jeff2sf wrote:Thus ends my hiatus.

Obviously you're pretty down on McCain lately, dajafi, which is a stark change from a couple months ago, where you couldn't get worked up...

Me, I'm down on both of them. I expected better than this, and I guess shame on me for liking either of these politicians. I'm still ultimately going to vote Obama, and I'm still more or less enthused for his presidency, but damn, the dude seems to be triangulating more than HRC.

The bottom line is though, pretty much everything you're writing sarcastically about McCain, I could see a McCain devotee write, not unreasonably, about Obama.

mpmcgraw wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:...and I posted his actual voting record and the loopholes he allowed to occur without the type of fight he's supposedly known for. These interviews are just covers for the deals he made with the devil. Abused kids often become abusers. Sexual molested young adults often sexual molest as adults. And apparently, people who are tortured can become torturers when given the chance, I guess. It's another of life's sad cycles.

Hold on, so McCain's torturing people now (by proxy) because he was tortured as a PoW?

Monkeyboy wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:...and I posted his actual voting record and the loopholes he allowed to occur without the type of fight he's supposedly known for. These interviews are just covers for the deals he made with the devil. Abused kids often become abusers. Sexual molested young adults often sexual molest as adults. And apparently, people who are tortured can become torturers when given the chance, I guess. It's another of life's sad cycles.

Hold on, so McCain's torturing people now (by proxy) because he was tortured as a PoW?

He has supported the laws with the loopholes necessary to continue torturing, and he supports enhanced interrogation techniques, which is code for torture. He's against waterboarding and he deserves credit for that, but that doesn't really stop most of the stuff that's gone on. He knew all of his, of course, but he put his desire to be president over what's best for the country. But no, I don't literally think he's pro-torture now because he was tortured. I think he's pro-torture now because he desperately wants to be preznit, no matter what it does to his legacy or his soul, and that's actually worse than doing it because of some horrible emotional scar.

But I'm actually interested to hear why I (or anyone) should vote for McCain when he's dumb enough to install Scheunemann as a foreign policy advisor. McCain isn't even president yet and he's already creating chaos in world affairs. The man is out of his element. Being a prisoner of war doesn't qualify someone to lead the military, especially when his/her judgement is so flawed.

pacino wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:Thus ends my hiatus.

Obviously you're pretty down on McCain lately, dajafi, which is a stark change from a couple months ago, where you couldn't get worked up...

Me, I'm down on both of them. I expected better than this, and I guess shame on me for liking either of these politicians. I'm still ultimately going to vote Obama, and I'm still more or less enthused for his presidency, but damn, the dude seems to be triangulating more than HRC.

The bottom line is though, pretty much everything you're writing sarcastically about McCain, I could see a McCain devotee write, not unreasonably, about Obama.

May I direct you to voxorion's posts?

dajafi wrote:Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people that you dare to question McCain's honesty, integrity, and general unimpeachable grooviness? His imperfections just prove his perfection!

And if nothing else, you should be sympathetic given that he's so put-upon by the media that he's had to act like a typical Rovian dickwad, even though he's really an incredibly noble creature--indeed, perhaps too good for the celebrity-loving American public taken in by Mr. OppityArticubama.

The Dude wrote:is that your picture

Laexile wrote:Barack Obama is the Democratic Presidential candidate I've liked the least in my lifetime.

While most marketers spend their time telling stories about themselves, politicians spend a lot of time telling (negative) stories about the competition. It's illuminating, because it makes the resonance idea really clear. [The rest of this post is about politics. It's okay with me if you skip it, feel free to do so if you expect to be offended.]

Here are two stories:

Barack Obama is hopelessly liberal. He will raise our taxes, and he's not a real American. You can't trust him.

and

John McCain is a fake. He will say and do anything to be elected, and he is just four more years of our last mistake.

Choose your story (or the competition's story) wisely, because you have to live with it for a long time, and if it's not authentic, if it doesn't hold up, you're left with nothing. In the case of an election, the effect of your competitor's story on your base is critical. (And vice versa). John Kerry called George Bush dumb, but it didn't matter, because Bush's base didn't care that Kerry thought he was dumb. The people who did care had already decided not to vote for Bush, so the story had no power. Will McCain's base care that he's a fake? Will Obama's base care that he's untested and different?

I think that Obama's base isn't as shaken by that story as McCain's base is by the 'fake' one. The worldview that elected Ronald Reagan is one that admired his authenticity and his ability to stick to his principles. George Bush took advantage of that same worldview in the stories he told about being a strong leader. "Fake" undoes a lot of that.

The reliance on negative stories in politics makes me sick. I think we should be above that. The fact that negative stories have influenced every election of my lifetime, though, means that I'm wrong, we're not above it. If politicians are going to tell negative stories, they might as well pick useful ones.

Start with the truth. Identify the worldview of the people you need to reach. Describe the truth through their worldview. That's your story. When you overreach, you always fail. Not today, but sooner or later, the truth wins out. Negative or positive, the challenge isn't just to tell the truth. It's to tell truth that resonates.