I’m so confused at how he was so close with Wright, then denied any friendship with him, saying “he’s just my pastor.” If he’d said “I was close with him, but I can’t agree with his ideologies” much earlier, I wouldn’t be so suspicious. People say Wright hasn’t said such terrible things. He’s said some pretty bad ones himself, but look at who he associates with. He gave a lifetime achievement award (based on honesty and integrity) to Farrakhan, who said that Whites aren’t fully evolved, and has associated himself with the man who said “The henhouse of America is filled with foul white birds waiting to be slaughtered.”

Sounds fantastic to me (Italian/Greek/Irish/Welsh/Austrian)

Also, what about him handling being a POW was disgraceful? The man was offered the chance to come back when he was first imprisoned, but turned it down when they wouldn’t extend freedom to the other soldiers. He had all of his teeth knocked out in the camp, and was repeatedly tortured. How do you doubt that?

I’m sorry, I disagree with many of Obama’s policies, and I hate how he’s handled the Wright situation (oh God, don’t get me started on Wright himself)… but really? Nitpicking at John McCain’s POW status and former marriage? What is wrong with you?

sounds pretty apathetic to me.

I am very pleased Obama secured the nomination. I look forward to debates between the two candidates and can only hope people will look at each of them objectively.

In some defense for the man I voted for:

It is true, Obama’s speeches lack in the specifics of his policy and legislation ideas. They wouldn’t be nearly as effective if he had to spell every bit out. However, if you were to TAKE THE TIME TO RESEARCH, you could find out specifically what his plans are on his website. You would also find that he has much more detail than McCain does or Hillary did. Additionally, after the embarrassing speeches of our former leader, wouldn’t eloquence be a big positive in improving our reputation globally?

I am also thrilled, that Obama immediately called for the Democratic Party to put an end to accepting funds from lobbyists and special interest groups. McCain made a similar effort for just his campaign and due to it he’s lost a lot of support. I do not agree with McCain’s views, but I am impressed at his attempts at cleaning up his act (even if they’re for backwards reasons). I believe this has been Obama’s biggest strength already. He has cleaned up the election process by playing nice. Those who attack him have come off looking worse than the negative image they attempted to project. Perhaps the whole idea of politics is changing as our society becomes more transparent and information more available.

Doubtful, but I do have HOPE.

Some of the most venomous speech I have heard has come against our current President Bush. I hope you would equally speak against the hatred against Bush.

I am not a fan of any of the major candidates. I think they all have major flaws, with Obama’s being slightly worse in my opinion.

I’m just about as liberal as they come, and I’m quite fond of Obama, but I don’t HATE McCain. I think McCain is all wrong on the war and I think he keeps poor company at times, but he’s not an evil person nor is he worthy of spite.

Can’t you player-haters respect your ideological opponents without despising them?

Obama is likely to best McCain in any debate.

The assumption that a democratic presidency mandates “tax-and-spend” policies is outdated and undermines the political process as a whole. Sure, Bush gave “us” (by which I mean a certain 10%) nifty little tax cuts but what have we gotten out of it, really? We’re spending out the ass for Iraq which has in turn (directly or indirectly) led oil to skyrocket and the dollar to fall. Great, we’re not paying as much in taxes but now I’m paying three times as much for gas, get absolutely no assistance in paying for school (which makes getting my degree that much harder), and haven’t seen a doctor in nearly three years because I can’t afford the medicine.

The current model has failed us. When Bush ran on a conservative platform it was easy for him to win based off of ideology, everything was rainbows and puppy dogs in the world (comparatively). Look around, the world has gone to shit, complete and utter shit.

Bush has squandered not only his own legacy, but the American legacy as well. Obama is the only person who can bring about the sea change we need to cope with this drastically altered world. I don’t dislike McCain, but he is not the President we need right now.

Just wait until he gets in a live debate with McCain. He’ll look like the empty suit he is.

I have no doubt that Obama will get elected in November. There’s been a sizable migration out of the Republican party in the past couple of years. Rush tried to cover the numbers with his BS “operation chaos,” when the numbers came in about how many former Republicans were registering as Dems. But I suppose time will tell.

p.s. — when Obama misspeaks once, saying he’s been to 57 instead of 47 states, you jump all over him. When Bush misspeaks on a semi-daily basis — so many that it would be pointless to list them here — it just gets glossed over. How about McCain? He doesn’t know the difference between Sunni and Shiite, and has proven it half a dozen times. How are we supposed to believe he’s capable of making the right choice in an area where he can’t tell the two major factions apart.

Get him on his own and he doesn’t even know how many states there are. If elected, he will make Bush look like a genius.

As a Canadian, from what I’ve seen so far Obama is FAR easier to have respect for (relative to Bush).

I say, the most qualified should get the job. I don’t tihnk Obama is that one.

Don’t even talk about Rodney King, because apparently you know nothing about it. At all. The violence after that was mindless and stupid, and I remember being evacuated from my home for fear of ignorant, angry people burning it down based on the color of my skin. The anger at a president being assassinated is not the same as that against police officers to (too severely, maybe) beat a convicted felon who was involved in a high-speed chase moments before, and who they suspected to be on PCP. Have you ever encountered or seen someone on PCP? You can shoot them in the face, and they’ll keep coming, and they will kill you without a second thought.

Mindless anger and violence is not the same as legitimate response to presidential assassination. I hope no one gets killed after this, and considering the remarks I’ve heard, it’s not Obama I’m worried about. People where I live seem to believe that if you kill a Republican president, the Democrats have a shot. I doubt he’ll be in any more danger, and the fact that race seems to be all you see just makes me sick.

Mostly, I hate the way he’s completely sold out his identity to conform to people thinking he’s “another Black American”, because pandering to skin color is ridiculous. Unfortunately, denying half of his heritage and talking about racism that he never experienced (unlike Ms. Rice, interestingly enough)got him votes from too-proud people. I don’t say they’re too proud because they’re voting for a Black man, which Obama isn’t, I say it because they know NOTHING of what he stands for, but support him because they feel race is more important than anything else.

Screw this, I’m moving.

Mass exodus of Whites from America to Canada or Australia or New Zealand………..

But here we are, and Mr. Obama is oh so close to a most monumental period in American history. I am not Black but like others have been swept up by the message of hope he brings. What America needs is a leader that will bring respect back to the U.S. The current administration has made an absolute mess, and the world loves to hate America. But the world is also in love with Barrack Obama, they see what I see and what so many other Americans see, a fresh face that will unite the world.

What a story I can tell my future off spring, that I voted for the very first Black president of the United States.

Obama is as corrupt as any white or female governor. I feel his candidacy will prove to be very divisive, even though he’s more of an “Oreo cookie” than the average black person in the USA. Only the wealthy and privileged upper crusts become president in your country.

I’m certain they love the country and want to serve it but to say any of them are above and beyond the nitty gritty that is politics would be to lie to yourself.

I do hope the Democrats win come November. McCain is just plain crazy. But even if McCain wins he cannot do worse than Bush Jr.

Republicans, democrats, and the clown head corporate media which brainwashes you…

Where is the outrage over a lack of other choices?

You stupid pieces of shit continue to buy into the system which ruins you..

Which you fund with your taxes and shrug off with “death and taxes” remarks…

Do you hate the war [in Iraq and perhaps Iran next]? Your words mean nothing if your taxes continue to fund it..
Do you hate the war on drugs? Your words mean nothing if your taxes continue to fund it..
Do you hate X,Y,Z injustice? Are you reading this you fat fucking swine bellowing into YouTube about Clinton, Obama, and McCain? You useless piece of shit who funds the shit you claim to hate, YOU are the PROBLEM, and these clowns in either party ARE NOT the solution, no matter how much they flap their “jasmine scented anus” at you about change.

You’ll vote for the clown head corporation’s choices anyway, mark this offtopic or troll, flame me or ignore this, it’s all the same, one big record playing over and over with generations continuing the same sad song, crack another joke from The Simpsons or some other clown head media box remark, you’re enslaved.

Vote Wesley Snipes and Ron Paul for President and Vice President to send a message – they won’t win but your voice will be heard, this is a NONE OF THE ABOVE vote to say fuck you and your war machine taxes, we aren’t going to take your shit anymore!

Only a minority march in protests in the land of the free, because they’re too scared, apathetic, fat, and lazy, fingering their phones and gadgets like moist vaginas and hot, hard cocks. They don’t care, they’ll just blog about it and satisfy themselves for another moment, until something like Katrina happens from coast to coast and the American zit is picked and it will ooze out the truth, revealing to the world the very nature we so guard by slathering Celebrity worship and other empty distractions on for a disguise.

Fuck you, I’ll laugh and chow down on popcorn as your merry-go-round starts up.

“All governments are liars and murderers.” – Bill Hicks

Obama is the real deal. McCain is ghostwritten. I am very happy we have a choice.

Here’s hoping that he doesn’t get shot.

However, I worry because there is still some very extreme racism in the society, which makes for severe safety & security issues in the case of an African American president. ANY president is an assassination target.

Considering the violence set off by the Rodney King incident, I shudder to think of what would happen in the event that an African American president is assassinated.

I wish conditions were better. If Obama gets in office, I hope he can help better conditions– but he will be in greater danger than any white president, male or female.

Our country needs peace and stability. We still have far to go.

The comments here range from hateful to hopeful. People say he’s a liar: what has he lied about? You say he’s an empty suit: how about 1st African-American to become president of the Harvard Law Review. Socialist? He wants to offer (not force) Americans the same health care he gets. Idiot?! Read a frickin book — the man’s a brilliant writer!

He’s the only candidate who can bring populist change to the white house. He’s financed almost entirely by small contributions from private citizens, and that means that when he’s elected no one will own him. He will be free to put the American people first — and the corporations will have to get in line.

I stopped watching the news years ago because I found it to be only corrupting my judgment rather than providing me news. They try and talking about something so long that it becomes part of your normal thought process and you think it is the right thing. It is the same way people like Obama and McCain make it though the nominations. This is the same thing that has happened with the ridiculous global warming thing.

If you are told something enough you will start to believe it for true. That is what the news does to people today.

I voted for Romney in Florida but McCain won. I knew for a fact Huckabee would not have a chance in the election from what I have been reading online.

I would like to see Ron Paul as VP for McCain. He may be extreme when he talks and debates but he does it with passion and you can tell unlike Obama which looks like he does it for the vote. Ron Paul also explains what he wants to do and what our problems are unlike Obama.

Well, I’m happy to admit that it finally looks like he might have a shot. We are in for interesting times indeed, assuming the voting machines aren’t mucked with.

If America could benefit from a democracy that is “more about the people”, and it is simultaneously “peopled” by “far far right wingers”, who have again and again rejected socialistic tendencies in their politicians (as it is anathema to the principles of our individualistic liberal democracy), then it follows that we have the right to choose our own destiny, and not allow the rest of the so-called “civilized world” to choose our path for us.

Socialists love to talk about “the people”, but they sneer at the actual people who occupy this land.

It is sad to see so many people basing their opinions on something other than a thoughtful review of the candidates’ qualifications and stated positions.

Go Obama!

Dear God in heaven, we know that John McCain has flaws galore, but please do not allow Americans to suffer through Michelle Obama bringing her Jeremiah-Wright-in-drag act into the White House. That is one sick babe! Of course, putting up with her hatred would be a walk in the park by comparison with putting up with her hubby’s destruction of the federal courts and his ultra-pro-abortion position. (He never met a preborn baby that he wouldn’t approve of killing. He even approved of killing, outside the womb, babies who unexpectedly survive late-term abortions.)

PS: B. Hussein Obama is not “black,” any more than John McCain is “white.” Such labels are idiotic, especially when applied to a guy who has two parents with no ancestors who were U.S. slaves and one parent with zero background in Africa.

Obama shows nothing but naivete in all those areas. He’s a horrible candidate that has run his campaign on empty promises of “hope” and “change”, specifying nothing, other than the same old tired Democrat mantra of redistributing wealth. If he makes it into office, he’ll see a mandate to initiate change, just for the sake of change, whether anyone in the country supports it, least of all those who voted for him.

If that weren’t enough to disqualify him for the job, he determines his stand on everything — even whether to stay in his 20-year church home — by sticking his finger in the air. If he’s the best the Democrats can offer as a candidate, I’d say that party is in big trouble.

I find it interesting that no mention has been made of how the primary race has been drawn out to this point, at least partly due to the efforts of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, where Republicans were urged to vote for Hillary just to keep her in the running so that Obama would lose some of the sheen that the media tried to put on him early on. The Clintons did what they do so well, and Barack has been properly bloodied, ready for the general election. The trouble is that McCain will likely go after him with kid gloves (a gentleman’s race) and will either lose or narrowly defeat him.

All that said, I almost hope that Obama wins in November, because when the office is going to either him or McCain, our country is going to see a very tough four years following. McCain is running on a platform that seems to be designed to cater to liberals and moderates and to piss off the Republican base. He talks more like a Democrat running against Bush than a Republican running against Obama. Because of that, I don’t see a McCain presidency being any less harmful to the economy than an Obama presidency.

And with the continued downward economic slide that we’re bound to see, I’d much rather have a socialist liberal like Obama at the helm to take the blame for it. I’ve heard several commentators comparing our present time to the years leading up to the Jimmy Carter presidency, and the malaise he ushered in. Most of you reading this thread probably have only read about Carter, but I lived through those times and can tell you that if it’s true, we’re in for it, and it won’t be very pleasant. And if you remember your history lessons, you’ll know that Carter’s Malaise led to the election of Ronald Reagan in a landslide. A repeat of that, I think is our only hope.

For the next four years though, hang on to your butts, because it’s gonna be a rough ride.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be pulling the lever for Obama in November.

But I maintain that he isn’t any more black than he is white. Leaps and bounds have been made in this country in regards to racial equality yet it’s still the crutch we use to explain or excuse his nomination. What about merit? What about ability? The distinction of skin color is only a marketing ploy to play on stereotypes, fears, assumptions, and emotions that people associate with race and self-identity.

I dare say I HOPE he’s as great as he promises to be.

However, I would prefer to be living on Cameroi, where the President is chosen by lot and replaced once a week, almost as a volunteer position. But, then, the Cameroi are more advanced than we are. (ref:Polity and Custom of the Cameroi, R.A. Lafferty, 1966)

This election was to be a shoe-in for the Democratic party, but I think they’ve just handed it to McCain. Obama has a fervent base of worshippers, but so many people I know who were straight-ticket Democratic voters in the past express mild distrust of Obama to me, they think he is skilled at telling people what they want to hear, and they will probably stay home on voting day (not cross lines and vote McCain).

By doing a 180 degree denunciation of his preacher, he tried to have his cake and eat it too. Those who already loved him bought it hook, line and sinker, but the rest understood that he would do and say anything to secure the big prize. Either his views are truly in line with Jeremiah Wright, in which case he is unfit for the office of Drain Commissioner let alone President, or his convictions are so fluid that he truly did happen to “see the light” about Wright after hitting the campaign trail. Either way, not the sort of integrity this country needs in a President.