I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
John McCain has chosen his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who fiercely opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. She supports the death penalty and the teaching of creationism in schools. Also she is an enthusiast for the outdoors and a gun owner and opposes environmental restrictions on drilling in Alaska. Her combative nature has also caused controversy. In Alaska, she has a long list of political enemies.
She is also under investigation into whether she intervened to sack a state trooper who was involved in a divorce and custody battle with her sister.
Palin is alleged to have transferred public safety commissioner Walter Monegan to a job at the state alcohol board last month after he refused to sack the police official.
Last night’s news was saying she is a Member of the National Rifle Association and supports gun ownership. Hmmmm. Is the race for President of the USA the choice between the lesser of two evils. Is John McCain a good and decent man or is he one of the Bush administration’s cronies? Is Barak Obama a good and decent man who stands for ALL Americans?
Palin sounds like the Republican poster child, reading your write up I couldn't help of thinking when Stan took his son to the republican meeting on American Dad! and Steve told him "Dad! You're the most abortion-hating, Stem-Cell-research-opposing, deficit-loving, affirmative-action-despising, Bible-thumping xenophone I know!"
But quite frankly I'd probably rather the Rebublicans than the touchy-feely BS of the Democrats. Jeezus could you imagine Obama holding a strategy session /press confrence with Rudd?!?!? They'd probably proclaim to have designs for a warp drive within 20 minutes
I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Yes she does ...hardly one to win over the Hillary Clinton voters hopefully
According to US tele Hillary voters may jump simply because Obama didn't choose her as the running mate
I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
October 17, 2008 11:41am Article from: Agence France-Presse
JOHN McCain has confronted his chief tormentor on comedy television, demonstrating he can still take a joke, despite the mounting pressure of the US presidential election race.
Senator McCain's appearance on the Late Show in New York ended a feud with host David Letterman dating back to the Republican candidate's failure to appear in the CBS television studio last month.
See how Dave dealt with the no-show then:
Asked by Letterman why he hadn't come, McCain dead-panned: "Can I give you an answer? I screwed up".
The sight of Senator McCain grovelling before the comedian tickled the audience at the taping of the show, due to be shown in the next few hours.
"I have a son in the Marine Corps and I asked him to Fedex his helmet," Senator McCain quipped as he came on stage.
There was also laughter when Senator McCain, a former Vietnam War POW, complained about Letterman's grilling. "I haven't had so much fun since my last interrogation," he said.
The light-hearted session was in contrast to a tense final debate against Democrat rival Barack Obama yesterday, where many analysts said Senator McCain appeared angry and irritated.
On a more serious note, Senator McCain told Letterman that he did not approve of increasingly negative, sometimes violent anti-Obama remarks shouted out by "fringe" elements at his rallies. "I admire and respect Senator Obama. He's inspired America," Senator McCain said.
However, he defended and repeated a claim by his running mate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, that Senator Obama had "palled around with terrorists". "He did," Senator McCain said.
The allegation refers to a modest professional association in recent times between Senator Obama and Bill Ayers, a professor who was a bomb-throwing extreme leftist in the 1960s, when Senator Obama was still a child.
Senator McCain brushed off Letterman's question as to why Mrs Palin refers to terrorists in the plural, simply laughing: "There's millions of words said in a campaign".
The Republican also stood firm on his support for Mrs Palin. Her image as a moose-hunting Alaskan right winger and her apparently limited knowledge of foreign affairs has been mercilessly lampooned by comedians.
But Senator McCain said "she's a reformer, she's the most popular governor in the United States".
He indicated she would make a long awaited appearance on the television show most famous for making fun of her - Saturday Night Live. "I think she is" going to appear, he said.
Click above to see the most influential song of the New Millenium
Can't wait till this is all over tomorrow and Obama has won
Please God Hear Our Prayers.... Thank you.
Ya know.... after the way Bush Jr. became the Prez I do not have much faith in the 'voting process'. Sad to say. Have they shot D ick Cheney yet (in the bum or anywhere else). At least Obama is NOT a 33rd degree Freemason!!! (I hope)
Voters greeted with long lines, malfunctioning machines November 5, 2008 - 5:07AM
NEW YORK - Voting problems surfaced in several areas early today when people turned out in droves as presidential balloting commenced in the eastern United States, as long lines and malfunctioning machines greeted voters.
Americans have kept a close eye on election problems recently. In 2000, the results of the election were held up until the US Supreme Court ultimately decided to halt a recount over contested votes in Florida, leaving George W Bush the winner. In Ohio, there was turmoil in 2004 over malfunctioning machines and long lines.
Today, voters had to use paper ballots because of problems with electronic voting machines in some New Jersey precincts. And in New York, Board of Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez-Rivera said many people began lining up as early as 4am (2000 AEDT) at some polling places to avoid long lines, leading to erroneous reports that some sites were not opening on time.
Poll worker John Ritch in Chappaqua, New York, said: "By 7.30 this morning, we had as many as we had at noon in 2004."
Gov. Ed Rendell urged voters in Pennsylvania to "hang in there" as state and country officials braced for a huge turnout. More than 160 people were lined up to vote by the time polls opened at First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. "I could stay an hour and a half at the front end or three hours at the back end," joked Ronald Marshall, a black Democrat.
Hundreds converged on polling precincts in Missouri, a crucial battleground state. Norma Storms, a 78-year-old resident of Raytown, said her driveway was filled with cars left by voters who couldn't get into nearby parking lots.
"I have never seen anything like this in all my born days," she said. "I am just astounded."
In Virginia, where a Democrat has not won the presidential race since 1964, several counties experienced paper jams and balky touch-screen devices. In Richmond, a precinct opening was delayed because the person who had the keys overslept. Hundreds of people swarming the branch library cheered when its doors finally opened.
Ohio, which experienced extreme voting problems in the last presidential race, had some jammed paper problems in Franklin County. "We're taking care of things like that," said elections spokesman Ben Piscitelli. "But there's nothing major or systemic."
Perhaps the most bizarre barrier to voting was a car which hit a utility pole in St Paul, Minnesota, site of September's Republican convention. The accident knocked power out for over an hour to two polling locations. Ramsey County officials said voting continued at those sites, and the ballots were kept secure until the power was restored and the ballots could be run through an electronic machine.
Lawsuits alleging voter suppression already had surfaced in Virginia, a hotly contested state. A judge refused late Monday to extend poll hours or add voting machines to black precincts in some areas. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, in a federal lawsuit, demanded those changes, saying minority neighbourhoods would experience overwhelming turnout and there weren't enough electronic machines.
US District Judge Richard Williams denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, but ordered election officials to publicise that people in line by 7pm, the polls' closing time, would be allowed to cast ballots.
Republican John McCain's campaign sued the Virginia electoral board hours before polls opened, trying to force the state to count late-arriving military ballots from overseas.
McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, asked a federal judge to order state election officials to count absentee ballots mailed from abroad that arrive as late as November 14.
What is uncommon about today's contest is the sheer number of voters expected to descend on more than 7,000 election jurisdictions across the country. Voter registration numbers are up 7.3 per cent from the last presidential election.
"We have a system that is traditionally set up for low turnout," said Tova Wang of the government watchdog group Common Cause. "We're going to have all these new voters, but not a lot of new resources. The election directors just have very little to work with."
I just saw the very very end of 10 news. It showed a very subdued Obama, it showed the Reverend Jessie crying. I assumed that Obama had lost. I believed that strings had been pulled and the Old Coot McCain had won and that horrid woman would be Vice Prez When I looked on the CNN website http://edition.cnn.com and saw the results, that Obama has won the Presidential Election, I literally cried. WOW! Watch out world, we are now in the 21st Century!
Two years ago, Barack Obama was barely a blip on America's political radar.
But, with a brilliant, disciplined campaign, a vast amount of money and a favourable political climate, the junior senator from Illinois has risen to the most powerful job in the world.
His campaign will be a template for those seeking to replace him.
It was, even Republican strategists admit, a technically perfect ground campaign.
The money was key. Mr Obama realised during the primary contest that he had developed an extremely broad donor base, which he could keep going back to for money.
So, he rejected federal funding for his campaign and the financial limits that came with it.
With the help of Facebook founder Chris Hughes - who devised an innovative internet fundraising system - the campaign eventually attracted more than three million donors. They donated about $650m (£403m) - more than both presidential contenders in 2004 combined.
Mr Obama had the money for four times as many campaign offices as Mr McCain and a vast army of campaign staff and volunteers. They developed and exploited a vast database of information about potential donors and voters in every key state.
Everyone who visited the Obama website was asked to sign up to get more information. Everyone who did so was asked to contribute, or volunteer. If they did, they received several follow-up calls and messages asking for more money, or more assistance.
That fundraising ground campaign left him well equipped for the air war.
TV advertising is the life-blood of a campaign which has to span some 3.5m square miles (9m sq km) and 300 million people, and Mr Obama had no problem buying airtime.
Masterful operation
In some swing states in the final weeks of the campaign, he was outspending Mr McCain by a ratio of four to one. His team again tapped into the internet, targeting ads at those online.
They even bought ad-space embedded in video games. Mr Obama could afford to campaign in Republican strongholds and force Mr McCain to spread his limited resources ever thinner, sucking his resources away from swing states.
At the same time the campaign was masterful at getting out the vote. It ran a huge registration drive for likely Democrats - adding more than 300,000 people to the voter rolls in Florida alone.
Realising that so many new voters could overwhelm polling places on voting day, the campaign made early voting a priority in states where it is allowed. More people cast their votes before election day this year than ever before - more than 29 million in 30 states, according to preliminary data.
All of this worked of course because of Barack Obama's appeal as a candidate. He is a superb orator who can work a crowd in the Bill Clinton tradition.
His image was wholesome; a self-made family man with one house, one car - and one family. It was a contrast to John McCain who divorced the wife who waited for him through the Vietnam war, married an heiress and couldn't remember how many houses he had.
Anti-Bush candidate
Mr Obama was able to connect more deeply with more diverse voting blocks. He struck a chord with younger voters, won over Hispanic and Jewish voters who had been Republicans in the past, and of course got out the black vote like no president before him.
Mr Obama's single, consistent message of change was appealing when almost nine out of 10 American's believed their country was "on the wrong track".
He could easily position himself as the anti-Bush candidate in a way Mr McCain struggled to do. President Bush had lower approval ratings than the disgraced Richard Nixon, and Mr Obama's relentless campaign message was that John McCain had voted with him 90% of the time.
The polls suggested more people trusted Mr Obama to fix the economy and when the financial crisis struck he was best placed to take political advantage of it.
His persistent focus on how to help those most impoverished by eight years of George Bush's leadership seemed a better fit for the times; a sharp contrast to the kind of tax cuts which were now a central plank of the McCain campaign and would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
Ultimately, even Mr McCain's great political strength as a war hero with decades of foreign experience was eclipsed.
Mr Obama's selection of the veteran foreign policy expert, Senator Joe Biden, as his running mate helped close the experience gap.
He insisted too that judgement was more important than experience and over the course of the campaign the political consensus seemed to shift to his ideas.
Mr Obama called for a withdrawal timeline in Iraq, defending Afghanistan's borders by launching raids inside Pakistan when required and talking to America's enemies.
Slowly and quietly even the Bush Administration came to accept those ideas, while John McCain seemed ever more isolated as he continued to reject them.
Barack Obama said he didn't "look like other Presidents on the dollar bill".
Although that was a reference to his colour, he was different in so many ways to the established political aristocracy, that in a year when Americans were craving something new, his differences turned out to be his part of his strength.
I just saw the very very end of 10 news. It showed a very subdued Obama, it showed the Reverend Jessie crying. I assumed that Obama had lost. I believed that strings had been pulled and the Old Coot McCain had won and that horrid woman would be Vice Prez When I looked on the CNN website[url] http://edition.cnn.com/[/url] and saw the results, that Obama has won the Presidential Election, I literally cried. WOW! Watch out world, we are now in the 21st Century!
I hope you don't say that just because he's black
I couldn't decide who I'd vote for.. probably Obama, so yay!
Bush won unfairly, wasn't it that al gore actually won?
USA really needed a change, so this is good even if he is bad.
North Carolina is SOOO close, their results are coming in soon. 0.2% in it atm. I must say I'm surprised a lot of the Northern states voted Mccain, I'd have pegged the Southern states to be the more conventional, stereotypical American types.
Ooh Mccain has Missouri, by 0.1%
The biggest margin in Washington DC.. wow! Obama - 210,403 .. Mccain - 14800 ... 92%!!!
KOGELO, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyans in Barack Obama's ancestral homeland sang and danced with joy on Wednesday as the Illinois senator they see as one of their own became the first black U.S. president.
A tropical downpour overnight failed to dampen spirits as hundreds gathered in a field at Obama's late father's village to watch the results relayed to a big screen.
As a pink dawn lit the sky, they clapped and cheered as key swing states fell to the youthful Democratic candidate they see as east Africa's favourite adopted son.
Then came the news they were waiting for: Obama had won.
"We are going to the White House! We are going to the White House!" relatives sang at the top of their voices as they danced around the family's modest homestead, pausing only to hug each other and hoist small children into the air.
Well-wishers, family members and armies of local and foreign journalists have descended on Kogelo, the tiny village in western Kenya where Obama's 87-year-old grandmother lives.
"We haven't slept all night," Biosa Obama, Obama's 39-year-old sister-in-law told Reuters, dancing on the spot. "I don't know what to say. This is just too amazing."
Nearby, a villager walked past wearing a huge top hat made of newspaper clippings of Obama's picture.
Since 2004, when Obama was running for the Senate in Illinois, the Harvard-trained lawyer and civil rights activist has enjoyed rock star status in the east African nation.
Born in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, Obama is idolised by many the way the Irish saw U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s: as one of their own who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
Babies have been named after him, drinkers knock back "Senator" beers in his honour, pop stars sing his praises and "Obama: The Musical" opened in the capital Nairobi on Sunday.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared Thursday a national holiday to let Kenyans celebrate Obama's success.
"We the Kenyan people are immensely proud of your Kenyan roots. Your victory is not only an inspiration to millions of people all over the world, but it has special resonance with us here in Kenya," Kibaki said in a statement.
Many Africans fervently hope his victory will mean more U.S. support for local development and an improvement in living conditions for the majority on the world's poorest continent.
But analysts have cautioned that Obama will be able to do little to bring tangible benefits to Africa, and that he does not have a strong track record of interest in the continent.
For now, relatives in Kenya are still trying to take it all in -- and planning for his first visit on Air Force One.
"It's breaking news, he's won," said his half-brother Sadiq Obama. "As you can see, everyone is happy - I'm ecstatic."
There's an excellent summary of votes here. Which does not bode well for white males over 65 if Mccain is so bad, I'll say that. His overwhelming win with the Christians puts me off him certainly, but then Obama thrashed him in the young people and I'm not sure if that's a good thing either.
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