortgage backed securities. Yeah, the same ones that collapsed, killing all the investment banks and adding to the cause of all this shit. Of course it worked for him really well, because he made almost $40 million in 2005. Oh, plus stock worth another half a billion dollars in 2006. And of course he didn’t have to pay tax on a lot of it since he was forced to sell the stock when he became Treasury Secretary.
But see, now he’s got the fix for the problem he helped cause. More cash. Just not his.
Preaching to the choir…this is the first time ever that the value of my home has dropped and we aren’t talking a couple hundred dollars. No we’re not talking a couple thousand dollars either. We’re talking more like a 25% decrease in value.
Didn’t mean to pull a Bill Maher rant…
Well, I’m not really a Bill Maher fan – but I’m with you – our house decreased probably $75,000-$100,000 in value. But I don’t blame Paulson for that – I knew that there was a good chance of that happening. Nowhere is it written that an artificial market should continue to make everyone money. Just like in the late 90′s when you could make money investing in completely useless businesses, the market was way overheated.
I’m not coughing up my political opinion, but let me just say that if some stranger kept calling me “my friend” over and over again, I’d either throttle the (insert swear word of choice here), or run screaming away from the (insert same or different swear word of choice here).
McCain creeps me out. Is it just me, or does he look like he’s thinking nasty thoughts when he’s standing behind Palin?
In Calif. LOTS of people bought homes with ZERO down & then took out 2nds on them.
But the class warfare… I see that, but I think I see it from the other side. I’m poor ~ not complaining, but I am. So much is being taken away from the working poor, it’s unbelievable. When you take away someone’s opportunity to improve their life, go to a doctor or the E.R. (yes they have to see you, but you get the huge bill), when companies like Enron gouge an entire state for electricity & now it’s corporations that are getting bailed out?? What about “We the People”?
I got off-track here, didn’t I?