Analysis: Long campaign good for Obama

I have all the information I need to vote on Nov. 4 ... going in, I liked and admired McCain ... then he picked Palin ... then he went ugly ... then he went all over the board and lost his moorings.

I'm voting Obama and I feel good about it.

McCain lost my support when he went negative. McCain became what Bush and Rove were in 2004. Whats surprising is that McCain is now engaged in the same tactics after he himself was a victim of by his own party.

Obama has been so Sincere, and for the American Middle-Class people from Day 1.

Don't believe me ? Ok. How many cars do you have ? Honda, Audi, BMW ? The average american household has atleast 2 cars, and atleast 1 of them if Foreign made. Whereas the Obama household has 1, just one, hybrid American made Ford.

That's gotta tell you something.

Contrast this with SugarMama Cindi's husband and "war hero" McCain, who has 13 foreign cars and does not even know how many houses he has. Talk about being out of touch with the American people !

OBAMA 08 !!!!

20 months long and not one question to Obama from the MSM about his connection to William Ayers, Tony Rezko, Rev. Wright. It took a constant barage from talk radio and Mcain/Palin to bring it to light and it turns out he admitted the relationships are more than he said early on (he lied) I think it's a little odd that all these people hate America. You can't tell me after 20 years of listneing to Rev. Wright he didn' t agree with him. Right........ keep turning a blind eye.

It was more than two and a half years ago that I became aware of what Barak Obama stood for. He came to speak locally and drew quite a crowd. I was inspired by his spoken words, so then went online to check out his website. On it, Senator Obama stated in concise, plain english, what his positions were on the very issues that interested me most. At that moment, I became an early and vocal supporter. Quite unusual for me, because I had long before given up on politicians in general, and the two-party system in particular.

Since that time, the Illinois senator has come from relative obscurity on the national scene, to the much hearlded nominee for president. The long campaign has served him well, because the more America sees of him, the greater the appreciation for the man's intelligence, open-mindedness, and leadership skills.

I am proud that America is responding in such a positive way. Barak Obama will be the first president addressing the realities of our still new century. I believe his calm intelligence will inspire our nation to do its best. Together, we can turn the disastar of the last eight years into triumph for the coming decades.

And it has taken a longer campaign than usual for us to see the man. The results will be worth the time spent.

- Arye Michael Bender -

I was really looking at Mike Huckabee. Then, when he dropped out and I found out it was McCain I waited to see which candidate would be best fit for me. Then, as I learned more about Barack Obama it was evident that he was the best person to lead our country into the direction it surely needs to get back in.

I'm voting for Obama and Biden. McCain is hopeless: I always wondered if McCain wasn't too old, possibly a bit clueless, and certainly too-Bush Republican, but I also thought that he possessed a sense of history, the wisdom that should come with age, a military man's sense of responsibility, and even a degree of class -- but then he totally lost his mind and picked Palin. What in the hell was he thinking? His choice of Palin outrages me! She's absolutely slimey with her negative attacks on Obama and clearly McCain has no control over her. No Way, No How, No McCain. I'm Obama/Biden 100%!

I think this is a good point. And also, Obama's incredibly tight race in the primaries with HRC really wound up being to his benefit. Her criticisms seemed at times to be coming from a Republican, rather than a fellow Democrat, and I think they hardened him up and got his rebuttal ready for the attacks going on now. But it wouldn't have been to his benefit if he weren't a good learner. I think the way he has steadied and matured over the last 20 months is good news for all of us. When we elect him as president, I believe he will be able to handle the job and meet its challenges.

The problem with Senator John McCain is that he is in a no-win situation.

1. McCain has an abusive temper and Governor Sarah Palin abuses power. These factors alone will cost them votes.
2. McCain supports a war at a price tag of over $12 Billion per month. How will his economic plan balance?
3. The anticipated political map puts Obama ahead in terms of Electoral votes by a factor of 10.
4. Too many examples during the campaign where McCain demonstrated a lack of judgment and decision-process. This includes endorsing an ad noted as one of the most deceptive in political history as reported by USA Today.
5. McCain is STILL performing a character attacks on Obama. When will this stop? He is not winning over the independent vote as demonstrated in key states like Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and unbelievably in Colorado.
6. He is out-spent in advertising buy a factor of 8-to-1 in some states likes North Carolina. And Obama ads are not about character attacks ... rather about change and policy that voters need to hear.

We are grateful to McCain for his service to this country, but that alone does not guarantee a seat in the White House. I doubt there is anything McCain can do in the final presidential debate this evening to change his political situation.

obama has made poor choices of friends/allies. they are well documented. how the US citizenship can ignore this is beyond me. obama is a racist, marxist, socialist. yes and this statement is backed up by his past/current associations of people. i feel he is a domestic enemy to the constitution. if we become obamerica god save us. taxes will increase, the redistribution of wealth will begin. i belive in capitalism i believe we are all responsible for ourselves. he believes in no such things. i can not vote for a person whose polices are socialistic in nature. long live capitalism and being accountable for making your onw way in american society.

"there is an interesting contrast between Obama and [GOP vice-presidential nominee] Sarah Palin. On paper, in terms of experience, they're roughly the same." What planet have you been on? - take a "rough" look at their resumes!!!!!

Bill Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago now; are all of the students in his classroom cavorting with terrorists? Ayers is a non-issue. When he was a member of the Weathermen Obama was 8 years old! Ayers has won many civic awards and honor and now is respected by many decent, respectable people. What he did when he was a young radical college student is OLD HISTORY. Look at the man NOW. As to Rezko, well, he conned a lot of people and he was never a close friend of Obama's and as soon as he was found to be a bad guy, Obama dumped him. Same with Wright. You'll hate America if you vote for McCain.

ok gfales.....and what do you think sarah palin thinks after listening to her own crazy pastor for who knows how long? and what about her husbands connection to the alaska separatist group?
obama is squeaky clean and this is the best dirt rove and the rest of the Republicans can think up? obama wins by at least 5-7%....even after the bradley effect.
obama 08!

OBAMA 08 !!!! Said "Obama has been so Sincere, and for the American Middle-Class people from Day 1." It seams to me that he denighs his acquaintances, his ties to ACORN, his economics advisors are part of the problem and he has promised everybody making under $250K a tax cut eventhough 20% to 40% dont pay taxes. In addition all of the other things that he has promised that will cost $Bs and the is only going to raise taxes on the rich and corporations. If he fullfills all his promises there will not be any "rich" people to tax. Corporations do not pay taxes. The taxes comes out of the money they have to spend on research and expansion and in some cases they have to raise their prices or go out of bussiness. mcause more

OK, so Obama is 'presidential' because he is running for president and has matured? Give me a break. He's a Chicago politician. Take that as you want, but he's got a lot of baggage the press is simply ignoring.

to gfrales: How about having the MSM spend a little time examining the Keating5 scandal and McCain's role in it in light of today's economic problems? How about having the MSM spend a little time examining troopergate and Palin's blatant abuse of power as governor matched only by her blatant lack of qualifications as a potential VP and -- god forbid - President? The Rovian guilt-by-association game is over for the Republicans, the polls reflect this in Obama's lead. American voters have had it with this kind of character assassination by the McCain campaign. Give it up.

Voting for Obama...

However, McCain doesn't have 13 foreign cars. He has 13 cars, 3 of which are foreign. And as I heard somewhere, doesn't someone like McCain deserve at least 3 working cars?

:)

..."obama is a racist, marxist, socialist. yes and this statement is backed up by his past/current associations of people. i feel he is a domestic enemy to the constitution...." Yes, Virgina, there really are wackos out there ...

Senator Obama has shown good judgement when he spoke out against the Iraq War prior to its onset. He has shown good judgement and leadership style in his choice of Senator Biden, someone who balances any claims that Senator Obama did not have sufficient experience w/International affairs and as he has maintained a thoughtful and responsible person who listens to others as he considers the options he has and the quality of the information he has available to him, in different situations, including the current economic situation. He is as his reputation says "No Drama Obama". I have followed closely the claims of the media and surrogates for both the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin candidacies and khow we needs to have an Obama Biden Presidency/Vice Presidency.
If Ayers was as frightening as Governor Palin and Senator McCain make him out to be and if Senator McCain puts America first, the time to make a big deal out of a potentially hazardous associate of Senator Obama's is not when he is losing. That makes his statements (and of course Palin's) statements a political tactic, not a statement of true concern.
Senator McCain has acted

I've been a fan of McCain since 2000 primaries, and I still was, even after I learned some troubling things about Palin and how much of their pumping her up for the convention was total smoke and mirrors or blatant lies. Yet, I didn't totally pull my support until McCain pretended that the "lipstick on a pig" comment had anything to do with Palin, and he tried to cash in politically on faking righteous indignation. At that moment the straight talk express totally left the road, and started spinning donuts, and the William Ayers guilt by association thing was when McCain drove it into a ditch. All is left, is for him to set it ablaze by trying some of this non-sense during the debate. He talks about us not knowing who Obama is, but this McCain I don't recognize at all.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?
…..think about it.

Would the country’s collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit? Conservative Values?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain had only married once and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money first bootlegging, then from beer distribution?

What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama: Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations. Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna c** Laude

Joseph Biden: University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

PVs John McCain: United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

It's telling that the only remaining argument that McCain has is Obama's connections to others of questionable character. McCain also has these connections, but other than responding to Ayers with Keating, Obama is not raising them because he does not need to. These tactics are only employed by desperate candidates. But make no mistake, if McCain tries to go there in the debate, Obama will be fully prepared to respond. But he will only do so to the extent needed to render McCain's allegations irrelevant.

Any reasonable person knows that we all have civic and social associations with people that we don't really know very well. It's a normal part of life. And every one of us would scream "not fair" if we were linked to the local child molester simply because we were members of the same Lions Club, or linked to the neighborhood wife beater because our children played on the same little league team.

Interestingly, two significant facts are emerging. One: The allegations are exaggerated and the connections circumstantial at best. Two: This stuff is good for riling up the base but independent voters, who are the key to any chance of McCain closing the gap, see through the rhetoric. It is not relevant to them, as shown by Obama's ever expanding lead among independent voters in key states.

Sorry Senator McCain, but America has grown up significantly in the last eight years and we’re not buying the politics of hate and fear anymore. If you want to be President you have no choice but to come up with a winning economic strategy that speaks to the middle class . Maybe you could start by actually using the phrase “middle class” in one of your answers tonight.

Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Farakhan, Acorn? Obama is as far to the left as these guys and the institution are.

We need a cool president and analyze the issues with the same mind and resolve it.

I was not a firm supporter of McCain, but I was leaning that way based on Obama's total lack of experience. Contrary to this article's supposition, Obama has no more additional experience than he had when he started campaigning. However, the long campaign made McCain take missteps, the latest of which came in last week's debate when he came out to say he would buy up and renegotiate bad mortgages. His rationale was not that they were bad agreements, but should be negotiated at the property's current value. It shocks me that someone of McCain's experience would even suggest this. A home is a long-term investment and people treated them like 12-month CDs. People need to be accountable for their bad decisions.

The association is a non-issue. This people the GOP alleges he associated with are like milk compared with Bin Laden.

Obama is not a socialist. He's a capitalist with a social conscience. Isn't that the definition of a compassionate conservative?

i have all the information i need to vote November 4.

I'm voting for Barack Obama

The tragedy of John McCain. He is going out not only a loser, but disgraced and discredited.

I am not a Republican, but McCain was one of my favorite Republicans. I always thought that he was OK, but the campaign that he has run has been a terrible problem. Obama is going to win and I am certainly going to vote for Obama. What I want now for McCain is that he comes out of this honorably. No more attacks please.

"small town girl" said: "I'm voting Obama and I feel good about it."

me too. -- John in Montana

A long campaign is like getting a doctorate in presidential politics. That's a very significant difference between Obama and Palin, and the reality is, you can't cram that much information into anyone's brain in 6 weeks. At the same time, the Republicans want to run against the Obama of 12 months ago, and one thing's clear about Obama, he's a smart man on a rapid upward trajectory. That to me seems less risky than the very real possibility that McCain is past his intellectual prime and on the way down.

AS you all know, the USA has a great influence on all of us outside your country. Unfortunately we don't get to vote. But mos of us cheer for Obama as he seems much more likely to calm things down and create a non-confrontational political environment which is what is needed for this planet. Go Obama!

William Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, NOT the University of Chicago. Please do some fact checking next time.

The problems which cropped up during the democratic primaries are at the heart of the problem - no national standards for elections - everything is as each state demands which is ridiculous -
On the other hand anyone who cast their ballot for George W. Bush GOT WHAT THEY DESERVED - I KNEW this guy was going to be a disaster as did the millions more people who voted for Al Gore in 2000 - do those Bush voters think this came out of left field? Compare Obama now, intelligent, wise beyond his years, inspiring to George W., a nitwit who drove our country into a ditch - and who was supported every time by McCain - now he wants to take over?! I don't think so..
Paul S.

People - for the past two years congress (which controls our country's wallet) has been controlled by the Democrats. They are also the party that voted to not regulate Fannie and Freddie when the Republicans wanted to… Who created this mess? Names like Braney Frank and Chris Dodd. I’m voting for McCain just to keep this government balanced!

I realize that these canditates have to campaign, but is serving in the U.S. Senate such an easy job that you can be pretty-much absent for nearly two years? if all 100 decided to spend as much time away from Washington, would that be okay? Can they just leave the job, except for an occasional vote, to their staffs? is serving in the Senate a full-time job?

Debate analysis. Wow McCain smacks of desperation he is almost frothing at the mouth!! His attempt to link Obama to Ayers failed miserably...Obama as he said was 8 years old at the time!! How can you link that to Obama. McCain is a disgrace to his former self. The old McCain would slap the new McCain silly for the BS he is throwing around!! That is what we are seeing McCain is battling himself!! That is why he is going to lose..he has no idea who he is anymore!!

The Dems have a bare majority in the Senate, and that is with Liebermann, an independent and former Dem who is supporting McCain, and will probably change parties. They don't have the numbers to stop filibusters, and they dont' have the votes to override presidential vetos. So no, they have not been truly "in charge" the last two years, and Bush economic and foreign policies have continued. And McCain agreed with, voted for, and will continue the main thrusts of those very policies that have led to disaster.

The Dems have a bare majority in the Senate, and that is with Liebermann, an independent and former Dem who is supporting McCain, and will probably change parties. They don't have the numbers to stop filibusters, and they dont' have the votes to override presidential vetos. So no, they have not been truly "in charge" the last two years, and Bush economic and foreign policies have continued. And McCain agreed with, voted for, and will continue the main thrusts of those very policies that have led to disaster.

mccane fo shooo!

obama fa sho!!

ralph nader!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!!!!!!!! aw ya trigga.... all the way!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go underwood rockets. gonna win state!!!!!!!!!!!!