As a coordinated effort on a single day, it should bring a more attention to Vertical Politics than having this effort scattered about. That being said, it would be nice if this set a tone for encouraging more candidates to seek to solve problems than to merely beat up the other guy for votes.
We have a ton of problems to solve as a nation. We don’t have time to deal with the status quo of politics in America. We need a fundamental shift in attitude and thinking. I am looking forward to Vertical Day and hopefully one day a Vertical Nation.
I have got to hand it to the man, he is quite the salesman. He has sold America as well as the world a bill of goods on Man Made Global Warming. In return for us buying his “truth”, he’s profited over $100 million, picked up a Nobel Peace Prize, and secure himself board positions on companies that want to show that they are environmentally friendly. After all, Green is trendy now.
While Gore is raking in the awards and cash, he apparently doesn’t practice what he is preaching to everyone else. He was busted last year on his energy consumption levels so he raced out and renovated his house to be more green. After that investment last year, he actually is pulling 10% more energy off the grid than he was before the solar panels. So much so, it comes out to 20 times the average household.
While not a tremendous fan of McCain, I easily favor him over Obama. I think that much is obvious if you have read any of my previous postings dealing with politics. Obama just seems too scripted and packaged to me. At times it really seems as if he has zero experience politically (statements about “guns and religion” and “thermostats and SUVs” that are now quite notorious prove this, at least to me).
Because of this apparent lack of inexperience, I had been hoping to see some good old fashioned McCain v. Obama sparring in some unstructured debates and town halls (where the audience is free to ask questions to the candidates).
It appears from this AP report that is likely not to happen despite McCain’s desire to do so.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain have failed
to agree on joint town hall appearances.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement Friday that he offered
to meet McCain in five joint appearances between now and the Nov. 4 election.
But only one of those was a town hall meeting.
McCain wanted them to appear together in 10 town hall meetings that would be
unscripted with questions from voters in the audience.
Obama preferred one town hall, plus three traditional debates and an in-depth
debate on foreign policy.
It seems to me that Obama is fearful of the results of what a unscripted series of town hall meetings could expose about him. Rightly so, I presume. I mean, from what great well of experience and knowledge can/does he draw from?
It constantly amazes me how people like Maxine Waters get elected when they have absurd ideas, and worse, express those ideas in the context of a United States Congresswoman.
Nationalizing oil companies? Really? I can’t help but notice some of her colleagues in the background chuckling to themselves.
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want
and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and
then just expect that other countries are going to
say OK,” Obama said.
WHen I saw this in an article today, my first reaction was “what kind of wacky statement is that?”. I mean, why do we need the permission of other countries?
Then I realized that this is in the very least a pure politics pitch. After all he was delivering this statement to crowds in Oregon. But I wonder, does he really believe such nonsense? Would he really seek to take away our freedoms if elected President? Surely, he doesn’t support the federal government telling citizens how much they are allowed to eat or what kind of car they are allowed to drive or controlling our thermostats.
At least I hope not, or we might be in for a very dark period in this country.
There is a fantastic series of statements/questions from George Will to Senator Obama, most of them highlighting what George refers to as Obama’s cognitive dissonance.
You say, “The insurance companies, the drug companies, they’re not going to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care.” Why should they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable? When pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable suffering and death? What other industries should “give up their profits”?
ExxonMobil’s 2007 profit of $40.6 billion annoys you. Do you know that its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft’s and many other corporations’? And that reducing ExxonMobil’s profits will injure people who participate in mu-tual funds, index funds and pension funds that own 52 percent of the company?
You say John McCain is content to “watch [Americans'] home prices decline.” So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How? Why? Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator know ideal prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their first house that declining prices are a misfortune?
Telling young people “don’t go into corporate America,” your wife, Michelle, urged them to become social workers or others in “the helping industry,” not “the moneymaking industry.” Given that the moneymakers pay for 100 percent of American jobs, in both public and private sectors, is it not helpful?
You favor raising the capital gains tax rate to “20 percent or 25 percent.” You say this will not “distort” economic decision making. Your tax returns on your 2007 income of $4.2 million show that you and Michelle own few stocks. Are you sure you understand how investors make decisions?
During the ABC debate, you acknowledged that when the capital gains rate was dropped first to 20 percent, then to 15 percent, government revenues from the tax increased and they declined in the 1980s when it was increased to 28 percent. Nevertheless, you said you would consider raising the rate “for purposes of fairness.” How does decreasing the government’s financial resources and punishing investors promote fairness? Are you aware that 20 percent of taxpayers reporting capital gains in 2006 had incomes of less than $50,000?
You want “to reduce money in politics.” In February and March you raised $95 million.
When looking at this, it would seem that Obama doesn’t understand that much when it comes to macro-economics.
