Final Presidential Debate

Ads From The Debate

The ads using material from the debate last night are already out. Here's the first two that popped up on my youtube account:

First, from Obama,




And from McCain,

Governor Palin Was A Brilliant Choice

Governor Sarah Palin's nomination as Senator McCain's vice president has gotten the liberal blogosphere in an uproar. The very first talking point I saw was that Gov. Palin's nomination takes away Sen. McCain's ability to use Sen. Obama's inexperience against him in the campaign. To which I say, hogwash.

First, that liberal bloggers claim this reveals that they know this is a major weakness of their candidate. The fact that Obama picked Senator Joe Biden as his running mate reveals that he knows this as well.

Second, Palin's pick in no way means that McCain can't use Obama's inexperience in the campaign. Obama's responses to the Palin nomination reveal exactly why.

This is his response immediately following the announcement:

"Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Mr. Community Organizer will be sure to highlight Governor Palin's experience as a small town mayor while conveniently forgetting her other experience (you know, like being a governor), but all it does is serve to keep the inexperience topic in the headlines.

And it ensures that Obama will continue to have to field reporters' questions regarding his own inexperience. For instance, CNN asked him about his experience vs Gov. Palin's and this is what he said,

"My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,"

So Obama thinks that running a campaign for president qualifies one to be president. Ok then.

Again, all Obama's attacks on Palin do is serve to highlight the fact that the man running for president barely has the experience of the vice president he is attacking.

But does this create problems with McCain's ability to showcase Obama's inexperience to be president? The beauty of this pick is that McCain doesn't have to be the one to do it.

Let his running mate Joe Biden do it for him:



Or have Hillary Clinton do it:



Or Bill Clinton:



Or Hillary, Bill, Biden, Dodd, and even Obama himself:

Sarah Palin Was Born In Idaho

...and graduated from the University of Idaho. It's not Boise St, but it'll do.

Marriage Protection Amendment: Part I

The Marriage Protection Amendment was finally brought to a vote in the Senate. Sort of. The vote was actually just to decide if the Senate was to debate the issue or not. 49 Senators voted yea, 48 voted nay. While a majority of Senators voted to bring the amendment up for debate, they fell short of the 60 votes they needed. So the amendment was shelved for a time. Both of Idaho's senators voted yea. Here is a breakdown of how each senator voted. It was mostly a partisan vote, with all but two Democrats voting nay:

Byrd (D-WV)
Nelson (D-NE)

Most Republicans voted yea, with these exceptions:
Chafee (R-RI)
Collins (R-ME)
Gregg (R-NH)
McCain (R-AZ)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Sununu (R-NH)

Three Senators didn't vote at all:

Dodd (D-CT)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Hagel (R-NE)

The most notable Republican nay voter was Senator Jon McCain. He is currently the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. Some believe his nay vote may have hurt his chances for the nomination. Unfortunately for Idaho, we have little to no say in the matter because the nomination is generally locked up by the time we vote on it. But that's a topic for another day.

In any event, the Marriage Protection Amendment is not going away. It has been heavily lobbied for a few years now by groups like the American Family Association, among others. In fact, it may come up again this year.

Needless to say it is a highly charged issue. Which is why I have a hard time respecting the opinion that the vote on the amendment was solely a political move pandering to the religious right within the Republican Party. This is an amendment that has been gaining momentum for a number of years. It has slowly jumped through the bureaucratic hoops required of all amendments. Meanwhile, individual states have been voting on and passing amendments to state constitutions; 20 of them already. Idaho will be voting on its own amendment this fall. 45 of the 50 states have passed some sort of law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. All of this state activity, along with public opinion polls, would suggest that gay marriage is an issue that the public very much wants the Senate to act on. If the Senate's sole motivation is to "pander" to its constituents, then so be it. That's part of what they were elected to do. It is far better than not listening at all. But whether or not the Senate should have voted on the amendment avoids the real issue:

Should marriage be only between a man and a woman? If so, is it important enough to pass an amendment to the US Constitution?