Swing and a miss

[Jim Hand]

Barack Obama missed a golden opportunity Wednesday to stop John McCain's presidential campaign dead.
The two candidates were arguing over who was running the most negative campaign and advertisements.
Obama should have offered McCain a deal. Obama should have proposed both candidates immediately stop running negative ads for the rest of the campaign.
The offer would have put McCain on the spot.
McCain was bemoaning negative campaigning, but needs to keep it up to catch up to Obama in the polls. Obama is in the lead and a ban on negative advertising would be to his benefit.
Imagine Obama offering his hand to shake on the deal and McCain being forced to decline. Or McCain agrees and has no weapons to bring Obama down in the polls.
That said, it was the view from this corner that McCain won the debate by a clear margin as Obama played defense and tried to avoid mistakes.

[mike wilson]

Anna - your mere presense on these blogs is offensive. For quite some time you have enjoyed an open mike to spread your fear-mongering lies and smears advocating your right-wing extremist views without much rebuttal - until now. You love to dish but can't take the push-back. Nobody cares about your hurt feelings since you have proven yourself to be most insensitive to other peoples views. I will not go away.

[Anna DeMarinis]

To anyone reading this blog who is wondering and doesn't know the background, there is a person who posts here who uses the names mike wilson and vladimir that I will not dignify any post that person makes with a response. This individual regularly smears, lies and uses extremely offensive language. Some people simply aren't worth acknowledging.

[mike wilson]

What do you base this McCain win on? More of the same tax policy? Bush gave tax cuts to the upper eschelons of wealth in this country for 7 years and all it did was increase unemployment, the deficit and contribute to the current economic crisis. What winning points did he make by dismissing womens' health in favor of pro-life? And dragging Obama through the mud with this Ayers monsense? How about the claim that ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy by enrolling new voters?
At least Obama knows what property he owns and he doesn't have free cell towers on his properties because he was on the communications committee. And Joe the Plumber? An obvious shill for McCain who doesn't even have a plumber's license. I found McCain to be his usual incoherent self. He attacked Obama for being elequent and using words because his lack of coherent policy defies description.

[Anna DeMarinis]

I concur on the debate outcome. As for the pledge not to run negative ads, McCain would do the honorable thing and not permit negative ads by his campaign and by the many conservative 527 groups. On the other hand, while Obama might keep his personal campaign's ads clean, the liberal 527's would continue to make deceitful ads about McCain/Palin with a nod and a wink from Obama. It would be a net loss for McCain. He is an honorable man but Obama is not.

By the way, since when is making a truthful statement about a candidate negative campaigning? Like Obama's support of infanticide in IL? That's a true statement, the record proves it. That's not negative campaigning; that's telling the truth. Obama's support of ACORN ($800K, training, mentoring) and its drive to corrupt our voting system through fraudulent voter registrations and actual votes? That's the truth. Obama's terrible judgment and radical (socialist) ideology, as evidenced by his long-time relationships with Rev. I-hate-white-America Wright, Bill Ayers and his equally radical wife Bernadine Dohrn, the crook Rezko who made him a sweeheart property deal, and many others? That's the truth, too. If that's negative campaigning, I say keep it going.