McCain, Obama neck-and-neck in N.H.

Why would America REWARD complete Republican failure ?

We wont.

Sarah Palin is only the VP candidate and she is no less qualified than Obama. The whole point of McCain picking Palin to be his running mate is to highlight Obama's lack of experience. As soon as Palin was selected, everybody started to compare her with Obama. Why? Because they both lack experience. Neither of them have a track record for reference. To choose the lesser of two evils, it only makes sense to vote for McCain. After all, Palin is only a VP candidate.

If only 16% blame the dems and 34% blame the reps for this financial mess we are in then this countries voters don't have a clew of what the hell is going here.
I'd sy the NY Times and other liberal publications just like them must be happy diregardless of their own financial messes whih find most of them running well into the red and have to resort to putting their holdings on the market in an effort to get back into the black. I guess the ultimate solution is for the tax payers to go down the financial drain with them. God Bless the American People and may all polititians whoo created this mess (Mostly democrtas) burn in HELL!

The more folks find out about Socialist Barack Hussein Obama...the more McCain will gain. The Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for nominating someone so inexperienced yet so determined to move America towards Socialism. McCain will not only win he will win bigger than anyone expected.
As for the Financial Crisis...blame the Democrats for wanting to give the poor and other unqualified folks a chance to buy property. That doesn't work my friends. Fanny and Freddie got caught holding the bag. Blame the Democrats for their "Social Justice". No money, no good job, no good credit report - then NO HOUSE. It really is that simply. Minimum 10% down, no exceptions. It's the Democrats that caused this mess. Do the research.

MK--Palin has been proved over and over as a liar, and Obama certainly is not. (Bridge to nowhere, anyone?) Lobbyist payrolls? dirty money from disgraced state politicians? cronyism? ties to extreme-christianist, anti-semitic separatist organizations?

As to experience, it's ludicrous to compare Palin's less-than-2-years as Gov of a state with fewer people than the Boston Metro area to Obama's many years as a State Senator as well as a Federal Senator. Not to mention his education etc. Give me the smart, honest one, please!

Quote form Couric interview of Palin, with Palin opinion on the bailout:

transcript...

PALIN: That's why I say, I like every American I'm speaking with we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bailout.

But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Helping the — Oh, it's got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americas.

And trade we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. ALL those things under the umbrella of job creation.

This bailout is a part of that.

--end quote--

Health care reform?? WHAT?!? And then she goes all numb-nuts on us with, uh, a word salad about trade and jobs and tax cuts...

Okay, I am completely dumbstruck. This is so #$@* idiotic that I am more frightened than ever of what is happening in the world. Can ANYONE now become President or VP? Maybe we oughtta just turn the whole campaign season over to the networks and we can chose a leader via a reality TV series format. The audience can vote by phone until we have a finalist.

And McCain. McCain doesn't even use a computer? Ow. It hurts all over.

God help us.

Why would America REWARD complete Republican failure ?

We wont.

the republicans are reponsible for every problem we are facing in this country right now, from teh economy to health care to Iraq to budget deficits to you name it.

I guess the implication the writer is going for is that NH is a Republican state and McCain should win? New Hampshire has gone democrat in three of the last four presidential elections. I'm encouraged that McCain is this close.

I just love the experience argument, MK. For your erudition, here is a list of presidents who had as much experience as Obama - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan. If "experience" means being the nominal head of a party that's driven the country into sh*t, then no thanks. Comparing Palin and Obama is beyond laughable. President of Harvard Law Review vs. Hockey Mom. Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago vs. Mayor of an economically depleted town of 5k. Governor of a demographically insignificant state vs. Senator from a large state. He has more national, diplomatic, economic, and domestic experience in his four years in Washington than Palin will ever have. Plus, she can see Russia from her house!

And she's not "only the VP," she would also be President of the Senate and the running mate with the least healthy and oldest candidate in American presidential history. So, yes, her ability does matter. Obama clearly has more experience, more charisma, a more open mind, better ideas, and more empathy for regular shmoes like us. Do you honestly think McCain or Palin care about YOU? What have the Republicans done for YOU? How have they made your life better? How have they improved our standing around the world, increased job opportunities in America, addressed rampant economic inequality, embraced the ideology upon which this nation was founded, or done anything to make us better?

And Rick Bennett, as for your comment, you should a.) get hooked on phonics and b.) make a coherent argument without sounding like a high school freshman who had five shots of Southern Comfort at his first party. Good luck with that. Get back to us when you learn how to write a full sentence, okay? In the meantime, keep making the Dems look great by sounding like a drunk ignoramus. Also, is diregardless a word?

I really don't care what people on NH think. i campaigned for Obama during the primary in NH and met the meanest, rudest people I've ever met in my life.

All people did was gripe about getting so many phone calls and visits at their door. Hey, you're the ones that insist on being "first in the nation". If you don't like all the attention, pass a law that says you'll always vote last. Then all that pesky attention will go away.

What was truly amazing was that people weren't smart enough to get rid of the calls. We were getting lists of "undecided" voters only. Three days before the election and these people were still "undecided." What does that tell you?

it would have been easy enough to lie (tell the Hillary people you're for Obama, tell the Obama people you're for hillary.) that would make the calls stop. but NH people are either too stupid to figure this out, or they secretly like the attention they complain about.

i would love to see other states go for Obama so that NH doesn't matter. A crankier place I've never been to!

Sarah Palin has zero national experience and zero international experience. If she isn't ready to hold a press conference; there is no way in hell she's ready to be a cancer-ridden 72 year old heartbeat away from being president of the United States.

... NewHampshirites are going to have to come round after the sheer evidence that McCain is without the slightest substance, he lies, he cheats, he tries all sorts of ways to avoid responsibility.... His campaign manager, Rick Davis has been in the Freddie Mac pocket for 3 years, until last month (that's August). That tidbit came out on the 24th of this month. No wonder McCain chose a spectacular to deviate the heat.

Also, his Mooselini Veep choice is no longer really an asset, maybe with old fat guys who start getting twichy on the south lawn watching her, she is a little more appealing than Dickie boy, but the moment she opens her mouth you realize she is just another GOP lunatic fringe pumpkin.

Come on New Hampshire, Obama is not going to shackle you, he is not a "socialist", he is, by most political very middle of the road, he believes strongly in shoring up the middle classes, unlike the GOP which has hitched its wagon to the multi-billionaires. Hey, Bush is now trying to give "the haves and have mores" (that's his own quote!) a farewell present. Are YOU IN NEW HAMPSHIRE going to put up with it? Live frree or die?

I'll send the gladiolas if you go for MacNutcase.

Here is the beginning of the report in the NYT (I know, the moment a newspaper reports something the fascist chihuahuas don't like, they call it socialist or something like that.... pull your heads up to the sun, folks).

"WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years."

Mass. Rep Barney Frank led the charge, insisting that financial institutions make risky loans to unqualified lendees (i.e., poor people). Fannie Mae proudly admitted that they had made more loans to the poor than any other financial institution...a noble accomplishment that has had predictable results. Had anyone been paying attention, that is.

The fact of the matter is that John McCain and John Sununu co-sponsered a bill in 2005 that would have given more oversight to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That bill was killed by the Democrats, and that also is a fact. Why? Because they are socialists who believe in taking the money of those who pay taxes and putting it in the pockets of those who do not.

No, the voters do not have a clue. Hopefully now they do.

Sorry mk and Rick Bennett, but you guys are out to lunch. Obama's done more for this country than McCain---it was his initiative and stand that got a timeline for US troop withdrawal from Iraq and greater emphasis on Afghanistan. McCain wanted no timeline and declared mission accomplished prematurely in Afghanistan.

Palin as experienced as Obama? In what alternative universe are you living?

It's true both parties must share the blame for the financial mess, but the Republicans have had the White House, and therefore much more power, for the last 8 years. They have also pressed, as has McCain, the very deregulations and lack of oversight of the financial industry that got us into the crisis we're facing, and McCain's own campaign manager was thick in the middle of it.

It's time for an adult in the White House---vote Obama

Good for you, stan! You are absolutely right! The Dems have only had a very slight majority in Congress for the past 2 years! This crisis did not suddenly happen in the last 2 years! The Repubs have ruined this country for at least 6 years! All the deregulations.......and John McC called himself a deregulator, have brought our economy to its knees! All of those "lobbyist cronies" of McCain are deep in the middle of this mess! Wake up, mk & Rick Bennett, you are blindly and stupidly following your lying, cheating (remember his 1st wife??) leader, John McCain.

All the comments about McCain's past accomplishments or failures don't seem to matter anymore. This is not the John McCain we once knew. With the events of the past few weeks and his reactions to them, it is hard for me not to believe the man is losing his mind. The future is what counts and McCain/Palin scares me. I'm going with the brilliant young man from Illinois.

Perhaps Obama will talk about his own words??

From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father : 'I found a solace in
nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something
about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary
to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white
men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa ,( he lies here he has no African root he is Arab! ) that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, Du Bois and Mandela.'

This is the change Obama plans!

who keeps telling you guys that the law required lenders to lend to low income people? I have not seen this data. It looks like the lenders were NOT forced or required to lend money to unqualified buyers by the change in laws. I think they were just allowed to. The lenders did it for the money. Companies like countrywide were created almost overnight. Can someone clarify with the exact language of the lending law/rule being referenced? thx

When people say that Sarah Palin is as qualified as Obama, they aren't thinking clearly. Obama may not have been on the national state for years and years, but Sarah hasn't been on it at all. Sixty percent of the country thought Obama proved himself to be ready to be president last night as he spoke with knowledge, judgment and depth on issues of both domestic and foreign importance to the United States. Sarah Palin has not been able to speak knowledgeably in even a single, complete interview--of which there have only been three very gentle ones. She doesn't know what she's doing and she tries to cover by just saying a lot of memorized talking points, but she isn't persuading people at all. Seventy percent of the country say that McCain chose her for political reasons even though she wasn't the best prepared choice for the country. She may share your religious views, but are you willing to destroy your country in order to force others to do as you say? Statistically, as a four time melanoma cancer survivor, McCain has a two out of three chance of dying before the end of his first term. Be a patriot. Think about your country-------First.

Food for thought: Sarah Palin has been governor of Alaska for twenty months. Obama was a state senator, before he was a U.S. senator, for eight years. Sarah's state has 100,000 less people than Obama's state senate district was----and her state is much less complex and varied than Obama's district was. Anyone who has listened to both last night's debate and Sarah Palin's interviews knows that Sarah does not have any kind of command of the issues. Obama does and it was very obvious last night. Compare his knowledge of foreign and domestic issues as expressed in the first debate with Sarah Palin's stated, and now repeated in all three of her interviews, that she has foreign policy experience because Russia can be seen from an Alaskan island on a clear day. We could lose our country. Think of our country-----First.

I still like McCain for president .