![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesliepearOk, I am pro-Obama, but I just wanted to post some commentary on elections here.
In recent years it seems the campaign strategy of politicians has been to find negative things about the opponent and not stress their own positive things.
I think with Barack Obama they've had a hard time with this because he's relatively young and lived a fairly clean public and private life. First they found out that the pastor of the church he attended had very racist views. Just because his pastor has opinions and he attended the church doesn't mean he believes exactly the same thing on everything the pastor did. (As far as I know it wasn't a cult that brainwashed it's members). People chose houses of worship for many reasons not always based on the leader.
Now they are attacking him because he knew or served with Bill Ayres, a 60's radical terrorist on a committee on education (a common interest). Obama was 8 years old at the time of Mr. Ayres activies - he probably didn't even know what was going on then. If Obama was like myself, and found the 60's a fascinating time and wished he were older then - that still doesn't mean he'd approve of terroist tactics of the Weathermen. I think the 60's radicals are very different than Al Quida and other modern terriorists - their goals were different and I'm not sure their aim was to wantonly kill people in the name of their cause - they aimed to be more distruptive in general.
In recent years it seems the campaign strategy of politicians has been to find negative things about the opponent and not stress their own positive things.
I think with Barack Obama they've had a hard time with this because he's relatively young and lived a fairly clean public and private life. First they found out that the pastor of the church he attended had very racist views. Just because his pastor has opinions and he attended the church doesn't mean he believes exactly the same thing on everything the pastor did. (As far as I know it wasn't a cult that brainwashed it's members). People chose houses of worship for many reasons not always based on the leader.
Now they are attacking him because he knew or served with Bill Ayres, a 60's radical terrorist on a committee on education (a common interest). Obama was 8 years old at the time of Mr. Ayres activies - he probably didn't even know what was going on then. If Obama was like myself, and found the 60's a fascinating time and wished he were older then - that still doesn't mean he'd approve of terroist tactics of the Weathermen. I think the 60's radicals are very different than Al Quida and other modern terriorists - their goals were different and I'm not sure their aim was to wantonly kill people in the name of their cause - they aimed to be more distruptive in general.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-14 07:59 pm (UTC)1. Did the pastor preach his views in church? If they were not expressed in that forum, he could be right in not knowing them. Or perhaps Obama didn't pay attention in sermons? Or perhaps he felt the pastors views were irrelevant to his own campaign?
2. Maybe Obama forgot he served with him? Or perhaps since Obama was a child during the 1960's, it didn't occur to him who he served with if they didn't discuss other stuff other than board related topics. I'm on a local friends of the library group - I have no idea of the pasts of the other members and I'm not originally from here.
3. Yes, I agree both are terriorists. The 60's were different times than today though. Those terrorists started opposing the US Government because of the Vietnam war. Didn't most of their activity end in the 1970's once the US exited the war and it ended? Al Queda opposes the US for no reason than it exists I think.
4. If Ayres is unrepentant as you say, it's really his problem not Obama's. As far as I know the two of them are at most accquaintances, not best friends nor is Obama seeking advice from him. I probably have accquaintances myself who have done or do things I don't approve of.
5. The Obama - Acorn thing could be a case of bad judgement on his organizations part. Or someone COULD know someone. It isn't great, but not the most horrible thing done wrong ever.
Just to be fair the Democrats have dug up irrelevant stuff on McCain and Palin (especially since she has a short record). They brought up the fact Ms. Palin attended 5 colleges and McCain was at the bottom of his class at the Academy. Ms. Palin did graduate college and anyone who is accpeted to the Naval Academy has to be fairly intelligent, you do earn your way into it, and I believe it is well respected academically.
I still can't get why McCain chose Palin. I still think there were women in the Republican Party that would have helped his campaign much better than her - Olympia Snow (Maine Senator), Christie Todd Whitman (ex-NJ Governor) , Meg Whitman (eBay), Carly Fiorina (HP), Condoliza Rice etc.
Re: We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-14 08:11 pm (UTC)On Obama and Acorn, I did say someone may have known someone to get them involved and obviously Obama did :(
Re: We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-23 05:59 am (UTC)Even ACORN is clean – it's been the victim of lazy employees who made up lots of names on registration forms. ACORN recognized that the forms were bogus, and fired those employees, and followed the law with the bogus forms: in some states they were required to turn in all forms (to prevent a registration organization from tossing forms if it thought someone would vote against its agenda), so they turned them in with notes marking them as presumed bogus, and I suppose just threw them away in states where they're not required to turn in all forms.
The ACORN thing was not, is not, and will not be voting fraud. It's registration fraud – but no one will ever vote those phony registrations.
Re: We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-14 08:10 pm (UTC)Re: We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-14 08:16 pm (UTC)At least Obama did pick someone with political experience as a VP. It was a good choice for a relative newcomer like himself.
Re: We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-23 05:54 am (UTC)Without Palin, the only money McCain would have to spend would be loans from his wife – if she would be willing to throw money at a doomed cause. If she declined to lend the money, his campaign would be bankrupt. Sure, Obama probably wouldn't have as much money to spend without the inspiration of such an extreme VP opponent, but the ratio between his money and McCain's would be overwhelming.
Re: We always disagree politically but anyway...
Date: 2008-10-23 06:12 am (UTC)I was on the board of a very small non-profit some years ago: the Seattle Astronomical Society, which had between 200 and 300 members and a four-figure budget. I know almost nothing about any of the people on that board, except for their interest in astronomy. If any of them had been members of a violent protest group* in the 1960s, I'd never know it.
Also, I've been to a bunch of house parties thrown as fund-raisers for political candidates, particularly for Washington-8th Congress candidate Darcy Burner. She goes to those things several times a month. I'm sure she barely knows most of the hosts. If I thought I could organize such a party, she'd be there – without any sort of background check to make sure I wasn't a terrorist when I was eight.
It's absolutely unreasonable to expect that Obama ever knew that the old professor who he met at a house party and a few board meetings had been involved in a violent protest group when Obama was a child.
* I think "violent protest group" is a much more accurate description of the Weather Underground than "terrorist group". They were aiming for chaos, not terror.