I  am from Europe originally so for me the fact that health care is left to market forces in the US is mind-blowing. There is no making money out of sick people, and I do know several families that lost job and insurance because someone got too sick to work (cancer). I think is an abomination...so if only just for that, I am for Obama.

The debate I'd say was a draw if you look at it as "fight" the number of punches was even and no one was KO. But I did not watch it as a fight. I wanted to see what kind of person McCain was b/c I had not followed him very much.

To me he seemed arrogant, condescending and too similar to Bush in foreign policy for my taste. I am naive perhaps, but i think that talking to your enemies, even the real bad ones like Iran and North Corea, is the only way to reach peace. He seemed to keen to start wars, and too much of a "axis of evil" style.

Also, I did not get his quip about "ask what rich is for Obama"...what did he mean? 250,000/year seems pretty rich to me...rich enough to pay a bit more taxes.

Jane, I like you so much, but why, oh why! are you voting for McCain? :(
That is the one thing I could not figure out, what can make a Senator Clinton supporter vote for MCCain...they are so opposite on issues...
When you look at the policy plan there is basically no difference between what Hilary wanted to do and what Obama wants to do. I bet that if Obama is elected he'll ask Senator Clinton to become Secretary of State.

I also think that McCain 1) did not really suspend teh campaign. he simply made a stop in DC
2) He made such a big deal of it for political gain. If he really wanted to make a difference, he could have just gone to DC and/or worked on the negotiations w/o need for a big announcement 3) the effect of McCain going to DC has been bad, because now the fate of the bail out is linked to the presidential elections, which is really bad.

Also, about Palin...

She is pro-life...great...but she is also against theistic evolution (which has been OKed by the Vatican and b/c I am a scientist is pretty important to me) and I bet that her church is among those who don't really think Catholic are Christians...

Being pro-life should not be a free ticket for anything else that might be less than satisfactory in a candidate.

I think that health-care reform and educational reform will make abortion also less likely to occur.

I am not "pro-abortion"...but when it comes to politics, you always have to choose between evil and less evil. And for me Obama's plan for the US  is less "evil" than McCain's.

Cutting government spending for everything but defense (i.e war) ? That does not match my moral values.

gilg wrote:

Agree, but any strategy must include addressing the heroin trade and the economic dependence many of the citizens have on this trade in both Afghanistan and Pakistan; this includes giving farmers and those involved with the trade other options for earning a living wage and addressing the criminal & profit elements inherent to the drug trade.

Gilg, I was thinking of that when I posted earlier about Afghanistan.

Terrorism & Heroin

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news … id=2373383

UN Report – Afghanistan main source of illicit opium/heroin in the world:

http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/a … my_www.pdf



.

Gilg--I will read the UN Report later--thnx for the site.

The Reagan tax buble was a schematic that selected out a smallish group earning $100,000 up to I'm not sure, and made the percentage of tx paid
higher than those below and above. It hit these middle class wage earners hard.

Templar

I agree with your post.

I  am from Europe originally so for me the fact that health care is left to market forces in the US is mind-blowing. There is no making money out of sick people, and I do know several families that lost job and insurance because someone got too sick to work (cancer). I think is an abomination...so if only just for that, I am for Obama.

The debate I'd say was a draw if you look at it as "fight" the number of punches was even and no one was KO. But I did not watch it as a fight. I wanted to see what kind of person McCain was b/c I had not followed him very much.

To me he seemed arrogant, condescending and too similar to Bush in foreign policy for my taste. I am naive perhaps, but i think that talking to your enemies, even the real bad ones like Iran and North Corea, is the only way to reach peace. He seemed to keen to start wars, and too much of a "axis of evil" style.

Also, I did not get his quip about "ask what rich is for Obama"...what did he mean? 250,000/year seems pretty rich to me...rich enough to pay a bit more taxes.

Jane, I like you so much, but why, oh why! are you voting for McCain? :(
That is the one thing I could not figure out, what can make a Senator Clinton supporter vote for MCCain...they are so opposite on issues...
When you look at the policy plan there is basically no difference between what Hilary wanted to do and what Obama wants to do. I bet that if Obama is elected he'll ask Senator Clinton to become Secretary of State.

I also think that McCain 1) did not really suspend teh campaign. he simply made a stop in DC
2) He made such a big deal of it for political gain. If he really wanted to make a difference, he could have just gone to DC and/or worked on the negotiations w/o need for a big announcement 3) the effect of McCain going to DC has been bad, because now the fate of the bail out is linked to the presidential elections, which is really bad.

Also, about Palin...

She is pro-life...great...but she is also against theistic evolution (which has been OKed by the Vatican and b/c I am a scientist is pretty important to me) and I bet that her church is among those who don't really think Catholic are Christians...

Being pro-life should not be a free ticket for anything else that might be less than satisfactory in a candidate.

I think that health-care reform and educational reform will make abortion also less likely to occur.

I am not "pro-abortion"...but when it comes to politics, you always have to choose between evil and less evil. And for me Obama's plan for the US  is less "evil" than McCain's.

Cutting government spending for everything but defense (i.e war) ? That does not match my moral values.