Two Observations
ONE:
I went to see Bill Maher's film "Religulous" with my oldest brother. It was basically the cinematic version of Sam Harris' book "End of Faith" but with less emphasis on Muslims. But in the film, he states the main point of his travel and effort to produce the film is to create doubt - doubt in people's minds that perhaps religion is stupid and we're all being rediculous. But that idea of creating doubt is what struck me the hardest.
It hit me a few days ago even more when I realized that's what the Republican party is attempting to do to Barack Obama. There apears to be a large chunk of people on both sides that support teir candidate because of the things they stand for and want to do for our country. Those people can be debated and conversed with on a rational level. But there is also a vast number of people who support the candidates because they share an ideal or believe they'll be better for various reasons. These believers don't care so much about the real facts as much as how well they know their guy is the better of the two.
It has become the objective of the McCain camp to rally up these believers and to tarnish the character and reputation of his opponent. The whole plan of attack with the William Ayers and ACORN topics are nearly baseless. They never say anything wrong about Obama except that he is associated with them. They're painting a picture of doubt that has almost no reasoning at all. They won't even say what the associations mean for his character, but that the associations should be known. It's total bullshit.
When you listen to supporters of McCain or Palin you rarely hear or read about what the two will do FOR the country, but all about how wonderful and relatable they are. Or he's a hereo and she's a hottie. Also, in interviews both candidates when asked direct questions on policy give vague answers and then provide a negative aspect of Obama's ideas. Almost every spokesperson for the GOP campagn goes out of their way to say something negative about Obama any time they talk, the candidates themselves being the most blatent. Even McCain's website has an entire section devoted to Obama's "facts" that may or may not be misleading to sway opinions.
And yes the Obama camp has put up its share of negative ads but how many are direct attacks on McCain's character? Every negative add I've seen from Obama has been strictly about McCain's record as stretched as they might have been. Obama has real answers, for the most part, on policy questions. For what I can tell, the objective of the Obama campaign is to inform the people what his ideas are and to maintain that they are better than John McCain's.
TWO:
We've all read or heard about all the poles taken every week to get us excited about who's ahead so far. They're all performed over the phone, with 'likely' voters. But the detail that strikes me is the 'by telephone' part. I'm pretty sure these are all land line phones, and I've heard nothing about any base of cell phone users being called for any polls. Which brings me to my point. The Democratic party has been registering millions of young voters, and I'd wager very few o fthem have home phones. Most are in college.
So what can we make of these polls taken of people that are likely over the ages of 30 or 35? I feel like if Obama is winning among that demographic, when you add in his most supportive demographic that hasn't been a major part of the polling, there will be some serious differences in the real vote. Which is very encouraging to me.
_Charles
I went to see Bill Maher's film "Religulous" with my oldest brother. It was basically the cinematic version of Sam Harris' book "End of Faith" but with less emphasis on Muslims. But in the film, he states the main point of his travel and effort to produce the film is to create doubt - doubt in people's minds that perhaps religion is stupid and we're all being rediculous. But that idea of creating doubt is what struck me the hardest.
It hit me a few days ago even more when I realized that's what the Republican party is attempting to do to Barack Obama. There apears to be a large chunk of people on both sides that support teir candidate because of the things they stand for and want to do for our country. Those people can be debated and conversed with on a rational level. But there is also a vast number of people who support the candidates because they share an ideal or believe they'll be better for various reasons. These believers don't care so much about the real facts as much as how well they know their guy is the better of the two.
It has become the objective of the McCain camp to rally up these believers and to tarnish the character and reputation of his opponent. The whole plan of attack with the William Ayers and ACORN topics are nearly baseless. They never say anything wrong about Obama except that he is associated with them. They're painting a picture of doubt that has almost no reasoning at all. They won't even say what the associations mean for his character, but that the associations should be known. It's total bullshit.
When you listen to supporters of McCain or Palin you rarely hear or read about what the two will do FOR the country, but all about how wonderful and relatable they are. Or he's a hereo and she's a hottie. Also, in interviews both candidates when asked direct questions on policy give vague answers and then provide a negative aspect of Obama's ideas. Almost every spokesperson for the GOP campagn goes out of their way to say something negative about Obama any time they talk, the candidates themselves being the most blatent. Even McCain's website has an entire section devoted to Obama's "facts" that may or may not be misleading to sway opinions.
And yes the Obama camp has put up its share of negative ads but how many are direct attacks on McCain's character? Every negative add I've seen from Obama has been strictly about McCain's record as stretched as they might have been. Obama has real answers, for the most part, on policy questions. For what I can tell, the objective of the Obama campaign is to inform the people what his ideas are and to maintain that they are better than John McCain's.
TWO:
We've all read or heard about all the poles taken every week to get us excited about who's ahead so far. They're all performed over the phone, with 'likely' voters. But the detail that strikes me is the 'by telephone' part. I'm pretty sure these are all land line phones, and I've heard nothing about any base of cell phone users being called for any polls. Which brings me to my point. The Democratic party has been registering millions of young voters, and I'd wager very few o fthem have home phones. Most are in college.
So what can we make of these polls taken of people that are likely over the ages of 30 or 35? I feel like if Obama is winning among that demographic, when you add in his most supportive demographic that hasn't been a major part of the polling, there will be some serious differences in the real vote. Which is very encouraging to me.
_Charles