Drew Dowdell

Incorrect. The country must continue to operate while the debt is being serviced. In many cases the projects could be subsidized by tax breaks and regulatory streamlining of energy projects. There is also the problem of paying off the debt too fast. Yes it's possible. If we paid down our debt too quickly we could potentially cause massive inflation at home (though at the moment it would just stabilize our current deflation) and economic chaos abroad... especially in China.

No, I'm just responding to Palin and the Repulican's dis of Obama doing community service. Do your own research. Biden is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. If you're going to make statements about a candidate, at least be informed about it. You know, not all muslim ideas are bad... and a good many are bibilcally based. Again, do your own research or stop making uninformed statements. Actually, Obama would just allow the cuts Bush made to expire. Tax rates would go back to the time of Clinton... when we had a budget surplus and we were reducing the deficit. I don't care about the president's gender nor race. Palin's pastor claims terrorism is God's judgment of the Jews. Palin's husband was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wanted Alaska to leave the U.S. That should sew up the south Florida vote pretty good. Palin is not the leader everyone thinks she is.....

I think alternative energy will need some initial government funding to get it started and achieve critical mass.

Out of necessity? That is just plain fiscally irresponsible. If you want a president who will help you financially (which is what I'm reading that you really want), you want a president who will tackle the federal debt and aim to strengthen the dollar. You want a president who will enforce stricter and more conservative financial requirement on financial institutions. Yes it's more government regulation, but the banks got greedy and f-ed it up. They want bailouts so the government should have a say in how they are being run. 90% of Bush is still a lot of Bush. The REAL Bush economic record 1. The USA needs $2B a day from China et al or could not keep its economy stable or spare the dollar from collapse. 2. The USA already has close to $10 Trillion in national debt 3. The USA has a trade deficit of $800B/yr 4. The USA is the prime engine for derivatives 'ticking bomb' that grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion in 2000 to $516 trillion by 2007 that is going off in blowback stages 5. The USA already has way too many Americans overwhelmed by personal debt racking up a household debt-to-income ratio of 1.42 ( for total of $13.8 trillion in debt including mortgages ) that already matches the country’s $14 trillion G.D.P. 6. The USA has Bush boy racking up $32 Trillion dollars in total liabilities and unfunded commitments for future payments since 2000. and that's just in finance. From BarackObama.com: It's called an outlier, so don't go breaking out your Vintage 2000 inauguration champagne yet. You'll get more domestic drilling regardless of who is president. Energy prices will ensure that <I work in the energy sector remember?>. I want lower taxes also, but through addressing the national debt. The interest expense on the national debt is up to $401,333,563,677.75 so far for 2008. That's $1,337 for every man, woman, and child in this country..... just in interest.

Related: Unemployment hit 6.1% - we are most certainly in a recession. And that 6.1% is just the people who are on unemployment. The government stops counting people as unemployed after their benefits run out.

I can concede those points Camino. I felt that your additions at the end of sub-point "a" and "b" were kind of assumed by my phrasing. I would make the debt the number 1 priority because of the precarious position it puts our country in. Anyone who wants lower taxes should be championing the cause for government debt elimination. The U.S. needs to borrow $2 billion a day from the Chinese/Arabs/etc just to keep the currency from tanking. It's worse than importing oil. What happens when China/Arabs/etc decide to turn off the tap?

NY Times GMAC, the financing company, said Wednesday that it planned to eliminate about 5,000 jobs at its Residential Capital mortgage unit and close all 200 GMAC Mortgage retail offices to combat weak housing and credit markets. The job cuts will affect about 57 percent of ResCap’s work force, leaving the unit with 3,800 employees, a GMAC spokeswoman Gina Proia said. Most of the cuts will take place this year.

I want: 1. Someone who will make reducing the country's debt the number one priority; No more short term tax rebates at the expense of long term fiscal stability. 2. Someone who will use diplomacy rather than cruise missiles to accomplish foreign policy goals. 3. Someone who will make alternative energy the "Manhatten Project" of our time. a. Who understands that domestic drilling is only a temporary solution to a permanent problem. b. Who will repeal the ban on breeder reactors. 4. Someone socially libertarian.

it is difficult to have a discussion when your opposition has their ears and eyes closed yet their mouths wide open.

call me out then.... show me links where I am wrong. Go ahead. Give me a link for each bullet and show me I'm wrong. Sorry to disappoint you OCN, but I deal in facts. I'm not the SMK of the political thread. 1. Obama ranks as the magazine's most liberal senator of 2007, his ranking was 16th in 2005 and 10th in 2006. As for conservative rating, McCain missed too many votes to get a rating. 2. Palin TAXED big oil. 3. Palin tried to get Harry Potter books banned from the library and threatened to fire the librarian who opposed her. 4. Palin abused her power to try and get a state trooper, who used to be her brother in law, fired. It is also now coming out that she may have illegally accessed his personnel records. 5. McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time. 6. Sarah Palin's speech at the convention was written by Bush's speechwriter and was partially written even before SP was selected. Summary, if looking like the current administration is the criterion for being a "traditional conservative", then Palin and McCain fit that bill. 6. Jesus was a community organizer. Pilot was a Governor. 7. How do you come to the conclusion that Obama wants to lose the war? He suggested a timetable for withdrawal over a year ago and got shouted down for it. Guess what? Bush and Maliki have been hammering out a time table for withdrawal. Obama suggested talking to our enemies and was shouted down as an "appeaser". Guess what? Bush has been sending emissaries to Iran to work out an agreement. Just wanted to correct some of your "facts"

Vote for McCain/Palin, and that's what you're getting. Voting with Bush 90% of the time does not a reformer make. Are banning books and abusing power your social values? Like McCain being on Leno about 7 times? What is suddenly wrong with community service? Again, McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. Not the credentials of a reformer. Obama has sponsored "131 bills since Jan 4, 2005.[2] This figure does not include bills to which Obama contributed very substantially as cosponsor, such as the Coburn-Obama Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 or the Lugar-Obama Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act of 2006, which were formally sponsored by Senators Coburn and Lugar, respectively. They also exclude amendments to other bills, although these in the Senate are not required to be germane to the parent bill and can therefore effectively be bills in their own right.[3] Obama has co-sponsored 619 bills during the same time period. Progressive energy policy does not include cruise missiles or troop numbers. You'll get more money back under Barack's tax plan than McCains...... unless you are in the top 1% income earners. If you think McCain is doing this out of the kindness of his heart, I have a bridge to sell you..... a bridge to nowhere... which Palin was for before she was against. Palin took on big oil by TAXING them! Palin had, along with Ted Stevens, one of the biggest earmark requests for her state.... something even McCain called her out on.

Kennedy was a two term congressman and one term senator. Lincoln was a one term congressman. Truman was a two term Senator and Vice President for just 4 months before becoming President. Eisenhower had zero political experience at all.

Incorrect. You CANNOT go by the government's numbers, they are fudged. In terms of money supply, we're in the midst of a major contraction in this country. GDP will likely be revised downward and we'll discover that the recession started back in the late winter.

You've taken it out of context. The "cling to ____ " comment was in reference to the economic situation in many(most?) rural areas. The implication is that when you have no job and no money you "cling" to what you do have.

Really? WTF? Did you get that from a FW:FW:FW:FW:FW: OBAMA OSAMA IS A MUSLIM@Q!!@!!!!!! email or something?

When you have no resume of your own to run on you have to convince voters that your opponent is someone they have to run from.

The strongest foreign policy expert in the Senate going up against a 2 year Governor who's foreign policy experience is "she's near Russia".

1. Obama ranks as the magazine's most liberal senator of 2007, his ranking was 16th in 2005 and 10th in 2006. As for conservative rating, McCain missed too many votes to get a rating. 2. Palin TAXED big oil. 3. Palin tried to get Harry Potter books banned from the library and threatened to fire the librarian who opposed her. 4. Palin abused her power to try and get a state trooper, who used to be her brother in law, fired. It is also now coming out that she may have illegally accessed his personnel records. 5. McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time. Summary, if looking like the current administration is the criterion for being a "traditional conservative", then Palin and McCain fit that bill. 6. Jesus was a community organizer. Pilot was a Governer. 7. How do you come to the conclusion that Obama wants to lose the war? He suggested a timetable for withdrawal over a year ago and got shouted down for it. Guess what? Bush and Maliki have been hammering out a time table for withdrawal. Obama suggested talking to our enemies and was shouted down as an "appeaser". Guess what? Bush has been sending emissaries to Iran to work out an agreement. Just wanted to correct some of your "facts"

Given my demonstrated knack for minor details..... do you think I was serious? To paraphrase Biden, every sentence John McCain says is "Noun, Verb, POW"

including the pregnant teenager who is choosing to keep the baby and the newborn down syndrome one which she didn't abort...... and BTW, did you know that McCain was a POW?

Obama didn't write the nsa bill. McCain criticizes bills he himself wrote.

That's a sharp looking car.

She's a shoe in for President of the PTA.

Men behind the curtain? Dick Cheney who? Karl Rove who? Donald Rumsfeld who? Bush couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag and he was re-elected despite 4 years of proof of that. Bush fiddled while Rome burned <played the guitar while New Orleans flooded>. More than executive experience <a good chief of staff will handle that part>, I'm looking for sound and reasoned judgment. Someone who can change direction in the face of new evidence. Someone who is willing to use diplomacy first and weapons only as a last resort. Someone who doesn't include cruise missiles and troop numbers in an energy policy. If being a Senator doesn't count for experience, then John McCain has none, Joe Biden has none, and Barak Obama has none.... the only person with "experience" on either ticket is Sarah Palin.... which is scary because she governed, for 2 years, a land area larger than California and Texas combined yet had a population smaller than that of Pittsburgh, PA. McCain can't even make up his own mind on his own policies. John Kerry gave a brilliant speech on John McCain during the DNC but the networks hardly covered it. I suggest you look it up on youtube.