Colin Powell backs Barack Obama!

[Nebbiolo]

Interesting to see that Colin Powell has now officially backed Barack Obama for next President of the United States (article below). This must be a huge blow for McCain and the Republican party. It must seem like a kick in the teeth to be honest.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Colin Powell backs Barack Obama

US President George W Bush's first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has endorsed Democratic election candidate Barack Obama for the White House.
He backed his fellow African-American over John McCain, the Republican Party's choice to succeed Mr Bush in the 4 November election.
He told NBC Mr Obama had the "ability to inspire" and was "inclusive".
"All Americans... not just African-Americans" would be proud of an Obama win, he argued.
This endorsement carries weight, says the BBC's Rachel Harvey reports from Washington.
This is in part because, as a former chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state, Colin Powell's backing says to undecided American voters "I trust this man as the Commander in Chief and so you should too", our correspondent adds.
Mr Powell's support will be seen as a significant boost to the Obama campaign a little over two weeks before voting day.
This is not a decision Colin Powell has taken lightly, our correspondent adds.
He has spoken to both Mr McCain and Mr Obama regularly and watched carefully and he has concluded, he says, that Barack Obama has the style and substance to lead America in the future.
But it is perhaps the sharp criticism of the recent conduct of John McCain's campaign, for being too negative and too narrow, that will do most damage to the Republican candidate, our correspondent adds.
That approach, Mr Powell said, is not what the American people are looking for.

 

[TX Bill]

Really too bad.

Also makes me question Colin Powell's judgement to be honest.

I got a real laugh about him referring to McCain's campaign as "negative."

Apparently the Obama folks have been running a positive campaign then?

We don't have enough space on the GOT hard drive for me to post all the crap his left wing zealots have been up to so I'll save the space.

 

[Bundy]

I think he's been talking to Oprah. Just a funny feeling that his endorsement may be more along tribal lines than party lines.

 

[toffeestillidie]

Really too bad.

Also makes me question Colin Powell's judgement to be honest.

I got a real laugh about him referring to McCain's campaign as "negative."

Apparently the Obama folks have been running a positive campaign then?

We don't have enough space on the GOT hard drive for me to post all the crap his left wing zealots have been up to so I'll save the space.

doesn't make me question his judgment at all. lets face it, he'd disagreed with the bush administration on very many issues, and he definitely gave the impression that if things had gone his way, he'd have definitely handled the war differently, if he'd proceeded with it at all.

as for the negativity, from an objective standpoint, the mccain campaign has been much more negative than the average campaign. all political campaigns include a component of negativity, but the mccain attack ads began much sooner than is generally common for presidential campaigns.

i understand how you might perceive the obama campaign as more negative, just because you support mccain, but this summer mccain's negativity campaign began much earlier, obama's attack ads didn't start till a couple months ago.

I think he's been talking to Oprah. Just a funny feeling that his endorsement may be more along tribal lines than party lines.

isn't it nice how mccain can have as many white males endorse him as he wants without anyone asking questions like this? was joe lieberman's endorsement of mccain that crosses party lines also racially motivated?

i noticed right off the bat that the article mentioned race. i think the obama campaign has done a good job of making sure they don't play the race card too heavily, as i think obama has struck a good balance between celebrating heritage and exploiting race. i'd appreciate it if the media gave him that same respect, by not trying to make his race an issue.

also, it should be noted that Obama is half black, he is an individual of mixed race, not just an african american. It bothers me when people say that he might be the first black president, as he is equally white as he is black

 

[Bundy]

Obama doesn't play the race card too heavily cause he realises he can't win with only the black vote. Others have tried it in the past but it didnt work. He's black enough that they will vote for him but main stream enough for non-black to vote for him as well. By the way i'm not racist i like black people! I just think Obama is the anti-christ.

 

[TX Bill]

doesn't make me question his judgment at all. lets face it, he'd disagreed with the bush administration on very many issues, and he definitely gave the impression that if things had gone his way, he'd have definitely handled the war differently, if he'd proceeded with it at all.

as for the negativity, from an objective standpoint, the mccain campaign has been much more negative than the average campaign. all political campaigns include a component of negativity, but the mccain attack ads began much sooner than is generally common for presidential campaigns.

i understand how you might perceive the obama campaign as more negative, just because you support mccain, but this summer mccain's negativity campaign began much earlier, obama's attack ads didn't start till a couple months ago.



isn't it nice how mccain can have as many white males endorse him as he wants without anyone asking questions like this? was joe lieberman's endorsement of mccain that crosses party lines also racially motivated?

i noticed right off the bat that the article mentioned race. i think the obama campaign has done a good job of making sure they don't play the race card too heavily, as i think obama has struck a good balance between celebrating heritage and exploiting race. i'd appreciate it if the media gave him that same respect, by not trying to make his race an issue.

also, it should be noted that Obama is half black, he is an individual of mixed race, not just an african american. It bothers me when people say that he might be the first black president, as he is equally white as he is black

Really? You don't by chance support Obama this election do you?

You really do need to peruse the left wing sites a bit more and you'll see the negativity started quite awhile back. Hillary was their first target and once they got past her, they moved on to McCain.

But make no mistake, Obama's campaign has been every bit as negative as McCain's.

Oh, and I'm sure I won't need to remind you how they kicked it into overdrive once Palin was named as his running mate.

Despicable is too nice a word to describe the focus they had on her family. She's fair game. Family isn't.

Make no mistake, when it comes to vitrol and personal attacks, the left wingers in this country take the cake every election. Fact.

 

[TX Bill]

doesn't make me question his judgment at all. lets face it, he'd disagreed with the bush administration on very many issues, and he definitely gave the impression that if things had gone his way, he'd have definitely handled the war differently, if he'd proceeded with it at all.

as for the negativity, from an objective standpoint, the mccain campaign has been much more negative than the average campaign. all political campaigns include a component of negativity, but the mccain attack ads began much sooner than is generally common for presidential campaigns.

i understand how you might perceive the obama campaign as more negative, just because you support mccain, but this summer mccain's negativity campaign began much earlier, obama's attack ads didn't start till a couple months ago.



isn't it nice how mccain can have as many white males endorse him as he wants without anyone asking questions like this? was joe lieberman's endorsement of mccain that crosses party lines also racially motivated?

i noticed right off the bat that the article mentioned race. i think the obama campaign has done a good job of making sure they don't play the race card too heavily, as i think obama has struck a good balance between celebrating heritage and exploiting race. i'd appreciate it if the media gave him that same respect, by not trying to make his race an issue.

also, it should be noted that Obama is half black, he is an individual of mixed race, not just an african american. It bothers me when people say that he might be the first black president, as he is equally white as he is black

You're kidding right?

 

[toffeestillidie]

Obama doesn't play the race card too heavily cause he realises he can't win with only the black vote. Others have tried it in the past but it didnt work. He's black enough that they will vote for him but main stream enough for non-black to vote for him as well. By the way i'm not racist i like black people! I just think Obama is the anti-christ.

haha yea i wasn't trying to imply that you're racist. and i'm curious as to why you think he is the anti-christ, i'm sure you're kidding here but i have had discussions about that with other people, some of whom seriously believed that. they sited things like saying that the bible mentions that the antichrist is a muslim (which obviously isn't true as islam didn't exist for another 400 years).

it seems like things like the left behind series really twisted around what the anti-christ is, at the word anti-christ appears nowhere in the book of revelation at all (even though i'm not christian i read it the other day just to be sure). while it does refer to anti-christ like figures, nothing described remotely resembles barack obama (unless he has multiple heads that i don't know about.)

 

[toffeestillidie]

Really? You don't by chance support Obama this election do you?

You really do need to peruse the left wing sites a bit more and you'll see the negativity started quite awhile back. Hillary was their first target and once they got past her, they moved on to McCain.

But make no mistake, Obama's campaign has been every bit as negative as McCain's.

Oh, and I'm sure I won't need to remind you how they kicked it into overdrive once Palin was named as his running mate.

Despicable is too nice a word to describe the focus they had on her family. She's fair game. Family isn't.

Make no mistake, when it comes to vitrol and personal attacks, the left wingers in this country take the cake every election. Fact.

bloggers on far left-wing sites aren't representative of what the actual barack obama campaign supports. i was mainly focused with my original post on official campaign ads, the kind with "I"m barack obama/ john mccain and i approved this message" at the end. it is difficult for me to look at this from an objective standpoint as i am an obama supporter, but its a statement of fact that the mccain campaign began using official campaign attack ads much sooner than the historical precedent, and definitely earlier on in the campaign than the obama campaign did.

i don't feel like digging up the article now, but immediately after the scandal with sara palin's daughter's pregnancy, Obama declared that family was off-limits for this campaign, and you can't fault him for the fact that some of his supporters didn't listen to this (though i do believe it is somewhat relevant as she is such a staunch supporter of abstinence only sex-education.)

and its really not like conservatives haven't made their fair share of attacks, implying first that he is dishonest about his faith, and that if he was a muslim, it would for some reason make a difference, which is beyond me. at a mccain rally when a woman said that obama was an "arab", Mccain said that it wasn't true, and that he is a decent family man, though i'm don't quite believe that the two terms are mutually exclusive.

lets face it, negativity in campaigns doesn't follow party lines, and stating "fact" after something you say doesn't automatically make it so. to assume that all left leaning people are these despicable human beings with no boundaries of decency is ridiculous, there are good and bad people who believe different things. the mccain campaign this year has been more negative than campaigns of the past, that can be objectively measured by the amount of attack-focused advertisements that have been run. other democratic campaigns in the past have been much more negative, the issue really has nothing to do with party affiliation, so don't try to make a false association.

 

[toffeestillidie]

You're kidding right?

can you show me a quote of obama using the race card?

 

[atrottel]

As a four-star general and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who has worked closely with three Republican presidents

No additional comment necessary.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The whole thing has been a sham to be honest. McCain started off as someone quite happy to stick to his principles and go against the party line but the longer the election has gone on the more right he's moved. It's probably cost him the election as any hope he had of attracting floating voters vanished when he chose the pitbull as his running mate.

Obama doesn't strike me as anyone with any more moral fortitude as he's veered from far left rhetoric in the party primaries to a slightly more centre ground in the election itself. And as for the amount of money both men, but particularly Obama, have blown during this campaign it is frankly obscene in a time when both are preaching about the need for prudence.

The debates did little to endear me to the process either with both sides hell bent on petty point scoring rather than any time of intellectual debate. For the worlds greatest democracy it's been a very poor showing.

 

[toffeestillidie]

The whole thing has been a sham to be honest. McCain started off as someone quite happy to stick to his principles and go against the party line but the longer the election has gone on the more right he's moved. It's probably cost him the election as any hope he had of attracting floating voters vanished when he chose the pitbull as his running mate.

Obama doesn't strike me as anyone with any more moral fortitude as he's veered from far left rhetoric in the party primaries to a slightly more centre ground in the election itself. And as for the amount of money both men, but particularly Obama, have blown during this campaign it is frankly obscene in a time when both are preaching about the need for prudence.

The debates did little to endear me to the process either with both sides hell bent on petty point scoring rather than any time of intellectual debate. For the worlds greatest democracy it's been a very poor showing.

were you really that dissapointed by the debate? anyone who watches an american political debate expecting some degree of substance is not going to be satisfied.

 

[atrottel]

...rather than any time of intellectual debate...

You can't really knock the USA for their standard of political debate. About the only times I can think of that an electorate was ever interested in "intellectual debate" were in the early days of the French and the Russian revolutions and we all know how they turned out.

Mostly people vote on the prejudice and lowest common denominator that is appealed to most successfully. "X will raise taxes", "Y will let the foreigners take over", "Z will destroy the health service", "do you want to go to sleep to the light of a Soviet moon?", etc. etc.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Oh no, we're no better in Britain. PMQ's have become a punch and judy show with both sides trying to score soundbite points.

It all seems so arse about face. I wrote a blog here about people admitting they were wrong and how much more trustworthy people that do this generally are, and also how so few Brits regard politicians as trustworthy. But alas in this age of soundbite politics it seems impossible for any politician to ever admit to mistakes. Not to mention how important candid analysis of performance is in improving things.

This is one of the main reasons why I believe government should provide as little as humanly possible in our lives. You don't see the bosses of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury etc. always in the press doing this garbage, they generally let their products do the talking for them and you can choose whatever suits you best.

The sad thing is that Americans seem genuinely interested in the political process. Voter turnout in America seems far higher than in Britain where the electorate are tired of the bullshit. Does the dog wag the tail or the tail the dog in America?