Our Financial Crisis: Who Are The Key Players?
Posted by michellemoquin on September 20th, 2008
In light of Anonz’s recent comment I found an article that not only supports what he is saying but goes into it a bit deeper with the dirty details and the key players. No surprise that the players are the conservative repugnicants. They are the ones who always want the government to stay out of business and avoid regulation as long as?….You guessed it…as long as THEY are making money.
But as proven in the past and most recently on a monumental scale, when their greed, gets them into a bind, they are the first ones crying out, wanting to enforce the rules and laws. McCain is shouting loudly lately-as if he ‘cares’. Remember what I said about the disease ‘greed’ yesterday? AND…the taxpayers…well we, the taxpayer who didn’t get to enjoy any of the big money profits on those phony bundled sub-prime papers, we get to bail out those businesses by paying for their debt and failures. Hmmm…Sound like the repugnicants are socialists to me – they are obviously socializing the debt of the big Wall Street Firms….I’m sure you’re thinking the same.
So here’s a little didley for you:
‘The public bailout for AIG is estimated at $85 billion. According to one report, that’s more than the Bush administration spent on Aid to Families with Dependent Children during his entire time in office. That amount of money would also pay for health care for every man, woman, and child in America for at least six months.’
How does that make you feel? Me? A bit pissy.
So are you just dying to know how this happened…who the key players are? The repubs name is Phil Gramm. Heard of him? He was a Senator representing the good ‘ol state of Texas, and he’s responsible for coming up with the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and sticking it into the budget bill. So what does it do? Well….it pretty much rips into the America Act which was designed to keep regulators from controlling new financial tools described as credit “swaps.” This is what I mentioned above: Instruments like sub-prime mortgages that are bundled up and sold as securities.
‘Under the Gramm law, neither the SEC nor the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were able to examine financial institutions like hedge funds or investment banks to guarantee they had the assets necessary to cover losses they were guaranteeing.’
Whoa. And if your jaw hasn’t dropped yet, let me just throw out that the market for these fancy financial instruments is estimated at $60 trillion annually, almost four times the entire US stock market!
And here’s a bit of icing on the cake: Senator Phil Gramm wanted it completely unregulated. Oh..I’m not done yet…so did Alan, as in Greenspan. Remember when I mentioned the other day that he was saying how this was the worst economy since the depression? Well…he supported the legislation too. Do any of these people not talk out of both sides of their mouths? Their idea of fun is playing with fire for profit, and all at the expense of us, the taxpayers.
So where is McCain in all of this? No surprise, he’s a player too. If he gets elected most likely he will choose Gramm as his Treasury Secretary. You can believe they will be gabbing about the good ‘ol days when Gramm was in congress and McCain was in the senate, both in the midst of the Savings and Loan crisis, which compared to the present situation, the S & L scandal looks pretty tame.
When Reagan was president, congress deregulated the Savings and Loan industry in much the same way that Gramm made sure there were no laws hindering the Wall Street biggies. S & Ls simply lobbied until they had less regulation and then began making rampant, unsound investments. Sound familiar? How can we take McCain’s public concern seriously during this present financial crisis when at that time he was immersed in the historic collapse of 747 S&Ls?
Charles Keating, the man who headed up Lincoln Savings and Loan of California is another player. Because the S&L industry managed to get congress to increase FDIC insurance from $40,000 to $100,000 on deposits, the irresponsible investing of people like Keating began to put taxpayer insurance funds at great risk of loss. To make a long story short, Keating placed money in junk bonds and questionable real estate projects. Because many other S&Ls followed suit the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) began to push for a regulation limiting these dangerous speculative “direct” investments to 10% of an S&L’s assets.
You can believe that Keating wasn’t happy about this so he called on his pal Alan Greenspan, who produced a study saying that there was no danger in ‘direct’ investments. Well, it didn’t convince the FHLBB so after a closer look at Lincoln Savings and Loan who were making even more historically bad investment decisions, a federal investigation was launched. Oopsy, what to do now? How about we call on our dear Senator McCain and see if he can help?
This is when the ‘Keating Five’ was formed which included McCain and four other US Senators. They met with the then chairman of the FHLBB, Edwin Gray sending the message to basically lay off of Lincoln and chill on the investigation (Oh by the way, McCain was hesitant to attend this little meeting and Keating, behind his back called him a ‘wimp’. Just a little something to lighten up this subject and put a smile on your face. I know this is not a laughing matter.) Well they didn’t back down but Lincoln stayed in business with the rest of the S & L’s until the industry collapsed in 1989 and Keating ended up in prison for 5 years.
So what happened to McCain? McCain got slapped on the hand for bad judgement. That was it. Forget the fact that he was one of the Repugnicants who led deregulation of the S & L industry. Forget that he delayed the bailout until after the 1988 election to insure that George ‘W’ won the White House. And forget that he cost the taxpayers 1.4 trillion (!) the amount it cost to help those S & L’s, not to mention that if it had happened in 1986 BEFORE the presidential election, the cost would’ve only been 20 billion!
And there are people out there who want McCain to be our next president. The man who is now touting that the markets need regulation. Yeah to save their asses! They created it all. Let the Wall Streeters fall. Help the taxpayers. Maybe…just maybe, they’ll learn from this and we can create laws that won’t allow this to happen again. With McCain in office we can forget it; that’ll never happen.
Ahh….I’m done.
Readers: Surely you must have some comments on this. Blog me.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle ?
Aka BABE: Your Bad Ass Bitch Editor
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September 20th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Michelle
Excellent article. Be careful less you get on the list of Homeland Security. You may wake up and not be able to fly. Presently your blog is being scrutinized as a aid to the enemy vehicle. That means Congress has authorized them to use the full forces of the US government to whatever the bush administration needs to do to you to protect the national interest of the USA. You have been effectively declared and Enemy of the United States of America. So much for freedom of speech.
That hasn’t happened to me because money is still more important than country, god or life of anyone other than the one with the money or the person they want the money from.
The caveat being nobody is safe if it means jail time for the culprits.
With that in mind and my desire to add to your very enlightening article. Let me add this:
The new republican argument will be if Congress had practiced true “conservatism,” then we wouldn’t be in this mess. The republicans will attempt to put the blame on the people themselves. You will be hearing it was the people’s fault for buying homes they could not afford.
There will be no mention of the removable of regulations that were in place to prevent those types of loans. No one will mention the suspension of the regulators whose job it is to police the institutions that have regulations to protect the public from unsound speculation with their money.
But if you think the 1.7 trillion bail out will save your investments or this country from serious consequences, think again. Have you asked yourself where the government is getting all this money to bail out these crooks with?
The answer is simple. They walk over to the Treasury and print it, then force it citizens to accept it as something of value. The citizens of the USA are then forced to accept it for their goods and services. This works fine as long as the worthless paper the money is printed on is used only in the USA.
However, other countries want real value for the US paper dollar. They come to the US Treasury with it and demand real concrete value for all those US dollars they have accumulated. This is when the shit hits the fan.
The USA has to pay what it can and ask them to hold the rest of the debt for an interest that they can agree on. That ‘s like anyone else trying to get an extension on a debt they can not pay. If they accept, those countries become creditors of the USA. Countries like China, All the major oil exporting countries, Canada, Russia, japan, and a host of other nations are all holding IOUs from the US Treasury.
If they decide not to continue granting credit to the US and demand payment, our entire economy as we know it could collapse. The only reason they haven’t done it to date is because the dollar is the standard currency used to purchase petrodollars.
Ironically if Sadam Hussien had been allowed to switch to Euros, we as a nation may not have experienced this calamity. But he was slated for murder and the invasion of his country was the vehicle picked to loot the National Treasury. When it is over the entire $4 trillion that the plotters estimated they could get away with will have been accomplished without a single plotter going to jail. Hell some of us will go down in history as saviors of this debacle.
Anonz
September 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Anonz,
I agree with you that this is some great information, and thank you for your valuable input. I hope that you are safe, but I also hope you keep up the good work!! It is a true American to question authority. This is the basis of our founding fathers and the beginning of this country!
I have been asking the question of where is this money coming from, for…nearly 8 years now!! Today, it seems another $700 Million is being asked for from the future taxpayers as backing for this debacle. Bush has pissed away trillions of our dollars to ruin and then fix some other country, and doing so with NO oversight to how the money is being spent. Sound familiar?! It is also part of the reason that the government has gone to private warriors and private defense contractors in order to “save” the country money to fight this war. Can anyone say Blackstone Group?!
Another question is, does anyone remember the S&L situation and the Bush brother that no one every hears about any longer? This family can’t seem to stay out of our wallets!! Let’s just bend over some more so that the Bushes will have an easier job ripping us off.
I found it interesting that yesterday on a radio show there was a good interview with some speakers regarding this financial turn of events. One of the speakers discussed that we shouldn’t worry about our money as it is backed by the United States government. What about Venezuela?! What about Somalia? There are a myriad of examples to where a country’s money is so devalued it becomes nothing. We are not immune to this, and the arrogance of the American people will be the demise! One cannot find value in a currency that is backed by NOTHING! Other countries value their currency to the dollar. This was the strategy of dominion, but that was then…Ever since the dollar stopped being pegged to gold and became the global dominant currency we were treading on a path to demise. There is NO way that a currency that is backed by itself, to which is continuously devaluing daily, the well will run dry. This is basic economics. As the dollar is printed more and our unemployment rises, borrowing slows and trade slows, the value of this currency will slide dramatically. Time to short the dollar!? How American!
If I heard correctly, the Chinese government and/or major Chinese corporations are the main backers of the AIG bailout. They have also been buying huge amounts of government and corporate bonds during this financial situation. There will come a day, like any day in the business world, in which they will call their loan due.
This is such a joke, and the press, any press, doesn’t ask some of these simple questions?! I find it unbelievable that people don’t ask the simple question of where is this money going to come from without raising taxes? McCain touts that he won’t raise taxes? People think he can balance a budget with trillions of debt and not raise taxes? Get a f*#king clue!!
September 20th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I have some more information on Vincent Bugliosi relating to his latest book that I have discussed here and on my blog before. I urge you to read this one and follow it closely as it will pertain directly to what we are discussing as well.
http://bdgroupllc.blogspot.com
September 20th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
SAFETY CONCERNS FOR IMPLANTABLE CARDIAC DEVICES
There has been a lot of media coverage about the failure of some aspects of implantable cardiac defibrillators, so I was concerned when a friend told me that her 80-plus-year-old mother had just been advised by her doctor to have one implanted “just in case.” Since she’d never had a heart attack or any other cardiac emergency, I wondered about the advisability of such a dramatic medical intervention in the face of no clear and immediate danger, especially given the dangers associated with ICDs. Would it be better to just watch and wait to see whether she really needs such a device?
I’m not arguing against proper implantation of this technology, called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Many people who suffer from cardiac arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythms), heart failure and the like entrust their lives to ICDs… and wisely so. However, there are significant risks to be aware of when considering implantation of an ICD. In order to understand what these are, however, let’s start with an explanation of how they work.
HOW ICDS WORK
Technologically, ICDs are fairly straightforward. Picture the paddles used to shock a heart attack victim after cardiac arrest on an especially thrilling episode of ER… shrink that entire machine down to the size of a matchbox and surgically implant it under the skin, usually near the collarbone. Tiny insulated wires (leads) are snaked through veins into one or more chambers of the heart so the device can provide continuous monitoring. If it detects an abnormal heart rhythm, such as a dangerously fast heartbeat (ventricular tachycardia), it can deliver a series of pacemaker beats to restore it to normal. If the heart beats slowly, the device works to help maintain normal rhythm. And if the heart goes into ventricular fibrillation — a chaotic quivering of the heart that prevents it from pumping blood to the body — the ICD delivers a full-on, powerful shock in the hope it will completely reset the system so a normal heartbeat can resume.
The implantation procedure takes several hours and is considered relatively minor surgery that can be done under a local anesthetic and light sedation. The ease of implanting ICDs and their usefulness make them seem a reasonable choice for people with one or several of those serious cardiac problems, or who have survived cardiac arrest and are therefore likely to face such a crisis again. But their advisability is less clear, perhaps, for those just considered “at risk” for heartbeat irregularity, like my friend’s mother.
FACTORS TO WEIGH
I took my questions to Bruce Wilkoff, MD, director of Cardiac Pacing and Tachyarrythmia Devices at the Cleveland Clinic, and lead investigator of a recent study on ICDs. He told me that when appropriately used, “prophylactic ICD therapy can be helpful to people with heart disease, but without prior previous cardiac arrest or documented cardiac event.” But he acknowledged that there are risks on both sides — life without an ICD and life with one. He likened ICD therapy to a life insurance policy, saying, “there’s both a monetary and physical cost. Everyone who has one gets the reassurance of continuous monitoring — but not everyone ends up getting a therapy from the device.”
Though not itself major, the operation to implant the device carries all the usual risks of surgery, including pain, bleeding, infection, reaction to sedation, etc. There’s also a risk that at some point some of these machines stop working properly — plus now we know that the leads threaded into the heart may eventually stop working as well. Medical device manufacturer Medtronic recently pulled its Sprint Fidelis lead off the market because of evidence that it has the potential to fracture in some people, sometimes within 30 months after implantation. This can cause the ICD to fire inappropriately or, worse, to fail. According to the FDA, this has caused complications and some deaths.
Making matters worse, with leads it’s easy in… not so easy out. Once in place the leads are difficult to remove and replace since over time they become surrounded by scar tissue. Additionally, all foreign substances or devices in the body mean an increased risk for infection, and there is also the very real possibility that surgery to remove them could tear or perforate the heart or vein. People with leads that need to be removed should ask their cardiac specialist for a referral to a heart rhythm specialist called a cardiac electrophysiologist, or to a surgeon who specializes in ICDs.
WHAT TO DO?
“Doctors — as well as patients and their families — need to put the risks in perspective and apply them to each situation,” said Dr. Wilkoff, citing historical research statistics estimating the risks as follows: If there are 100,000 patients with ICDs, 7,000 lives will be saved by the devices… 16,000 of these patients have in their bodies equipment potentially affected by a recall — 2,000 of whom would experience an actual or documented problem that would require repair or extraction of the lead. Only six of the 100,000 people would die as a direct result of the malfunction.
Some might find those numbers frightening and decide not to have an ICD implanted, while others would opt for the therapy. An 80-year-old might make a different decision than a 60-year-old. What is clear is that everyone who already has an ICD should stay in contact with their physician. Health insurance generally covers the monitoring and additional visits to get regular checkups on the implant, to discuss recent developments with the technology and to ensure that the ICD is working the way it should.
One option that avoids the risk of additional surgery and reduces the potential for receiving a shock is to have the devices reprogrammed. A recent study at the Cleveland Clinic suggests ICDs can be just as effective if reset to delay the delivery of a shock longer than is currently the standard, relying more heavily on the device’s pacing features along with the heart’s ability to reinstitute normal rhythm on its own.
Another possibility — also under review — is reexamining whether patients do better when ICDs are custom-tuned individually or set to a more universal standard. Though it seems counter-intuitive, the latter appears safer. In the trial, each of the 658 patients with ICDs had them programmed exactly the same way — with these less sensitive settings the patients received two-thirds fewer full-on shocks than the control group (which was programmed the traditional per-patient way) received. Why is this good? The researchers found that the revamped programming didn’t increase risk and saved patients from the painful punch-to-the-chest feeling of a full-on shock, delivering the gentler pacing therapy instead.
ASK YOUR DOCTOR THESE QUESTIONS
For those considering ICDs, Dr. Wilkoff suggested asking the following questions, which will provide valuable information on how your ICD gets tuned:
• Do you (or will you) have painless therapies (pacing) turned on?
• Will my ICD have anti-tachycardia pacing?
• Have you heard about the EMPIRIC and PREPARE trials, and have you applied those findings to your work?
The answers to all of the above should be “yes.”
If you have an ICD in place, make sure you have asked your cardiologist what kind of lead you have and how its condition is being monitored. Most agree that if the leads aren’t broken, there’s no need to remove them. But careful monitoring is the only way to know when the leads show signs of wear before they malfunction. There are, however, safeguards meant to alert the physician to problems before they actually fail. There is no set age at which the leads are expected to fail, but some research shows a certain percentage (up to 15% to 20%) will fail between five and 10 years. Historically, with lead replacement, there have been two options. Remove the leads and put in new ones… or leave the leads in place but disconnect them and thread new leads to the heart via other blood vessels. Both have some risk. Leaving the leads in place is less risky in the short term, but depending on how often the leads need to be replaced, you’ll eventually run out of options and need to have them removed. Removing leads is risky because of the chance of damage to blood vessels as a result of scar tissue.
Once again, it’s clear that “life-saving” technology can also create unanticipated problems. Not only is it impossible to foresee and plan for all possible complications, there may someday be better, safer options. Dramatic medical interventions undertaken “just in case” can have equally dramatic, far less desirable consequences — making personal responsibility paramount, especially before disease sets in.
Source(s): ??Bruce L. Wilkoff, MD, Director of Cardiac Pacing and Tachyarrhythmia Devices, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic.
September 20th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hello Michelle
I do know a little something about banking and investment financing. So I would like to weigh in on this matter about the federal government rushing in to save the American people’s way of living as they have come to know it.
What your government and the pundits are telling you about how dire this situation is is all lies.
It is a ploy by the rich to cover their bad financial judgments at the taxpayers expense. The only way they can pull it off is to scare the average American into thinking that if the government doesn’t bail out the multimillionaires and billionaires that the whole system will collapse. THAT IS NOT TRUE!
The true financial situation of the country is this. The super wealthy financiers have extended themselves too far by betting more money on a pot than they have to cover the bet. A modern analogy may be:
If you kept charging against a credit card because you could continue to make the minimum payments, you could continue to charge until you; 1. reached your credit limit or 2. arranged to get the credit card company to increase your credit limit.
But, it the company raised the minimum or checked your financial behavior and sebsequently lowered or stopped your credit limit, then you would have to start paying or go bankrupt.
That is what happened to the those rich company owners. They over reached their financial capability to meet the minimum payments on their debt. If this happened to you, the government would not step in and rescue you. So why are they doing it for these super rich people and how are they justifing it to you to get you to go along with the scam?
The why they are bailing out the super rich is simple. The super rich are them or their bosses. How are they justifying bailing them out now that’s the easy part for them. They scare the masses.
How? By telling them:
A the financial system will collapse if these companies are not bailed out; and
B. convince the average person he was also complicit in the cause of this debcle because he tried to purchase a mortgage that he knew that he couldn’t affford.
A. The first lie:
Lets examine what the average person has to risk losing:
1. His bank account.
2. His mutual fund or money market account;
3. His 401K or other retirement investment;
4. His ability to borrow money;
5.His employment because his employer can’t borrow money. That’s it folks. That’s all the risk the average person has in this pot.
At first glance it seems like it is what the scare propaganda is saying is correct the system will collapse if the government dosen’t bail out the super rich. But wait! There is another simplier solution to solving the average person’s loss in those five areas which were caused by the greed and unsound financial risks of the super rich. Later I will explain how they got away with doing it in the first place.
A. The truth:
1. The average person with a $100,000 on deposit has no risk of losing a penny. His money is insured by FDIC. If he has more, then he should have been more careful.
2. Mutual funds or money market accounts. – The federal government can step in and guarantee the protection of a reasonable amount of the average person’s investment in those areas up to $100,000. If he has more, he should have been more careful. He can always sue the Funds for mismanagement.
3. 401K’s and other individual retirement options. – They can be protected up to a certain amount without giving anything to the super rich who risked these people’s money recklessly.
4. Availability of money for borrowing. – The scare tactic that banks won’t lend money is just that. Banks will lend money, that’s their business. If they don’t, remember how these same crooks remind you that this is a capitalist system not a socialist one, then rest assured that a capitalist venture will arrise whereby some new business will start lending money to fill the void. There is no need to rescue the fat cat who risked too much because of greed and now his band has to fold, that socialism. The same socialism that he cries when some politician proposes to give you universal health care. He is trying to convince you that socialism by government to help him is okay but not to help you.
5.Employment – Employment is always in danger. If the owner dosen’t manage his business propertly, the employees will lose their jobs. Jobs will not be lost because the company can not get a loan. See 4. above.
B. The second lie:
The “experts” are dispatched to convince the average person that people who tried to buy a home that they couldn’t afford was a contributing cause to this debacle. Commond sense should tell you that that is not true.
B. The truth:
It is the lending institution that determines whether the person they lend money is capable of repaying that loan. No one can just take out a loan or mortgage. He must qualify according to the rules set up and administered by the lender. If the lender is irresponsible when it comes to making loans, it is not the borrower’s fault. It does not matter how easy the government makes it for the lender to lend you money, if the lender lends money to a person or business that his do dilligence should tell him that the borrower can not pay back, it is the LENDER’s fault.
This absolves the average person from any responsibility for this debacle. It is the sole responsiblity of the rich trying to get richer. If they had succeeded they would be arguing that the government shouldn’t be penalizing them for taking risks and being successful.
So having taken those risk and FAILED, why should the government suddenly turn socialist and pay off their losses.
I promised to tell you how they got away with all their risky investments using the public’s money.
First let me say that one of the chief purposes of government is to protect the people from foreign threat and domestic threat.
Under protection from domestic threat comes the requirement of government to protect the public for company, institution, and corporate abuses. This is done by the government setting common sense regulations in the form of laws that protect the public from actions that would recklessly endanger the public’s money when it is being managed by private businessess for profit.
I see you have talked about some of the characters that participated in the dismantling the common sense regulations that were orginally set up to protect the public. Unfortunately America is bet by a bunch of savvy crooks who are adept at convincing the average greedy person that he too can become rich if government DEREGULATES businesses and allow them to deal with the public competition will protect the public. This disingenuous piece of logic is proposed on the bases that the people are sophisticated or knowledgeable enough about finances to protect themselves and their investments from the crooks.
The second thing these republicans have done is to go behind the public’s back and restrict the enforcement of even the minimal laws set forth by the government to regulate these industries. Like I have heard before. If there is no police the crooks will run amok. Some businesses were caught short because they believed that the government was policing the regulations that were in place.
The crooks knew that the government was not policing any regulations because they are the super rich who got the government to prevent the police from enforcing the regulations. Now the government is being used to reward those crooks with taxpayers money.
AH
September 21st, 2008 at 6:58 am
Although I am in what is a formerly a staunch Repub county – DuPage, outside of Chicago, I am still mystified by some of my suffering neighbors, who continue to be blinded by I -don’t-know-what, to what is happening. Our neighborhood is filled with foreclosures and people who are having a hard time making it, yet they still don’t see a need for a “fundamental” change of direction. As a very long time Federal employee, who has NEVER seen us in such a horrible, horrible mess, I am truly scared for all of us that they cannot see what is right in front of their faces. If they are so put off by the tint of someones’ skin rather than the rant of the tired old scared-tactic philosophy, we are in serious trouble.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:40 am
Americans are right wingers. Most people seem decent and compassionate. There seems a deep distrust of “politicians,” but the voters want to do whats best. Check out the posts here; they’re all about how wimpy the Democrats are. Yet, you can zero in on particular Democrats and find a pugnacious public servant. The current Congress opened its season with a list of objectives that have been somewhat passed. I don’t blame them so much for the continuing war since the Republicans who have been touting their successes since day one are making their case again as the military avoids confrontation and loses fewer lives accordingly: This was always a possibility and it is politic to do it now. Do you really think American Generals don’t know how to play these political games!
September 21st, 2008 at 7:43 am
Racism — excuse the pun — is not a black and white issue. Most Americans might not be overt violent KKK-style racists, but there’s a big gap between that and feeling totally uncomfortable and unbiased about pulling the lever for a black president.
Would, for example, all white Americans be color-blind while choosing a black banker, black financial adviser, black family doctor, over a white banker, doctor etc? That’s the confidence needed for people to actually go out and vote for someone — and that might not be there.
And, of course, race is not the only issue. Many people like McCain for other reasons, too.
I think this race is very close, and that the Obama/Biden camp cannot be overly confident.
I’ve written about subtle, sub-conscious racism in the place where I grew up — a lovely, open-minded place, but somewhere where the currents of race issues were still palpable.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:44 am
America is a right leaning country. On election day the “silent majority” show up at the polls. The white, religious traditionalists. Older people tend to vote Republican in large numbers.
The silent majority are going to be the ones who decide the election. They are the ones who aren’t politically active, but just show up and vote.
Despite people saying the youth vote is going to be huge, history shows thats not the case. The youth vote would have to be unprecented, along with the minority vote. And if you look at the data for voters in past elections, you’ll see the numbers are fairly small.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:46 am
No, the reason why this election seems so close is that the same people who will fix the election in November are doctoring the polls as we speak.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:48 am
Everyone needs to get out and vote come election day. Democrats are doing a great job registering new voters. If most show up at the polls (and BO does good in the debates) then it’s over. I don’t feel there’s any way McCain can pull it off -unless there’s another 9/11 but even that (pray it doesn’t happen) may make Bush and Co. look like they were caught with their pants down… again
September 21st, 2008 at 7:52 am
The new polls are reflective of new voters and even include cell phone nubmers. Another big leap is that you are assuming everyone who signs up democratic will vote, and will vote democratic. Democrats scream alot but are twice as likely NOT to vote as Republicans. This doesn’t mean they won’t show up this year. It doesn’t work that way for the general election. Lastly, as someone who posts on this forum, you are what we used to calle Obsessive Politico’s, as opposed to enthusiastic politico’s and weekend politico’s. In other words, you are so immersed in the campaign, you have a tendency to think others will see your POV…and that it would be just outright illogical, for them to vote otherwise. Many Americans rely on gut instinct when they walk into the booth and their gut instinct is to vote for the white man.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:52 am
Yeah, Obama wrote a book, but most of us haven’t read it and we don’t know who he is. Put together a new paragraph. Make it simple and repeat it, repeat it and repeat it again. First Black President of Harvard Law Review is good. Made Editor in Chief. Taught constitutional law 12 years, and why that’s important to America right now. I almost wish he would make stuff up like McCain does, but that’s not going to work (is it?)