2008 Presidential Election

[Rapunzel]

Yeah, and Bush was so democratic in all his policies...(cough, cough Patriot Act). I also think the second ammendment is the worst one. It's 2007, and people aren't carrying one shot rifles anymore for the reasons that they carried them in 1776. Now criminals are carrying semi-automatic weapons, 13 year olds are bringing them into schools, and 8 year olds are getting into their parents gun closets. Hardly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind, I think

The second amendment is the only reason we have the first one. The second ammendment is there to protect the first.

Did you know that the US has been invaded? They don't teach the War of 1812 very often in public schools - but, basically, the United States was invaded - and we won by the skin of our teeth.

And, yes, criminals are carrying guns. If you outlaw guns criminals will still carry them. The difference will be that innocent citizens won't be able to defend themselves. Which is EXACTLY what the founding fathers had in mind: individual defense of life, family, and property. When you examine nations that have summarily outlawed their citizens the basic right of self-protection you see two things occur: 1)rapid destruction of safety and 2)easy takeover by tyrants and invaders. These are things happening today - in modern times. It is a mistake to believe that human nature has changed in the last couple of centuries. It is a mistake to believe that the basic right to self-defense should be taken away.

[Rapunzel]

Wow! Mr. Obama is all over the news today - even overseas!

Just read the following:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/arti ... article.do

Yet an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed that, for all Mr Obama's reputation for straight talking and the compelling narrative of his recollections, they are largely myth.

We have discovered that his father was not just a deeply flawed individual but an abusive bigamist and an egomaniac, whose life was ruined not by racism or corruption but his own weaknesses.

And, devastatingly, the testimony has come from Mr Obama's own relatives and family friends.

Barack Obama Sr started life with the advantage of being able to read and write, but he also felt a profound sense of injustice. His father was a cook for British settlers in Kenya, who demeaningly called him their 'personal boy'.

Grandfather Obama sent his son to a missionary school but after completing his education, the youth could find little work except goatherding in his remote village of Nyangoma Kogela, in the roadless hills of Western Kenya.

At 18, he married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Snr was more interested in politics and economics than his family and his political leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan Independence movement.

He was put forward for an American-sponsored scholarship in economics, with the idea being that he would eventually use his Western-honed skills in the new Kenya. At the age of 23 he headed for university in Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.

Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu, he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann - a naive 18-year-old white girl - to marry him. Barack Jnr was born in August, 1961.

Two years later, Obama Snr was on the move again. He was accepted at Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the exclusive east coast university.

At the time, Ann explained to their son that his father had gone because his meagre stipend would not support the family if they lived together. But finance was the least of her worries.

Mr Obama Jnr claims that racism on both sides of the family destroyed the marriage between his mother and father.

In his book, he says that Ann's mother, who went by the nickname Tut, did not want a black son-in-law, and Obama Snr's father 'didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman'.

In fact Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous double life. She remarried and moved to Indonesia with young Barack and her new husband, an oil company manager.

Obama Snr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta - and married yet again.

Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to Africa.

A relative of Mr Obama says: "We told him[Barack] how his father would still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."

It is alleged that Ruth finally left him after he repeatedly flew into whisky-fuelled rages, beating her brutally.

Friends say drinking blighted his life - he lost both his legs while driving under the influence and also lost his job.

However, this was no bar to his womanising: he sired a son, his eighth child, by yet another woman and continued to come home drunk.

He was about to marry her when he finally died in yet another drunken crash when Obama was 21.

Mr Obama's 40-year-old cousin Said Hussein Obama told The Mail on Sunday: "Clearly, Barack has been very deeply affected by what he has learned about his father, who was my father's older brother.

"You have to remember that his father was an African and in Africa, polygamy is part of life.

"We have assured Barack that his father was a loving person but at times it must be difficult for him to reconcile this with his father's drinking and simultaneous marriages."

Said adds: "His father was a human being and as such you can't say that he was 100 per cent perfect.

"My cousin found it difficult when he came here to learn of his half-brothers and sisters born to four different mothers.

"But just as Africans find the Western world strange so Americans coming here will find Africa strange."

Far from being an inspiration, the father whom Mr Obama was coming to know seemed like a total stranger.

In his book, he attempts to put the best face on it. His father, he writes, lost his civil service job after campaigning against corrupt African politicians who had 'taken the place of the white colonials'.

One of Obama Snr's former drinking partners, Kenyan writer Philip Ochieng Ochieng says, however, that his friend's downfall was his weak character.

"Although charming, generous and extraordinarily clever, Obama Snr was also imperious, cruel and given to boasting about his brain and his wealth," he said.

"He was excessively fond of Scotch. He had fallen into the habit of going home drunk every night. His boasting proved his undoing and left him without a job, plunged him into prolonged poverty and dangerously wounded his ego."

Ochieng recalls how, after sitting up all night drinking Black Label whisky at Nairobi's famous Stanley Hotel, Obama Snr would fly into rages if Ruth asked where he had been.

Ochieng remonstrated with his friend, saying: "You bring a woman from far away and you reduce her to pulp. That is not our way."

But it was to no avail. Ruth sued for divorce after her husband administered brutal beatings.

In fact he was a menace to life, said Ochieng. "He had many extremely serious accidents. Both his legs had to be amputated. They were replaced with crude false limbs made from iron.

"He was just like Mr Toad [from Wind In The Willows], very arrogant on the road, especially when he had whisky inside. I was not surprised when I learned how he died."

Ruth refused to comment on the abuse charges when we tracked her down to the Kenyan school where she now works.

She said: "I was married to Barack's father for seven years so, yes, you could say Barack is my stepson.

"Barack's father was a very difficult man. Although I was married to him the longest of any of his wives he wasn't an easy person to be around."

Mr Obama has acknowledged that his father grappled with a drinking problem. But with a gift for words that makes Mrs Clinton's utterances seem stiff and stale, he has turned it into another component of the myth.

Drink, he says, like drugs, are one of "the traps that seem laid in a black man's soul".

Mr Obama claims that he, too, has been racially abused, even during his campaign for the White House.

His mother, Ann, decided that he should get an American education and sent him back from Indonesia to Hawaii, where he was admitted to a £7,000-a-year prep school, Punahau Academy, and lived with his maternal grandparents.

And while there, says Mr Obama, he was tortured by fellow pupils - who let out monkey hoots - and turned into a disenchanted teenage rebel, experimenting with cocaine and marijuana.

Even his grandparents were troubled by dark skin, he says in his book, recalling how once his grandmother complained about being pestered by a beggar.

"You know why she's so scared?" he recalls his grandfather saying. "She told me the fella was black."

Mr Obama says his soaring 'dream' of a better America grew out of his 'hurt and pain'.

Friends, however, remember his time at school rather differently. He was a spoiled high-achiever, they recall, who seemed as fond of his grandparents as they were of him.

He affectionately signed a school photo of himself to them, using their pet names, Tut and Gramps.

The caption says: "Thanks... for all the good times." He worked on the school's literary magazine and wore a white suit, of the style popular with New York writers at the time.

One of his former classmates, Alan Lum, said: "Hawaii is such a melting pot that it didn't occur to me when we were growing up that he might have problems about being one of the few African-Americans at the school. Us kids didn't see colour. He was easy-going and well-liked."

Lon Wysard, who also attended the academy, said the budding politician was in fact idolised for his keen sportsmanship.

"He was the star basketball player and always had a ball in his hand wherever he was," Wysard recalled.

Mr Obama was later admitted to read politics and international relations at New York's prestigious Columbia University where, his book claims, "no matter how many times the administration tried to paint them over, the walls remained scratched with blunt correspondence (about) niggers."

But one of his classmates, Joe Zwicker, 45, now a lawyer in Boston, said yesterday: "That surprises me. Columbia was a pretty tolerant place. There were African American students in my classes and I never saw any evidence of racism at all."

Family members and acquaintances believe that the real cloud over Mr Obama's life has been the discovery that his father was far from the romantic figure that his mother tried to portray.

A family friend said: "He is haunted by his father's failures. He grew up thinking of his father as a brilliant intellectual and pioneer of African independence only to learn that in Western terms he was basically a drunken lecher."

This ugly truth, say friends, has made Mr Obama ruthlessly determined to use every weapon that he has to succeed, including the glossily edited version of his father's story.

"At the end of the day Barack wants the story to help his political cause, so perhaps he couldn't afford to be too honest," said Ochieng.

Significantly, it was only four years after his father's death that Mr Obama travelled to his father's ancestral Kenyan village. There he learned the full story of his father's life and met some of his relatives.

One of his half-sisters, Auma, is now a council worker in southern England, but some of his other relatives are still living in huts in the village, without plumbing or electricity, farming a few scrawny goats and chicken and growing fruit and maize.

They speak the tribal Luo language and depend on handouts from family members who have emigrated to the UK and the United States for their few luxuries, notably the transistor radios that they use to follow Mr Obama's rocketing political fortunes.

He has positioned himself as a devout Christian (having found God, he says, after years as an atheist) and in a new book The Audacity Of Hope, timed to coincide with his campaign, he concentrates on his manifesto for 'reclaiming the American dream'.

This tome contains one telling paragraph, in a section in which he fumbles to try to justify his abrupt leap into the national political arena: he is, he says, chronically 'restless'.

"Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes, and I suppose that may explain my particular malady."

[Rapunzel]

Even more on the candidate we know the least about.... It's a Barack fountain of knowledge today!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17003563/

Excerpts:

HONOLULU - He was known as Barry Obama, and with his dark complexion and mini-Afro, he was one of the few blacks at the privileged Hawaiian school overlooking the Pacific.

Yet that hardly made him stand out.

Diversity was the norm at the Punahou School, one of the state's top private schools. The 3,600 students came from a wide variety of backgrounds, with a blend of Polynesian, Asian, European and other cultures. Everybody in Hawaii is a minority.

At Punahou, Barack Obama was known primarily for his appealing personality, his honesty and his aggressive play on the basketball court.

"It was a good melting pot. There were people from all different races," said Eric Smith, a friend and classmate of Obama's in the 1970s. "Everyone seemed to meld together."

But Obama acknowledges he wasn't growing up in the Jim Crow South or the housing projects of Harlem — he was in Hawaii, where his peers mostly treated him the same as others.

At school, Obama was surrounded by the island's richest and most accomplished students. America Online founder Steve Case, actress Kelly Preston and former Dallas Cowboys lineman Mark Tuinei, who died in 1999, attended the school around that time. Pro golf sensation Michelle Wie, 17, is a student there now.

[Rapunzel]

So, his life is actually a ton more interesting than he has let on:

His dad married his mother as his second wife (polygamist) and, apparently, this helped him stay in the US (green card?) until she found out about the other wife and divorced him. His dad went on to marry a third wife (while married to the first still and fathering babies with her while fathering babies with the third wife), was a raging alcholic who beat at least one of his wives. And, then he died.

Obama was raised in the highly culturally and ethnically diverse island paradise of Hawaii by his well-to-do and apparently locally prominant white grandparents who appear to have been supportive and loving of him. He attended an exclusive prep school where he was well-liked and hardly stood out for his ethnic heritage (given the school's diversity). Yet, for all this multiculturalism he harbored serious resentment towards all whites and distrusted white people.

He was on marijuana and cocaine at some point in his life. He joined socialist and anti-Israeli meetings during his college years (but, dropped the meetings with the Palestinian student groups once his political star was set to rise according to at least one "progressive" blogger who holds it against him).

A lot of what he says about himself and his formative years doesn't seem to jibe with the reality that is in the news at the moment. It just drives home the point that this guy is an unknown - and unknown does not necessarily equal desirable. It simply means we don't know much about him.... He is good at talking about nothing, though!

[SuzySunshine]

OMG !!! R U voting in the primaries? ROFLMAO
Contributed by Daren Briscoe - Posted: February 20, 2007 6:49:06 PM

For the most part, handicappers of the 2008 presidential race are still using ye olde traditional yardsticks to measure which candidates are gaining or losing the early ground. They scrutinize big-name endorsements, obsess over the very latest polling out of New Hampshire and track how many $1,000 a-plate dinners each campaign can sell out. But there's a new marker of the elusive "it" factor: The number of people who have added you as a MySpace friend.

Okay, so it may not be as "important" as a candidate's plan to get out of Iraq or revamping social security; but as any MySpace member can tell you, there are way better measures of success than your "qualifications" and "abilities"--like, how popular you are. Here's what we mean. Most polls show Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Barack Obama. But that number is pretty meaningless when you consider that 44,445 people count Obama as a MySpace friend, while only 23,667 count Hillary as a pal, according to TechPresident.com, which tracks web coverage of the presidential campaign. On the GOP side, John McCain (1,369 MySpace friends) and Rudy Giuliani (651 MySpace friends) are always listed as the early GOP frontrunners. But Mitt Romney has the edge on both, with his 1,405 Myspace buddies. Even so, all three of the Republican candidates together don't have anywhere near as many friends as Obama. Experts say that's because they are nowhere near as cool.

In other words, if the election were held today, and all the voting booths were on MySpace, Obama would totally be president. But Republicans shouldn't give up just yet. Apparently--and this gets kind of technical so we're simplifying a bit--listing someone as a MySpace friend doesn't count as an actual vote for that candidate on election day. "Friending is still a bit of a murky phenomenon. It's a pretty trivial kind of association and I'd never say we should take it as any proof of what will happen as far as voter turnout," techPresident editor Micah Sifry told NEWSWEEK. Well, yeah. But it's still cool to be voted "most likely to become president" even if you wind up a total loser.

ETA: Some of the comments are interesting, you can read them at: http://www.talk.newsweek.com/politics/d ... tem=500462

So, his life is actually a ton more interesting than he has let on:

His dad married his mother as his second wife (polygamist) and, apparently, this helped him stay in the US (green card?) until she found out about the other wife and divorced him. His dad went on to marry a third wife (while married to the first still and fathering babies with her while fathering babies with the third wife), was a raging alcholic who beat at least one of his wives. And, then he died.

Obama was raised in the highly culturally and ethnically diverse island paradise of Hawaii by his well-to-do and apparently locally prominant white grandparents who appear to have been supportive and loving of him. He attended an exclusive prep school where he was well-liked and hardly stood out for his ethnic heritage (given the school's diversity). Yet, for all this multiculturalism he harbored serious resentment towards all whites and distrusted white people.

He was on marijuana and cocaine at some point in his life. He joined socialist and anti-Israeli meetings during his college years (but, dropped the meetings with the Palestinian student groups once his political star was set to rise according to at least one "progressive" blogger who holds it against him).

A lot of what he says about himself and his formative years doesn't seem to jibe with the reality that is in the news at the moment. It just drives home the point that this guy is an unknown - and unknown does not necessarily equal desirable. It simply means we don't know much about him.... He is good at talking about nothing, though!

Honestly is it really fair to stick someone with their actions at 14-22??? Or their parents for that matter. Anyone in highschool or college is bound to change and change their opinions once they have grown up. I could care less who he hung out with, what groups he was will, or his past drug use. Seriously, not to be in your face - but how does this go with redemption in religon (past sins and such) If you see yourself as religous isn't this holding a double standard? If not could you explain this? I'm asking not judging, I truly wonder how this is not a double standard though. I ask this, because that's the way this post comes off to me. Is it really morally fair to blast someone for something they may or may not have thought when they were growing up (i.e. my crush showed up to the anti-Israeli club and I showed up, kind of behavior youngens do) (I'll totally retract this and delete if this is to personal)

I would care more about his current past 10 years than when he was a fledgeling.

And fwiw I don't see him supporting a race card here at all, more of like me or don't.

[Rapunzel]

Honestly is it really fair to stick someone with their actions at 14-22??? Or their parents for that matter. Anyone in highschool or college is bound to change and change their opinions once they have grown up. I could care less who he hung out with, what groups he was will, or his past drug use. Seriously, not to be in your face - but how does this go with redemption in religon (past sins and such) If you see yourself as religous isn't this holding a double standard? If not could you explain this? I'm asking not judging, I truly wonder how this is not a double standard though. I ask this, because that's the way this post comes off to me. Is it really morally fair to blast someone for something they may or may not have thought when they were growing up (i.e. my crush showed up to the anti-Israeli club and I showed up, kind of behavior youngens do) (I'll totally retract this and delete if this is to personal)

I would care more about his current past 10 years than when he was a fledgeling.

And fwiw I don't see him supporting a race card here at all, more of like me or don't.

I was providing background information on a candidate.

The same as was done on past candidates (and, btw, the current president's actions at the age of 19, 20, etc. were major headlines throughout the last presidential race). The current president (and the president before him - Clinton) both were judged by both ends of the political spectrum on things they did in their younger years (namely for both - drugs). It's more than a bit hypocritical to think it was OK to do that in the past with other candidates (particularly if they were ones you didn't support) and not OK to do it with current candidates (that you might support). Remember the whole consistancy thing?....

And, this background information is all the more interesting because it has been omitted apparently from the candidates own autobiographical information.

As far as using the terminology that I was "blasting" him - please point out where I was doing so. I gave information and then, summarized said information only commenting that it was "interesting" - which, indeed it is. My single negative comment was that he is a good bs'er. And, I still maintain that.

As far as the race issue - I reported what his own personal turmoil has been on this subject. He admittedly has had problems with people because of their ethnicity (white people in this case). How is that not of interest? If a presidential candidate had problems with others because of ethnicity (say, he had issues with latinos) I would think it would be of paramount interest. But, yet, you don't seem to think it's important if someone has had admittedly disturbing issues with race and ethnicity....

BTW, You seem to be on some sort of bent to make this a case of religion. Why? Do you feel religion is important in presidential candidates? Why? Do you feel that religion should prevent a person from knowing the background of presidential candidates?

Are you not interested in information on candidates? Why or why not?[/quote]

[Rapunzel]

I was responding to your post in general with my previous post. Here I will go through and respond while pointing out to what I am responding:

Honestly is it really fair to stick someone with their actions at 14-22???

By "sticking someone with their actions" are you referring to mentioning the use by a presidential candidate of major illicit drugs which could potentially mean the candidate is guilty of a felony? Hmmmm..... Both GWBush and Bill Clinton were both drug users in their pasts. And, both were scrutinized for this illegal and dangerous activity. I think that is quite proper. We need to know if there are portions of a candidates personality that drive them toward dangerous and irresponsible behavior. I'd say that in both cases (Bush and Clinton) their past drug use was a good indicator of said behavioral patterns.

Or their parents for that matter.

In the course of providing background information on the candidate I did provide information on his parents, grandparents, childhood, education, etc. That's completely normal. And, no, people are not responsible for the actions of others.

Anyone in highschool or college is bound to change and change their opinions once they have grown up. I could care less who he hung out with, what groups he was will, or his past drug use.

I see, so you didn't have any problems with GW Bush's past drug use or wild party days? OK, if you didn't then you are being consistant. I did and still do believe that a candidate's background behavior is indicitive of what they may act like in the future. You know, that wise saying: History repeats itself?

Seriously, not to be in your face - but how does this go with redemption in religon (past sins and such) If you see yourself as religous isn't this holding a double standard?

If I forgive someone who hurt me or who has committed a major crime or done something very, very wrong and/or dangerous that is NOT the same as trusting said person. Forgiveness does not mean you must put yourself in harm's way. For that reason past criminal behavior is relevant - whether you are looking for a spouse, an employee, or a president.

If not could you explain this? I'm asking not judging, I truly wonder how this is not a double standard though. I ask this, because that's the way this post comes off to me. Is it really morally fair to blast someone for something they may or may not have thought when they were growing up (i.e. my crush showed up to the anti-Israeli club and I showed up, kind of behavior youngens do) (I'll totally retract this and delete if this is to personal)

No, I'm used to the religion bashing and general ignorance towards Christianity on this site. You don't have to erase this - I'm making sure to quote it so you can't.

I find it intensely interesting that, rather than focus on the possible seriously dangerous behavior of a presidential candidate, you are blasting the messenger (and, in doing so attempting to use a religious argument which you appear to not fully understand).

I suppose we should just pick our presidents by lottery - since their past decisions should not be scrutinized. Their past decisions will not, of course, indicate in any way their future decision making patterns. (/sarcasm)

BTW Can you point out where I "bashed" this candidate other than saying he has empty speeches?

I would care more about his current past 10 years than when he was a fledgeling.

And, you see - we don't have a lot of political information on him because he hasn't been in politics very long. Therefore, we must examine his life period. And, the statement you make above does, of course, mean you didn't believe it was right to scrutinize any other past presidential candidates' pasts.

And fwiw I don't see him supporting a race card here at all, more of like me or don't.

He has clearly stated he had problems with people because they were "white". He has stated this. I'm just relaying the information.

I was providing background information on a candidate.

The same as was done on past candidates (and, btw, the current president's actions at the age of 19, 20, etc. were major headlines throughout the last presidential race). The current president (and the president before him - Clinton) both were judged by both ends of the political spectrum on things they did in their younger years (namely for both - drugs). It's more than a bit hypocritical to think it was OK to do that in the past with other candidates (particularly if they were ones you didn't support) and not OK to do it with current candidates (that you might support). Remember the whole consistancy thing?....
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Did anyone here give that judgement before? If so it's relavent, if not then you are tellling us the reading audience that we should watch out how we judge now in case we judged in the past, seems kinda mothering doesn't it if it wasn't an issue raised :huh:

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As far as using the terminology that I was "blasting" him - please point out where I was doing so. I gave information and then, summarized said information only commenting that it was "interesting" - which, indeed it is. My single negative comment was that he is a good bs'er. And, I still maintain that.
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Well the number of extremely long posts you wrote, with so many sources it would take hours to check to see if that's really where they came from, backing your thoughts on what you think is important for us to know, to me is pigeon holed and not thorough (hence the need to check sources), to me is a form of blasting (via. how stinking long the posts are) ... not for you, ok you call it something else.


As far as the race issue - I reported what his own personal turmoil has been on this subject. He admittedly has had problems with people because of their ethnicity (white people in this case). How is that not of interest?
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I said I didn't think he was making an issue of his race for others to vote for him on that's all. But honestly I don't put a hole lot of confidence in quotes without seeing the whole context. As politcal time of presidential election is a prime way to miss use quote, IMO. But it's food for thought, and can be important.

But, yet, you don't seem to think it's important if someone has had admittedly disturbing issues with race and ethnicity....
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Actually I never commented on this, just that he wasn't asking for votes because he's black - that's it.

************************************************** ***********
BTW, You seem to be on some sort of bent to make this a case of religion. Why? Do you feel religion is important in presidential candidates? Why? Do you feel that religion should prevent a person from knowing the background of presidential candidates?
Are you not interested in information on candidates? Why or why not?[/quote][/quote]

Well...I just think it's kinda hypocritcal to judge someone on their formative years, I was just asking if that was what you were doing. Do I feel religion is important in presidential elections, yes, - but how it's important well that's a very long post, and depends situation to situation (i.e. I wouldn't vote for someone who was against the rights of religion). I don't vote for someone cause their of a certian religion, as pretty much all polititians use it for their own gain for accountability, and doesn't mean squat (just how many religious people have had afairs in office...anyone???) Do I feel religion should prevent a person from knowing the background of persidential candidates? No but I just think if one is to be so critical of others, and seems to judge others of their informative years, well that it's not fair, IMO. You seem to make the point Obama = bad, beware. Ok, you think that, I'm off to make my own thoughts....

Thanks all folks.

No, I'm used to the religion bashing and general ignorance towards Christianity on this site.

Please. I am so tired of this flag already. Yes - historically there has been a majority of liberal voices on this site, and particularly in the debate forum. That does NOT mean that we are all religion bashers and ignorant about Christianity. Several of the liberals on this site may consider themselves to be Christian. Several of us don't. Some ascribe to other religions, some choose not to practice religion at all. Simply because we - as a general "majority" population have embraced views that do not align with a Christian viewpoint does NOT mean we are have bashed an entire faith.

I'll agree that the lefties have been a very vocal majority. But rather than continually wave the flag of "I've been bashed" how about embracing the fact that there are now more conservative posters?

AWESOME, now you have another pro-Christianity voice, cause I'm a Christian....

[SuzySunshine]

Hey I'm Christian, catholic actually, but I don't use my religion in the debate threads b/c 99% of the time I don't see that its relevant.

[Website Manager]

Heads up -- keep it on topic.
:adminpower:

[mommax3]

I have to say that I really, really do not care what a person did in their lives before becoming a public servant. I want to know if they walked the walk once they attained public office, or if they were just real good at talking the talk. Now, obviously, if a person was a convicted felon, and then ran for office, then yeah, it is probably going to disqualify them. But something they said/did/felt when they were a teenager or college student? I personally thought I was pretty darn smart at that point in my life.....I just thinking of the opinions I held regarding education and parenting, for example. And is there really anyone here that would love to have all of their actions from those days paraded through the media? Not me!

I haven't seen or heard anything too new or compelling from candidates from either party.....big surprise. If a pro-life moderate Democrat came along, I would probably vote for him/her. I would love to see universal healthcare, or something approaching that, but having lived under a poor model of that (in the military) for eight years, I would need the candidate to have a very detailed plan of what it would look like......and I would like the issue of insurance company profits to be addressed, as well.

Sally