All the right wing nut jobs pretty much stayed over there--RBM-DE, Dr. Burns, I guess Mountainphan is posting here now, and there are others....Tomato Pie posts here, does he still post over there?

jerseyhoya wrote:No, I like being a minority.

BUT YOU'RE REPUBLICAN

Woody wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:No, I like being a minority.

BUT YOU'RE REPUBLICAN

A message board minority. I hate feeling responsible for defending the views of the crazier and/or dumber of my kind.

And here I was hoping for something about George Bush not caring black people

So quick question to the mccain camp.

If Palin > Obama strictly because she's actually been a mayor/governor (which is basically the short version of the argument I've heard from a variety of Republicans and in that little Newt clip there), doesn't that mean McCain is unqualified to be the president because he's never had an administrative governmental position? Or is the idea because he's former military, he's automatically qualified? Because the way the military works is pretty different from the how government works. I mean, Obama's past experiences as a community organizer and the president of the Harvard Law Review might be more applicable to consensus building and government administration than than a military background.

I'm not really trying to make an "McCain isn't experienced enough to be President" argument here, I'm just trying to wrap my head around this bizarre argument that because Sarah Palin was the mayor of a town about twice the size of my high school and has a year of experiencing governing a state smaller the size of Obama's smallest elected jurisdiction, she's more experienced than he is. I don't think the Republicans are going to convince people that she's more experienced than Obama by just saying it over and over again.

The argument also seems to offer a huge fallacy because it basically says that anyone who hasn't been a mayor/governor can't ever be experienced enough to be president, when we know that isn't the case:
JFK, Truman, Eisenhower, Lincoln ... just to name a few

So basically, the Republicans argument is something we simply know isn't true, that experience as an administrative figure is necessary to be an effective president. In fact, as my short list shows, a number of the most "revered" presidents of the past 150 years did not have prior experience in an administrative position like mayor or governor.

Edit: removed FDR from the prez list, he was governor

I'm gonna hop out on a limb and say Alaska is bigger than Obama's State Senate district in every possible measurement unless only black people count. And since I voted for George Bush, that's not how I measure the importance of places.

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm gonna hop out on a limb and say Alaska is bigger than Obama's State Senate district in every possible measurement unless only black people count. And since I voted for George Bush, that's not how I measure the importance of places.

I thought that Obama's congressional district actually has more people than Alaska. And that's 1 pretty small point out of the entire post.

I think the populations are roughly the same.

seke2 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm gonna hop out on a limb and say Alaska is bigger than Obama's State Senate district in every possible measurement unless only black people count. And since I voted for George Bush, that's not how I measure the importance of places.

I thought that Obama's congressional district actually has more people than Alaska. And that's 1 pretty small point out of the entire post.

Indeed it is a smallish point. He was a state senator, not a Congressman, and there are 59 state senators in Illinois, which at the current population works out to 217,000 or so per district.

Another small point: FDR was a governor.

I'm done with making big points today, so I shall nitpick.

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm gonna hop out on a limb and say Alaska is bigger than Obama's State Senate district in every possible measurement unless only black people count. And since I voted for George Bush, that's not how I measure the importance of places.

Based on quick back of the envelop math, an Illinois State Senator has a district with approximatel 220k people, which while less than the population of the entire state of Alaska, is within the ballpark in terms of size.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm gonna hop out on a limb and say Alaska is bigger than Obama's State Senate district in every possible measurement unless only black people count. And since I voted for George Bush, that's not how I measure the importance of places.

Based on quick back of the envelop math, an Illinois State Senator has a district with approximatel 220k people, which while less than the population of the entire state of Alaska, is within the ballpark in terms of size.

Ah, ok. So Alaska is like, 3 or 4 times bigger than his district, my bad on that one.

Sorry, I was excluding Innuits in my calculation

Goddamnit Woody, they were here first.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/129/3190 ... 1f.jpg?v=0

MAYOR!!!!

Oh how I rue the day that land bridge appeared

the white house would be quite an upgrade

Librarianland is kind of buzzing with stories of Palin's quests to ban books during her mayorship.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/03/ ... -ban-books

more depth here:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... 18,00.html

I thought Fred Thompson's speech was one of the best endorsement speeches I've ever heard. Just wanted to say that.

Camp Holdout wrote:http://farm1.static.flickr.com/129/319098225_e3fb99541f.jpg?v=0

MAYOR!!!!

Is that a drivethru window?

"I'll take one building permit"
"Would you like fries with that?"