Having spend hours and hours studying the candidates through out the primaries- pouring through journals, scouring the Internet for government legislative records, reviewing the candidates voting records and comparing their stump speeches throughout the election with an eye towards flip flopping on issues I suspect I spend more time than the average voters on trying to determine who was being forth right. I have even discovered that the so called fact checkers get it wrong so I have made it a point to go to the actual pieces of legislative to confirm the veracity of the the various candidates claims.
Having said that I really respect that
McCain continues to challenge us to look into his record. I can understand why he hopes voters will do as he asks because those who do will see that he does in fact have a clear record of breaking with his own party on key pieces of legislation and bucking the status quo when it comes to government overspending. This is a man who in fact has NEVER once asked for a single piece of pork barrel spending in his entire career as a Congressman or as a Senator.
Regarding
Obama I can tell he has a legal background -he is smooth communicator but his words seem very measured and calculated. I was somewhat surprised to see that he was presenting as part of his plan to deal with the economy something'
s that I had heard
McCain and
Palin say over the past few weeks. Mind you, he used his own words to make the a point but the point was originally made by
McCain and
Palin.
How many times have we heard
McCain say that he wants to keep, the $700,000,000.00 dollars that we are sending abroad to countries that do not like us very much, here in America by becoming energy independent? Tonight
Obama added that to his proposal. He did casually as if it had always been a part of his plan. He almost quoted
Mccain verbatim. Lets not forget that
Obama has only recently come around to the idea of drilling at all. In the last debate he could barely force himself to say that he would drill for oil. Tonight he was talking about drilling and drilling right away. Again those sentiments ranked VERY HIGHLY with the focus groups and
Palin and
McCain both have gotten points for drilling that message home so could it be said that
Obama is cherry picking whatever seems popular with the voters?
For example, last weeks
Palin received exceptionally high marks from the focus groups when she addressed the impact of the economy on the middle class. Tonight, I heard
Obama say something very similar to what
Palin had said in the VP debate. Prior to the VP debates he never said anything remotely like it his stump speeches. Did he lick his finger and hold it up to the wind or did he see that what
Palin said resonated with middle America? Was
Obama once again cherry picking?
In both Presidential debates I noted something interesting. Two times in particular when
McCain was up first and gave particularly in depth foreign policy responses.
Obama responded saying" I actually agree with Sen
McCain " and then he rephrased it a bit and fluffed it out with more wordy words but added nothing of genuine depth. He also did this several times when debating Hillary Clinton during the primaries. I have come to believe that it is an attempt by
Obama to appear more knowledgeable on the subject by riding piggy back on the more sophisticated and thought out response that
McCain and Hillary Clinton could bring to the issue. In the first
McCain-
Obama debate I watched
Obamas face, as
McCain delivered a complex, detailed response and I found myself wondering if
Obama actually even fully understood what
McCain was saying.
Having studied
Obamas voting records, speeches and so forth it seems he is forever altering his policy by cherry picking whatever policies seem popular with the voters. What then does this man actually believe? Will he always rule by defaulting to whatever is politically expedient or will he be able to make tough choice in our best interest?
This makes me nervous. Yes,
Obama is a very skilled speaker, he is young and charismatic but does he have the judgement, experience, authenticity that we want in a President? I have to ask because other issues not brought up in this debate require that I must..Is
Obama being fully honest with us? The dark spectors of Terrorist William Ayres, the racist hate monger Jeremiah Wright who
Obama claimed for 20 years was his close Spiritual advisor, the
Hammas endorsement of
Obama's canidacy, the illegal campaign contribution from a Palestinian group that had to be returned. Certainly lets not forget the Freddy and Fannie funds that were sent his way or his connection to Acorn... the list of associates and questionable dealings goes on and on and
i have only begun to scratch the surface.
I keep remembering the wisdom of my grandmother regarding symbolism over substance. "You can put a shinny horses saddle and fancy horse harness on a mule but despite the fancy dress it is still just a mule in a horses harness."
McCain on the other hand may not be a show horse, but he is work horse and his records show that he is defintly not a big bloated government mule.