A Retired Teacher Discusses With a Blogger Who is Going to Vote For Obama, Her Thoughts and Feelings About McCain and Obama, the Iraq War, Campaign Promises, Negative Campaigning, etc.

Submitted by Sofa Sogood (United States), Oct 31, 2008 at 07:07

I came across this on the Internet by chance. It's simplicity, honesty, and acceptance of the facts of reality impressed me.

A Retired Teacher Discusses With a Blogger Who is Going to Vote For Obama, Her Thoughts and Feelings About McCain and Obama, the Iraq War, Campaign Promises, Negative Campaigning, etc.

http://brendabowers.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/do-you-want-your-children-brainwashed-in-our-schools/

Kay, McCain has simply tried to tell the people who this man Obama is. If you feel it has been harsh then I say again that the truth is often nasty. And the truth about Obama from my research is nasty.

I have never been one to judge people solely on their words and demeanor. I tend to look very closely at their actions.

Words are cheap and political promises even cheaper. All these things candidates say they are going to do you and I know is so much hog wash.

The President is a bully pulpit and figure head, nothing more. He can send bills to Congress, but he must get 220 votes in the House and 51 in the Senate to get anything done.

The candidates have to talk about something while trying to get people familiar with them enough to vote for them so they make empty promises. This is not to say their promises are not what they would like to see done in their time slot, but they won't get done unless they are fortunate enough to get a Congress of like thinking. And, the words and promises do give us some small indications of who they are, sometimes.

As I said however, I am one to look at past actions rather than words, or perhaps the same words and philosophy spoken over years.

Obama is a charmer with charisma oozing from his pores. McCain is not.

McCain is as you say a good and honorable man who has ever done what he believed to be best for his country. He has been right and he has been wrong. I believe you will agree however that when he has been wrong he has tried to make amends and admit his error.

Unlike so many who are concerned about the economy as being our number one problem, I see the world at large as our biggest problem. There is a war on terror going on and this war is unfortunately one in which Muslims figure prominently since the terrorists throughout the world are Muslim. This being the case I sincerely believe we need a president who is wise enough with enough experience to deal with this over riding threat to our security. Obama is not. McCain is more than qualified.

The economy will come back eventually. (Before I go on let me say Lew and I have lost about a third of our pensions thru company bankruptcy and a hefty portion of our savings, so I do take the economy seriously). I am merely a pragmatist. The economy was riding for a fall and most people who cared to look saw it coming. This is how it works, ups and downs. I was very much opposed to the $700 billion bail out. Oh, well I have blogged enough on that too. Funny thing tho is that this issue was the one really great chance McCain had to cinch the election; all he had to do was come out against the Bail Out since the population was so against it. It probably still would have passed after the Senate added $2 billion in pork to buy the votes needed, but McCain would have been on record as being with the people. Then he could have gone on to present the plan he is now touting. You are right that McCain's handlers have not been the best for either him or Palin.

Unlike you I have not and am not upset with what is being called "Negative Ads" or "Negative Campaigning". Kay this is not at all a new phenomena. If anything the rhetoric is more tame now than it has been in the past. Go back and check out the "hate speech" used at any time before the advent of TV and you will see hate and lies and mud slinging. The advent of TV where words were suddenly recorded and could then be checked out and verified made outright lying and really nasty mud not so easy to get away with. So now they just twist the words a bit to give another meaning. Or they mis-use pictures.

One Obama ad was ingenious; the only scandal spoken of was the Keating Five, but scrolling across the screen were other scandals such as Watergate that McCain had nothing to do with. He wasn't even in Congress when Watergate happened.

The point I am trying to make is, if you had been watching FactCheck.org you would have seen that actually Obama had on par more harsh and untruthful or misleading ads about McCain than McCain had about Obama.

I was also outraged by Georgia Rep. John Lewis comparing McCain to George Wallace. I was seeing red over this. And not a word out of Obama! Not a word. Whereas at McCain's town meetings he tried to curb any slurs made about Obama. And came out and denounced any ads that called Obama by any names. Obama is a terrorist was one in which McCain became angry. Obama associated with a known terrorist for years but Obama himself never participated in a terrorist action. I did say it is all about character didn't I?

Obama is pretty and talks nice and says nice sounding words but to my mind he certainly lacks character. In fact, he has always lacked character because people of character do not associate themselves with people who lack character as he has done consistently over the years.

Kay, you can not tell me any thing that could make me forget or forgive him for attending the church of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years! And you cannot make me believe that Obama and his wife did not agree with what Jeremiah Wright was saying. So you would put a man who agrees with "God dam America" in the White House because he "while I may not agree on everything Mr. Obama stands for, I do respect his civility and willingness to demonstrate hard work, careful thinking about complex issues and his sense of history." And regarding his sense of history may I refer you to "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Sir Winston Churchill May 10, 2008

http://brendabowers.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/those-whofail-to-learn-from-history-are-doomed-to-repeat-it-sir-winston-churchill/

Obama does not have a sense of history at all. Any more than his running mate Biden does who had FDR going on TV during the Depression.

Well I am getting angry now and need to wind this up. But every time I get on Obama's character and all of the above paragraph I really see red when people pass it off as you did. "…. Regarding who he may have spent time with, I just don't understand what that is supposed to signify."

Anyhow, one more point: "Because I believe we need leaders who seek to find some common ground— the older I get the more I appreciate it is a world in which I get some of what I need, you get some of what you need and we both don't get everything we want." I believe this is called compromise Kay. And tell me if you can who in the US Congress has tried to find compromise more than John McCain? And tell me also when Obama ever tried to find compromise? If you look at his voting record which is all I can find to go by then you will see he voted as far left as he could get. He wasn't even middle ground for God's sake. Which brings up the question: have you looked at his voting record while in the Senate? or in the Illinois senate?

...One thing tho that my husband Lew (71) and I (67) speak of sometimes is the fact that we are happy to be on the back side of this particular lifetime because as things are we lived in the best of times, or at least the most innocent....

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