A thought while watching the debate last night...

[Steve A.]

I was wondering if they take any precautions against having one of the debaters wearing a radio earpiece that would receive information from someone offscreen. Like on the TV show Alias where they were actually surgically implanted.

Not that I suspected that Biden or Palin were using such a device- I just think that the area should be scanned thoroughly for such devices, and during the debate a blocking signal should be transmitted. Better to be safe than sorry!

Just a thought...

Steve Ahola

[Chuck H]

Well, taken to the logical conclusion, if we elect someone to office aren't we also electing their advisors. Why then shouldn't they be included in the debate?

JM2C

Chuck

[Steve A.]

Originally Posted by Chuck H

Well, taken to the logical conclusion, if we elect someone to office aren't we also electing their advisors. Why then shouldn't they be included in the debate?

JM2C

Chuck

Well, yes, we could have debating teams if that is your preference.

However, I do believe that one of the purposes of the current system of one-on-one debates is to allow the audience to decide if the participants are able to think on their own two feet, rather than just mouthing speeches and homilies that were composed by a team of writers.

Since that is the assumption here, I think that it would be prudent for us to insure that everyone is playing by the rules.

Steve

[Chuck H]

No. I'm not proposing group sessions. The little spy gear ear plug thingys will be fine

Sorry. I'm probably just jaded. But it seems to me that any office holder at that level has for a long time been little more than a figure head. All they really need to do is be appealing (often for unrelated reasons) and speak well. In this light the ability to assemble a good team of advisors seems paramount. And I really wouldn't want any of this ilk holding office if they couldn't. In a perfect world we could elect moral candidates with no personal agenda. And this is invariably the picture we are shown. We buy it everytime like the new order has begun. One individual flying in the face of all that has gone before bearing the light of truth... Americans want heros so badly that we even choose morally reprehensible sports figures and the likes of Mr.T, Hulk Hogan and Paris Hilton to idolize. And I believe that no politician is any better. So please ignore my last post. Let's stringently enforce the one on one debate theme. And in this way, hopefully we can find a candidate that is truely informed and really represents the people.

Chuck

[Steve A.]

Originally Posted by Chuck H

No. I'm not proposing group sessions. The little spy gear ear plug thingys will be fine

Sorry. I'm probably just jaded. But it seems to me that any office holder at that level has for a long time been little more than a figure head...

That is normally the case with the politicians in Washington (and within the Continental US) but Sarah Palin's political experience to date seems a bit provincial to me. Mayor of a town with a population of 6,300 and governor of a state with a population of 670,000 are not exactly the prerequisites I'd like to see in a potential president of the United States...

But what the heck, let the best man, er, person win!

Steve

P.S. Matt Taibbi had an interesting article in Rolling Stone a few months ago where he pointed out that both Obama and McCain have received ungodly sums from the hedge fund brokers on Wall Street (among other fat cats who call the shots)... once again we have a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. As usual my preference is TweedleDeeDemocrat, but no matter who wins the election, it is always the public that gets tweedled in de end...

[hasserl]

Mayor of a town with a population of 6,300 and governor of a state with a population of 670,000 are not exactly the prerequisites I'd like to see in a potential president of the United States...

That's fair enough, we're all entitled to our opinions.

But it occurs to me that Palin is running for VP not P, and that Obama running for P has even less experience than her, and you're leaning towards voting for him. That seems a bit inconsistent to me.

[Enzo]

Ear thingies? I don't really care. ANd come on, listen to those two. Do they SOUND like someone who is getting help? If they had a team in their ear, would they misstate things the way both did? Or should we think it is a conspiracy and the mistakes are on PURPOSE just to make us THINK they are on their own? But wait, they know we will think that so really it is a double psych, and... and...

These debates are rather pointless. Really, what do you know now that you didn;t know going in, based on the debate? Gee, Palin didn't crumble into a puddle of goo, and Joe didn't stick his thumbs in his ears and chant "neener neener." The questions at the debates are all anticipated, answers are prepared. Opponents positions are anticipated and zingers are ready for various purposes. (Oh I sure hope my opponent says such and such in these words so I can counter with my gotcha.)

One refreshing moment with Palin. She said something to the effect, "I'm may not answer the questions you ask, but I'll talk straight to the American People." Well the second part of that is pure boilerplate, but the first was amazing. Of course that is what politicians ALL do ALWAYS - don't answer the question asked, but respond with their own talking points instead. But to actually come right out and say it! That's amazing.

On the whole, no one votes on the VP, they vote on the presidential candidate. Pro lifers didn't like McCain because he was more for choice, but now are happy because he added staunch pro-lifer Palin. OK, but Palin won;t be running things, McCain will - if elected - her pro life stand won't be what signs the bills into law. Likewise Obama. Do we think Biden will be standing there next to the desk in the oval office telling Obama what to do? Of course not. The VP means pretty darn little.

The "experience issue" baffles me as well. If experience is important to you, then it is important to you. So if you think Obama lacks it, then you certainly have to think Palin does as well, and vice versa. If someone criticizes your candidate's experience, saying, "Oh yea? well look at your guy," doesn;t add one whit to your guy's resume. The sins of one man are not diminished by the sins of another. Or woman.

I think it is specious to copmpare Obama and Palin and talk of how one is more experienced than the other. The comparisons are usually made on time in elective office. Oh please, are we seriously claiming that a couple months either way makes one more of a veteran than the other?

[hasserl]

Good points Enzo, except one little difference in experience being Palin's is actually excutive experience, of which Obama has none. But your point is well taken. We have two teams, both consisting of an old grizzled veteran and a relative rookie; one of the teams has the veteran at the helm with a the rookie as his VP, the other team has the rookie at the helm with the grizzled veteran as his VP. Neither one interests me me much.

[Enzo]

One can tout Palin's "executive experience," but it is minimal. REmember that John McCain has zero executive experience, his political life has been spent as a representative, not an executive. Palin has been mayor of a small town. That makes her the boss of the police chief and the guys who plow the streets. And as governor of Alaska for a couple years, she overses the 670,000 or whatever it is souls who make up the entire state - that is about the same size as greater Grand Rapids, Michigan. Since oil started flowing from ALaska, ther have been windfal profit fees there, so the State gets the majority of the money in each barrel of oil. As a result, there is no sales tax and no income tax there, and each year every citizen gets a rebate check from the state as their share of the oil profits. The ONLY budget problem Alaska has to solve is how large a check to write each year. She has no experience fighting deficits, no experience running anything complex. The size of their billion dollar budget looks larger than it is simply from the numbers. There is not a large bureaucracy and infrastructure to run. it really is small town up there. Such very limited executive experience does little to prepare her for anyting like national leadership. Lots of medium size cities have mayors with far more executive experience than this governor.

But for president, I don't put a lot of stock in that. The president doesn;t figure out payroll and scheduling down at the police station. The president doesn;t decide whether we should have left turn on red laws inside city limits. The president has people for that. He has the cabinet, they oversee his departments. The president's leadership is to direct the path for the country, not to manage the details of the bureaucracy.

To make an example of the current regime, President Bush decided the USA needed to go to war. He didn;t decide we needed tanks here and airplanes there, he has generals and admirals for that.

When I look at Obama, I see a sophisticated, intelligent, thoughtful individual who I believe has genuine insight into the needs of this country. WHen I look at governor Palin I see the Peter Principal at work

[hasserl]

When I look at Obama, I see a sophisticated, intelligent, thoughtful individual who I believe has genuine insight into the needs of this country

When I look at Obama I see several things, first of all I see a Chicago political thug (which even President Clinton said during the Democrat Convention); I see a left wing socialist with close ties to some fringe characters like Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezco, Franklin Raines, Larry Walsh & Rashid Khalidi, and radical political groups like Acorn. I see someone with an agenda that he hides from the public, that twists his words carefully; I see a silver toungued devil waiting to talk you into things you really don't want and out of things he has no business taking (like your money, your property and your liberty). I see someone who has no interest at all in the needs of the country, but in the needs of his self.

When I look at Palin I see a middle age wife and mother that got involved in local politics because she didn't like what was going on, leading to politics at the state level, and now at the national, all over the course of about 16 years. I see someone without close ties to radical political action groups or fringe individuals. I see someone with a very good head on their shoulders that thinks clearly and logically from a perspective of a non-Washingotn insider. I see someone that is not a career politician, and that suits me fine. I just wish she was on a different ticket. I won't be voting for McCain come the national election.

[Slobrain]

Faced the facts, the rich elite behind the scene will do what ever it takes to get McSame in office and have another 4 to 8 years of Bush policies only helping the rich and pushing all the rest of the country close to poverty.

Right now middle class America is slowing being taken down to poor level, this doesn't happen over night but corporations are wanting more and more profits at the expense of the workers paycheck. Rich do not care if you’re poor and have to work 60 or 80 hours a week so they can live like Kings!

If you have noticed that in 2004 the labor laws were changed and now more Americans are getting their job moved over to Salary paycheck. You will be required to work a 40 hour paycheck but then asked to work more hours as required by the company with out the extra compensation. The Bush administration helped to get that change passed. If you don't believe me then look it up under labor laws and salary pay.


As far as Palin or Biden, I would rather have Obama and Biden as McSame is a dipshit that only cares what the elite, rich want not the American people.

But, this is only my opinion

Slobrain

[Chuck H]

Back on topic for a second. Steve. I think that a disruption signal would be an effective and entertaining way to thwart micro ear thingy communication. I actually started playing with electronics by adding secret channels to CB radios and tweaking the outputs for more gain. So I think building an appropriate transmitter would be a piece of cake. The fun part would be finding the right frequency at each event. Just keep tweaking the knob until you see a few people start screaming and clawing at their own heads

Chuck

[Mark Hammer]

Originally Posted by Chuck H

Well, taken to the logical conclusion, if we elect someone to office aren't we also electing their advisors. Why then shouldn't they be included in the debate?

I don't know if they ought to be included in the debate, because ultimately you are interested in making a decision between decision-makers. At the same time, one would like to know what sort of advice is being fed to the decision-maker in question. So I think your point is well-taken.

Insomuch as the bureaucratic arm of government has every bit as much impact on the nation as the legislative branch, I'd like to get some sort of preview of who any prospective leader would like to see installed in the various cabinet positions, and maybe even the undersecretaries of the critical/largest agencies (here in Canada it would be cabinet ministers and deputy heads). I mean, wouldn't you like to know whom Obama or McCain would like to see heading up the FBI or DHS? Would it not give a clearer signal of the direction they want to head in?

Obviously, that too is impractical, simply because you don't know who is available, willing, and likely to be successfully vetted. Still, insomuch as those people are the ones whom you would hope would get a headstart on any pertinent policies to be developed, before feeding them upwards to the decision-makers, you'd like to have a sense of who might be in those respective saddles, or at least the type of person the leader would ultimately like to see there. For instance are they looking for an über-manager, or are they looking for a subject-matter expert? Do they plan to appoint from within the organization, or do they plan on flying in someone from their cadre of acquaintances like an eminent academic?

Again, although one should not and can not expect such a potential list to come to fruition (especially in Westminister systems like ours where you can only draw from whomever ends up being elected), it can provide real insight into the thinking of the prospective leader.

[Diablo]

Does anyone remember one of Bush's TV performances where he was wearing the mysterious box between his shoulder blades? We never got to the bottom of that one - suspicious folks thought he was being coached from the audience via the receiver on his back. His handlers claimed it was just an ill-fitting suit.......right.

[Enzo]

You mean the mysterious box about the size and shape of a common wireless lapel mic transmitter belt pack?

[Diablo]

Originally Posted by Enzo

You mean the mysterious box about the size and shape of a common wireless lapel mic transmitter belt pack?

Yeah...that's the one.
I wonder why he couldn't get a longer cord so he could hide it where the sun don't shine....