Grace

I've been reading a lot of post-election reaction. One reaction by some conservatives
is to get revenge. My example:

"We have to watch this guy and not give him an inch," one McCain supporter
wrote. "The same way he criticized every move of President Bush. We have
to make things as difficult for him as he did for Bush."

Other conservatives are saying they definitely are not going to go that route.

I know the extreme left has treated President Bush heinously. I don't think they
ever gave him a chance even right after winning the elected in 2000, which saddens
me. They called him every name in book and questioned his motives at every move.
Contrary to media narrative I never thought President Bush to be overly partisan in
his tone. One of his very first actions as president was to work with Sen. Kennedy
on No Child Left Behind. I was actually somewhat surprised that he used the term
"angry left" at this year's convention. I know payback would feel good right now. It
would be cathartic to rant with anger as soon as President Obama makes his first
mistake and he will. (And, yes, he's going to slip up just like every president.) However,
I think it's time put solutions over emotions right now.

What really upset on Tuesday is that I didn't feel the extreme left deserved the
victory they got. I don't think the folks at Daily Kos deserve victory. I don't think
MoveOn.org, who endorsed Barack Obama during the primaries, deserves a win.
They've acted disgustingly the past few years. I cried last Tuesday because I feared
those people were just legitimized and they shouldn't be. There are two thing my
faith in God has showed: Grace and Forgiveness me. It is time to move on.

I guess I can solace that the voices of the angry and extreme left will probably be
muted now that conservatives are out of power. They no longer have a punching
bag. I mean who is Keith Olbermann going to name "Worst Person in the World"?
Nancy Pelosi? Although, I imagine the extreme left will be somewhat vocal of the
new administration if it doesn't fully push their agenda like they want.

There are always going to be issues that Americans aren't going to agree on. We
can argue and bicker or we can have an discussion about our differences. We can
get even or get things done. I, prefer, to get things done.

Should Some People Not Vote? Video

Good question from John Stossel:



I've always find it surprising that many of these get out to vote
ad campaigns focus more on voting and not getting information.
Nothing wrong with encouraging people to vote but you want an
informed voter.

Palin/Biden VP Debate

I thought Gov. Palin did a great job. I hope this calms all her critics.
I think this year will be a win/win for conservatives. If McCain wins,
he wins. If he loses, I think we've a glimmer of hope in Gov. Palin as
a future leader in the party.

McCain Calls For Delay of Debate

Interesting move by McCain. Obama is rejecting his call. I like the idea in
purely non-political terms. To give the campaigning a few days of rest so
the Senators can do some work in Washington sounds appropriate. No
negative ads, no bickering. In political strategy terms, which is less important,
it could be seen as either a good or bad move by McCain, according to your
perspective. Sen. Obama is calling his bluff and not agreeing to cancel the
debate. Thus, if Sen. McCain decides to attend the debate after all, it might
appear that he's folding to Sen. Obama. However, it might also look partisan
of Obama to put out negative campaign ads these next couple of days while
McCain does not. We will see what happens.

What's Love Gotta Do With It?

The Dems just don't get it, do they:

Later Tuesday evening, at a fundraiser across town, Biden
continued to focus on religion, accusing Republican nominee
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., of hating, but embracing, the
religious right.

"The only place John has changed is with regard to the
religious right, which he hates but he's embraced," Biden said
to supporters at a Democratic Victory Fund event hosted by
the American Association of Justice. "That's the only change
with John. The only change."

The political and religious right doesn't support Republican candidates because
they feel embraced or loved by them. It's because they share the same stances
on issues. It's a matter of shared values not emotion. The religious right would
rather support an unbeliever who's pro-life and for traditional marriage than a
fervent believer who is pro-choice. They make a mistake thinking that evangelicals
solely liked George Bush because he referred to himself as a "born again" Christian
or Ronald Reagan because he often used religious language in his speeches. It is
obviously more than that.

Sen. Obama has actively seeked the evangelical vote this year. He will probably
do well among young evangelicals but I doubt he will make any big inroads. The
problem isn't that Democrats haven't reached out to religious people enough,
as some seem to think. The problem is that Democrats are wrong on the issues
they most care about. Sen. Biden may very well be right that John McCain hates
the religious right. However, when it comes to the social issues the religious right
has found an ally in John McCain. Sometimes when you need to get things done
you partner up with people who don't like you very much. It's nothing personal.

Beholden

First, I wanted to let everyone know why I haven't been blogging the
past few days. I've had some shoulder pain the last three days and
I'm not able to type for long periods. I'm feeling a little better today.
I'm thanking God.

However, I did want to write something up real quick. I did watch
Governor Palin and Sen. McCain's convention speeches. Gov. Palin
did a good job of energizing the party. Sen. McCain speech started
off slow but I thought it ended well.

Also, I found this interview Sen. Obama interesting:



Apparently, Obama believes that the Sarah Palin pick proves how beholden
McCain is to the right-wing of his party. Funny how Democrats loved Sen. McCain
because he wasn't afraid to be critical of President Bush until he starting running
for president.. I find that interesting. Sen. Obama do me a favor and ask Sen. Hillary
Clinton if the Democratic Party is beholden to the left-wing of the party. I think you
might find her comments interesting.

I Called It !

So Sen. Obama finally selected his running mate and news came in at
3 a.m. Take that Hillary (no not the VP snub but the 3 a.m. text message)!



Let me take a moment to boast: I called it back in June. However, I'm not so
confident anymore about Romney being McCain's running mate. So if
that page magically disappears and you don't hear a peep from me on the
day of McCain's announcement, um, let me just say my blog was having
"technical difficulties" in advance. Exit question: Since I got this right, does
that mean I'm a better political analysis than Keith Olbermann?

Maybe Envangelicals Voters Will End Up Being More....

like this guy- Independents. He's the editor of Relevant Magazine. I know
there has been a lot of news articles about evangelicals voting Democrat this
year because of their disenchantment with the Republican Party but the media
is making a big assumption when they conclude these voters will automatically
jump to the Democratic Party, especially when they have the most pro-choice
candidate ever. I think there are probably a lot of evangelicals like Cameron
Strang who will change their affiliation to "Independent" and are probably
conflicted which way to go. Here's an except of Mr. Strang's blog post:

A few weeks ago, I was asked if I’d be interested in possibly praying at
the Democratic National Convention. Taken aback, but intrigued at the
opportunity, I accepted. What better way to continue positive dialogue,
show support for an emphasis on faith issues and pray in a forum where
faith isn’t typically thought to be emphasized? To quote someone close
to me—and meaning no disrespect whatsoever to Christian Democrats—
it was a chance to be “light in the darkness.” And hey, Jesus told us to
pray, right?

They made clear they weren’t asking me to publicly endorse Sen.
Obama. They also didn’t care that I was a pro-life Republican. I saw
my participation as a tangible way to show that this generation of
values voters doesn’t necessarily need to draw political battle lines
the way previous generations have, and that we can work through
areas of disagreement toward common goals—fighting systemic
poverty; defending innocent lives lost to pre-emptive war, sex trafficking,
torture, genocide, slavery and preventable disease; protecting the
environment; and proactively working to reduce the number of
abortions each year (not only through legislation, prevention and
education, but by financial support for pregnant women and
overhauling the adoption system—things are messed up when an
abortion is $500 and an adoption is $25,000).

Then I found out the invocation was to be on the main stage, opening
night of the DNC. Part of the national broadcast. Most people would
jump at such an exposure opportunity, but it gave me serious pause.

Through RELEVANT I reach a demographic that has strong faith,
morals and passion, but disagreements politically. It wouldn’t be
wise for me to be seen as picking a political side, when I’ve consistently
said both sides are right in some areas and wrong in some areas.
(And truth be told, I haven’t yet made up my mind about who I’m
going to vote for this November. There are a lot of specifics I’d like
to hear the candidates talk about before my decision will be made.)

So there you go. It's funny how religious folks tend to be labeled as people who
think purely in terms of "good and evil" or "right and wrong," ironically, might
just be the most conflicted voting group out there.

Did a Pastor Upstage Journos When it Comes to Moderating a Debate?

Michael Schaffer of The New Republic seems to think so:

The minister's apparently mind-boggling feat involved asking
simple-sounding questions that prompted the candidates to think
out loud, explain basic political principles, and--mostly--to eschew
canned swipes at rivals. The results created a rare appearance of
concord between the media-bias wars' dueling sides: Warren's questions
themselves went largely hailed by voices on both the right ("Rick Warren
should moderate one of the fall presidential debates," declared William
Kristol) and at least a few on the bloggy left ("Warren did a decent job
of moderating the candidates, and he did ask questions the media won't
ask," wrote a MyDD poster, before sniping at McCain's alleged "cone of
silence" cheating). It was a far cry from the big primary-season debates,
full of those ticking-time-bomb and raise-your-hand-if queries so effectively skewered in the September Atlantic by James Fallows. Fallows watched
tapes of all 47 debates in short succession and wound up comparing the
late efforts to later episodes of "The Sopranos," "violent and dehumanizing,
but ... the culmination of a long process."

I enjoyed that Pastor Warren didn't ask any gotcha questions. He was also
able to ask questions that I don't know if a journalists would have the guts
to ask like his question on evil. That question right there summed up both
candidates more than a million questions about policy could.

Acceptable Lieberman

I agree with Patrick Ruffini on McCain picking Lieberman for Vice President
would be an acceptable pick. There is something to be said about a ticket that
crosses party lines. That being said if the goal of a Lieberman pick is to bring
over Democrats and Independents to McCain's side, than the Senator from
Connecticut is probably the wrong selection. The main reason people flooded
to the Democratic Party in the 2006 elections and the Democratic Primaries
was because of the war in Iraq. The only issue Lieberman really agrees with
Republicans on is the war in Iraq. So I doubt it will have the intended effect.

In other Lieberman related news: He will be speaking at the GOP convention.

Are You Ready for Another News Piece About Young Voters?

OMG! They like so care about the election.

Vote 4 Change!

Unless you haven't heard: Barack Obama is for change:



Funny thing, though, I was roaming through the internet tonight and I
found other politicians running for Congress and Senate that also want
change.

Did you know Al Franken wants change but no jokes:



Mary Jo Kilroy wants change! No word on hope, yet:



Jim Himes is standing for change! He'll get back to us on unity.



Bill O'Neill wants change (and also universal health care?)!



Mark Pera boldly admits it's time for change!



Harry Teague wants change and also togetherness (Click on photo for
large view):



Larry Lessing has change on his Web site.



Apparently Rob Andrews doesn't want change enough because he only used
the word in his Web address not on his logo :



Oh, have I shown you my campaign logo yet?:

Ideological Purity

Dennis Prager has an interesting article defending Sen. McCain to
conservatives who don't want to vote for him. There was a moment
where I was thinking about voting for a third party because I just had
reservations about both major candidates. Although, it wasn't because
McCain wasn't conservative enough for my liking. I'm actually more
moderate. However, after much contemplation I decided to support
McCain. I know it's either going to be President Obama or President
McCain next year. There's no way around it. So I might as well choose
between those two.

There's something odd and perhaps dangerous happening in our politics
these days. There is this want for ideological purity brought about by the
internet. Progressives want the Democratic candidate to walk lockstep
with them. That is one of the reasons why Sen. Hillary Clinton is not the
nominee. It's also because we're all sexists! She supported going into Iraq
and progressives couldn't have that. That is also why Sen. Joe Lieberman
is now an Independent.

Conservatives are the same way. Mitt Romney is not the nominee because
he used to be pro-choicer. Rudy Giuliani is pro-choice and that was a deal
breaker for Republican primary voters among other things. Some conservatives
are still not happy with Sen. McCain because of his stances on immigration
reform and global warming.

I think it's quite puerile to expect perfect political and ideological alignment
with the candidate one votes for. No one's perfect. I fear where our political
parties are headed if the loudest voices that demand ideological purity keep
having their say.

'Jesus for president'

CNN manages to find a young modern day hippie Christian to interview
to demonstrate that not all evangelicals are Republicans. They sure picked
a winner:

The dreadlocked Christian activist from Philadelphia and his team
parked a black school bus around the back. The hand-painted gold
letters on the side read "Jesus for President."

The bus runs on vegetable oil and, yes, it's a political statement.

"It'll be a long time before we fight a war over used veggie oil,"
says Claiborne with a sly smile.

Hmm. I wonder what Jesus has to say about believing lies?

Later on in the article:

But polls have shown that evangelicals as a whole, following national
trends, are disaffected with Republican leadership and increasingly up
for grabs.

Funny how they never mention a single poll. I found a poll that said the opposite.
Perhaps, they think if they say enough times it will be true.

Claiborne has some more radical views:

Back on stage Claiborne takes the crowd through a multimedia
presentation.

"With the respectability and the power of the church comes the
temptation to prostitute our identity for every political agenda."

Controversially, he quotes Harry S. Truman and Adolph Hitler,
saying each used Christianity to support their ideologies.

Ok, I've heard two different arguments (for and against) Hitler being a religious zealot.
So I just won't go there. However, I've never heard anyone claim Harry S. Truman was
some sort of religious nut. I found this radio address from Truman. It seems like tame
stuff to me. What is this guy talking about?

The next sentence in the article:

The speech is fiery at times, pensive at others. It emphasizes caring for the
poor and the downtrodden.

Yes, Jesus did talk about the poor and downtrodden. However, He never said anything
about government talking away half of someone's paycheck to give it to someone else.
He might want to read Matthew 22:21. Also, the Bible talks about being a cheerful giver.

Clairborne then goes on to compare America to the Roman Empire:

He talks about war and the environment. He also talks about how Jesus
stood up to the Roman Empire, a message he believes is relevant to the
United States now.

"For many of us, Caesar has colonized our imagination, our landscape and
our ideology," he says while a picture of Mount Rushmore flashes behind
him. On the screen "Vandalism" pops up in black letters.

I don't think this guy is an Obama supporter. He sounds more in the Dennis Kucinich
realm. If there's anything I've learned in this election is that conservatives aren't the
only ones enveloping religion and politics together.

Welcome to the Center, Sen. Obama

Sen. Obama is moving towards the center as the general election begins. In the
past two days he's disagreed with the liberal justices on the D.C. handgun ban case and
also yesterday's ruling over the death penalty case. It's probably OK for him to
disagree with a Supreme Court ruling (as he did yesterday) because the public
perception of the government branch is on the decline, according to a Rasmussen
poll. Also, he doesn't want the return of the 'Fairness Doctrine.' He now supports
the FISA bill. Kane writes, "This marks something of a reversal of Obama's position
from an earlier version of the bill..."

I'm glad he's drawing away from the liberal activists. I doubt they would be upset
for too long. They want to win.

Update: Here's video of Obama supporting the D.C. handgun case in February:

Does Enthusiam Matter?

A CNN poll finds shows Democrats are "extremely enthusiastic" about voting this
year and Republicans, not so much. From the CNN.com article:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican party may face tough
times at the polls come November, according to results of a new
national survey.

Sixty-three percent of Democrats questioned say they are either
extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year. Only 37
percent of Republicans feel the same way, and 36 percent of
Republicans say they are not enthusiastic about voting.

"Republicans are far less enthusiastic about voting than Democrats
are, and enthusiasm has plummeted among GOPers since the start
of the year," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. "There was
already an 'enthusiasm gap' in January, when Democrats were 11
points higher than GOPers on this measure. Now, that gap has grown
to 26 points."

"Bottom line: After eight years of the Bush presidency, Republicans
are demoralized," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

My immediate thought: Who cares about enthusiasm? Isn't voting about electing
someone whose policies you agree with and can best do the job? Voting is a civic
duty, I never realized I'm suppose to be pumped up about pulling the lever.

Also, this should be a clear signal to John McCain that he needs to choose a
Vice-President candidate who can brings a spark life into his campaign. Someone
more media friendly, perhaps.

HamNation: Obama on Your Shoulder

Everything will fixed when Obama is president.

Will the Democratic Primary End Tomorrow?

Finally, it there seems to an end in sight. Obama is looking to win
over the number of superdelegates needed to put him over the top.
Bill Clinton told supporters, "I want to say also that this may be the
last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind." However,
tomorrow's speech will not likely be a concession speech, blogger
Marc Ambinder reports, but a suspension, according to Thomas B.
Edsall.

So, we will see tomorrow exactly what she will do.

Update: Let's remember she's given us some lovely moments during
this election so far. I can think of these two so far:

Clinton wins Puerto Rico

Just two more primaries to go. Finally!

Howard Dean Calls Justices Who Sided with Bush in 2000, 'Intellectually Bankrupted"'

The Democrat Party's extremely tight primary apparently has rehashed some
very bitter feelings over the nail-biting 2000 election. Compound the current
situation with an HBO movie that seeks to rekindle frustrations with the
election. While speaking before the Rules and Bylaws Committee, DNC
Chairman Howard Dean bought up the 2000 election. Here's what he said:

...except for Al Gore. Who whatever I had been through, he had the
presidency snatched from him forty days before the election by five
intellectually bankrupted Supreme Court justices, who did the wrong
thing.

He then goes on to talk about "healing America at home."

Here's the video:



First, I would like to ask what is he talking about when states the presidency was
snatched "forty days before the election"? If he's talking about Gore v. Bush, that
was decided in December. He should know that. So George Bush managed to "snatch"
the election even before votes had been casted. Man, this president is some evil
genius managing to do that.

Second, what a low blow it is calling Supreme Court justices "intellectually bankrupt."
Like I said in my post about character assassination in this hyper-partisan world
people can't be just be wrong, they are to be demeaned. I would like to note Justice
Scalia has called Justice Ginsburg "his best friend on the Court," and they are on the
opposite sides ideologically. Dean, however, can't put ideological differences away for
a moment and has to take a cheap shot.