Biden / Palin VP Debate, Oct 2nd @ 9PM EST

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by CrackerBarrel

Biden's big gaffe of the night was on the question about Cheney and the role of the vice-president. He said:
Everyone should understand an absolutely false statement about the Constitution from a lawyer who claims to be a Constitutional law expert? Article I is in fact the only place in the Constitution where the role of the vice-president is mentioned, the only problem here is that Article I is what lays out the role and structure of THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH and establishes only that the VP is the President of the Senate but has no vote except in the case of a tie and establishes that there can be a President pro tempore who is to preside over the Senate when the vice-president is absent.

For further information (yes I know "Ace of Spades HQ" is a right-wing libertarian blog and I don't normally read it either, but it lays this particular point out very well) see http://minx.cc/?post=274758

Yeah, obviously Biden should have mentioned Article II in a perfect world, but in all honesty, no one on Earth gives a shit about this mistake.

We can pick apart minutiae all day, but that doesn't mean it's actually relevant to either campaign - there's just no way McCain can use this "gaffe" in any substantive fashion. It's just not a big deal.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Yeah, obviously Biden should have mentioned Article II in a perfect world, but in all honesty, no one on Earth gives a shit about this mistake.

We can pick apart minutiae all day, but that doesn't mean it's actually relevant to either campaign - there's just no way McCain can use this "gaffe" in any substantive fashion. It's just not a big deal.

at least he knows what the VP does....

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

at least he knows what the VP does....

Dude - I'll be in DC this spring, I'll buy ya a beer. If for no other reason than to prove that I do indeed like you, plus it'd be hilarious.

But the whole point of the Article I/II misstep is that Biden did not, in fact, indicate that he knew what the VP did. However, it's an esoteric distinction, so no one on Earth would/should care. It's just irony, really.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Dude - I'll be in DC this spring, I'll buy ya a beer. If for no other reason than to prove that I do indeed like you, plus it'd be hilarious.

But the whole point of the Article I/II misstep is that Biden did not, in fact, indicate that he knew what the VP did. However, it's an esoteric distinction, so no one on Earth would/should care. It's just irony, really.

just say the word...and let's hope we both can AFFORD a beer by then!

[CrackerBarrel]

http://www.gov.state.ak.us/large_photo.php?id=175

There's the picture off the office of the Alaska governor's website that its photoshopped from (she's making the peace sign and someone took her index finger off). But yeah, posting that was completely pointless Daemon. If you're going to copy and paste stuff here from Democratic Underground at least copy and paste the post where even those nutjobs pointed out that it was pointless, retarded, and a photoshop too.

[kstar]

Originally Posted by CrackerBarrel

http://www.gov.state.ak.us/large_photo.php?id=175

(she's making the peace sign and someone took her index finger off).

That's even more hilarious than her flipping the bird, since her mother is a warmonger.

[Drolefille]

heh wanna bet she's telling him to shut up? We had some teachers do that in school.

It's stupid, if it were a real pic it'd been amusing but it says nothing about politics.

[Drolefille]

Both candidates are running negative ads now. DS if you're so in far in the tank you can't think critically you're no better than the Rush Limbaugh fanatics who swear that Obama's gonna send all America's money to his family in Kenya to buy them new goats.

We get it, you're happy. Obama's in the lead. People like you are part of the problem, not the solution.

[CrackerBarrel]

I don't think Ayers shaped Obama's political views or world view. Wright, however, I feel did and that's why McCain needs to let them let the dogs out on that one again. Partly because I don't think Wright can resist the temptation to get on TV to "clarify" and say something else damaging.

BUT Obama and Ayers are closer than the Obama camp and the New York Times article a few days ago let on. The GOP Fact Sheet discusses it more, and yes it's the GOP website I know, but the fact sheet is just a collection of media quotes.

[nittanyalum]

Hooooooly crap. What happened to this thread? Make some room on the sidelines KSigkid, I'm gettin' out of this lane.

[nittanyalum]

Ah, now I see why our GOP friends are in a frenzy, I've been buried for a couple of days and have only caught tidbits of news here and there, am just catching up today -- just stopped by here for the first time in a while: Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Electoral College projections now show Obama leading 217-163. However, when “leaners” are included, Obama leads 300-174. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House.

Voters now trust Democrats more than Republicans on all ten key issues tracked regularly by Rasmussen Reports.

I understand the panic now. Everybody, breathe and reboot (quoting Carrie Bradshaw), it's gonna be ok.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Ah, now I see why our GOP friends are in a frenzy, I've been buried for a couple of days and have only caught tidbits of news here and there, am just catching up today -- just stopped by here for the first time in a while: Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Check out FiveThirtyEight.com. Even more reason to be worried there.

Originally Posted by Kevin

I think we're both thinking of influence in different terms. Perhaps that's my fault for imprecise wording?

Well, surely you're not suggesting it's my fault?!

But I see what you're saying.

As for what Nelson said, politicians say the craziest things and for the craziest reasons. An Illinois Republican state elected official saying very nice things about the probable future president which might substantially improve his standing in the eyes of the doubting public might possibly have motives beyond giving the public a truthful account about how everyone feels about former domestic terrorists.

Politics does indeed make for strange bed-fellows. (But she's a former State Senator, not a current one. FWIW)

Still, though, her point still stands. So far as I can tell, pretty much everyone who dealt with Ayers (who is a professor at U of Illinois-Chicago -- I know, insert joke here), whether Democrat or Republican, treated his WU activities as part of the past and did not view them as impediments to dealing with him now. I can't help but take that into account when the charge is made now that Obama should have had nothing to do with him.

As I said, politics makes for strange bed-fellows.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Still, though, her point still stands.

And you don't think it's mitigated at all by the fact that she could stand to gain quite a bit by being the 'Republican who is not standing upon partisanship, but telling the truth because it's what's best for our country!'?

When listening to politicians who are saying unlikely things, a good rule of thumb is to assume that whatever the most cynical person could come up with as a motive for the politician to say what she said is probably true.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Kevin

And you don't think it's mitigated at all by the fact that she could stand to gain quite a bit by being the 'Republican who is not standing upon partisanship, but telling the truth because it's what's best for our country!'?

When listening to politicians who are saying unlikely things, a good rule of thumb is to assume that whatever the most cynical person could come up with as a motive for the politician to say what she said is probably true.

Maybe, but

• when that politician is saying that pretty much nobody, Republican or Democrat ever expressed a problem with working with Ayers before this year's campaign, and

• when such a statement can be easily proven untrue if it is indeed untrue, and

• when nobody seems to be disputing that claim, and what record I can find, at least, doesn't dispute it, and

• when it is undisputable that it didn't bother the Annenberg people (hardly a hot-bed of liberalism, and this was long before Obama as president looked like a possibility), and

• it's undisputable that Ayers' past didn't keep him from becoming a distinguished professor of education at a major university (their graduate program in education was ranked 42 in the country by USN&WR in 2007),

then an equally good if not better rule of thumb might be to consider the possibility that what she's saying is, in fact, true.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Ah, now I see why our GOP friends are in a frenzy, I've been buried for a couple of days and have only caught tidbits of news here and there, am just catching up today -- just stopped by here for the first time in a while: Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll


I understand the panic now. Everybody, breathe and reboot (quoting Carrie Bradshaw), it's gonna be ok.

Well, hopefully we're just getting ahead of ourselves...haha. I will admit, though, that the latest polling numbers have me very worried. I was watching "Meet the Press" this weekend and (I think it was on that show) they were talking about the different calculations being thrown around. In all of the calculations mentioned, Obama has a sizeable lead.

I'm hoping that the numbers are wrong, but I'm at least a little afraid that they're accurate.