Come on dude, you're better than this.

First, I love the Daily Show, and think the link is hilarious.

Second, I agree completely with both of you, and will take it a step further and state that I feel both sides have been irresponsible and hypocritical with regard to Sarah Palin.

This is a wonderful microcosm of why I haven't voted for either party in the last 3 election cycles (that, and I can't stand either Bush or Kerry), and instead have donated my time and money to a completely worthless third party.

I'm disappointed in the lack of context, which is what I pointed out in this thread and many others.

Speaking of sexism, Sean Hannity was whining about this and the fact that Sarah is being treated differently. I think its pretty hypocritcal that they are calling democrats sexists, when there were "soccer moms" with pins of Palin's face and the words 'Vote for the Sexiest VP' at the RNC. Come on!

This reminds me of Obama in the primaries. You couldn't say anything negative without people being called racists!

Did I say that? No. I don't bitch about the media leaning one way or the other, there are multiple news outlets for people with any political belief.

Erroneous, read what I posted and try again.

I thought about this more while laying in bed trying to fall asleep. This is what I would do:

Primary candidates announce their intentions to run in May of the election year, a set number of debates are held by each party.

Primaries are a one day event in August, the whole country, same day. Then the Conventions are held with the same timing as this year.

10 televised/radio broadcast debates of varying formats between mid-September and November with no personal appearances, no bus tours of the country, no flying all over the place. There can still be grass roots level things like mailings, door to door, lawn signs, etc, but NO pre-recorded telephone calls! NO PRE-RECORDED TELEPHONE CALLS! (they are making me crazy, honestly, and I think the No Call List should include political propaganda)

That gives us a 6 month election process rather than two years. It really was two full years this time and that's just nuts.

I think there's been hypocrisy on both sides throughout the entire process. I have said, consistently, that I think both sides are responsible, and neither side can take any kind of high ground on this. The whole thing, on both ends, has gotten pretty ridiculous. This election is the closest I've ever come to voting third party.

Agreed. I do not listen to media talking heads that lean in either direction because they all spout 'facts' that haven't been checked, and speak rhetoric for the sake of ratings. The thing that is different for me in this election is that it is getting harder and harder to decipher the truth from the lies from both parties. I would love to make an educated decision here, but it is becoming a daunting task trying to verify what I hear. Official political ads can be blatantly false (Obama's sex ed in kindergarten) and emails from 'Alaskans' land in my mail box daily(most are obviously written by someone who has never been the state...but some are legit...check out snopes) Bill O'Reilly shouts statistics (70,000 Alaskan gov. employees...really?) and CNN pundits do the same(how many caribou did Palin shoot in one day?). When did it become OK to spout off supposed facts without double checking them? Maybe I was unaware during the last election, but it just seems like it is worse this election.

Mainly playing devil's advocate here: so you are willing to place limits on people's first amendment rights (of speech and assembly) to shorten the process?

I don't answer or listen to the calls so it's a pretty quick fix to hit delete.

If the parties both just agree to the terms because members of the public will hate them if they don't, it's not really a constitutional issue. But if there are actually legal restrictions, you get into some funny areas pretty quickly. Isn't this the biggest objection to the campaign finance reforms that almost all of us want? To make them, you actually interfere with other people's political expression?

Well, I read what you posted again and again and I stand by what I said. Keep on rocking your belief that Palin is an amazing person that is being mistreated by the media and us mean people here on GC and I'll keep on rocking my belief that she's full of shit. End of story. Agree to disagree.

Here's where I got my facts on population. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/02000.html

MatSu is not the second largest borough even, Anchorage is first, then Fairbanks North Star. The boroughs have changed from the 2000 census (I'm pretty sure they added a lot more), but that doesn't change the fact that Wasilla is a small town compared to others. I will give them props for having a Target built this summer, they got one roughly the same time as Anchorage.

I'm not even remotely interested in voting for Sarah Palin either, even though we're alumnae of the same University. I guess I'm just annoyed by poor fact checking and reporting considering Alaska is the focus of my graduate studies. I'm an Anthropologist, I can't vote for someone who discards the fossil record in a state where my work has contributed to said record.

one thing is for sure....she's got experience.....heh


it's one thing to have it...it's another for us to vote for it.......


I wana see how experienced a flip flopper, slip slider, and shucker ducker she is......so far it's not terribly impressive.

I can see where this could be seen as a limit on a right to assembly, but not of speech. Nobody would be stopping them from saying anything they want during their alloted times, or at any other time either. However, we do have certain laws in affect with regards to elections that could arguably be seen as such also, so there is some precedent. There are limits on how close to the polls campaigners can be, where literature can be distributed, etc. I wouldn't see this as being all that different from those rules. All of those rules were more geared toward eliminating campaign funds/contributions than shortening the time.

Just before the last election, the calls completely filled up my voicemails both at home (while at work) and at work (while at home) to the point that I couldn't receive messages that I needed to receive. THAT is annoying. Perhaps this is considerably worse in battleground states?

It must be worse there. It's never happened here although I did get a bunch of calls before the Republican primary. I just deleted.

Do we have any current laws that limit when candidates can speak right now? I got the impression that you wouldn't expect them to be on TV, putting ads out, etc earlier than you noted.

I am soooo happy I dumped my landline six months ago. No random dialer, pre-recorded political phone calls. They were calling you at work too? That's weird to me.

In my ideal election, there would be no ads. If news sources chose to interview them and stuff, they'd be on TV, but ads cost money!

Yeah, I get telemarketer calls at work too. I think my work line is in a residential pool of phone numbers or something. It makes me crazy.