ThePoliticsReport.com

With Election Day upon us, it seems like there couldn’t possibly be a fresh argument to make for either candidate. But I think I have one.

The policy differences between Barack Obama and John McCain are clear and stark. It seems to me that, at this point, if a voter is choosing based on issues, it’s a no-brainer which of the two is closer to his/her values.

And for voters choosing based on personality (that is, who they want to have a beer with, or who has a certain skin color), not much can be done to change their minds.

But there is one valid factor that has not been discussed much, and that goes beyond issues of policy or philosophy. We have watched Obama and McCain run their campaigns for nearly two years. Read the rest

Election day is less than 24 hours away and this Halloween weekend, we ran into two different election posters that seek to get your vote by dressing the candidates up in a different skin color.

The first, sent to us by a reader and designed by Tor Myhren who is Chief Creative Officer for Grey Advertising in New York, asks you to imagine what the issues would be if Obama were white and John McCain were black.

The second, which we found posted on Houston street in Manhattan last night, imagines Obama as a cholo and offers him as the best candidate for “El Presidenté” (with an inappropriate accent mark. Whoops.)

We did a little googling and found out it was designed by a hair stylist named David Cordova in Los Angeles. He said in an interview that his motivation was getting hispanics to vote for Obama. Both are traffic stopping to be sure. Read the rest

1. George W. Bush

2. The Iraq war

3. The economic implosion this fall.

4. Without the national security card McCain couldn’t win.

5. Hillary Clinton made Barack Obama a better candidate than he ever would have been on his own.

6. McCain picked Sarah Palin without vetting her, and believed she was interchangeable with Hillary Clinton.

7. McCain and his team bought the notion of the mythical anti Obama Hillary block and doubted that Hillary Clinton, along with Bill Clinton, would bring her supporters home (in droves). Read the rest

Barack Obama radiated confidence and John McCain displayed the grit of an underdog Monday as the presidential rivals reached for the finish line of a two-year marathon with a burst of campaigning across battlegrounds from the Atlantic Coast to Arizona.

“We are one day away from change in America,” said Obama, a Democrat seeking to become the first black president _ a dream not nearly as distant on election eve as it once was.

McCain, too, promised to turn the page of the era of George W. Bush and said he sensed an upset in the making.

“This momentum, this enthusiasm convinces me we’re going to win tomorrow,” McCain told a raucous evening rally in Henderson, Nev., part of a seven-state campaign sprint that was to end in Arizona early Tuesday. Read the rest

Sell Obamas now. They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy. If he becomes president in two days, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year.

From the moment four years ago when I first heard of Barack Obama and read his youthful memoir, I sensed a president in the making.

Like the young Nelson Mandela in South Africa, he seemed to hold the aura of incipient national leadership. His range of sympathies, his oratory, his intelligence, his energy marked him out from the run. His embodiment of the American dream was astonishing.

Today the outside world, much of it with a direct and painful interest in American policy, wants Obama to win, by leads of 20 to 60 per cent. Read the rest

In today’s White House press briefing, spokesperson Dana Perino struggled to name the President’s major accomplishments in light of tomorrow’s election. “We have learned from mistakes. … So a lot of things have improved,” she said. Perino complained about Bush’s abysmal approval ratings, claiming they are like a high school popularity contest:

And this President was tested by a lot of different issues and I think he’s taken those issues head on, and we can be proud of how we’ve addressed them. Everybody would like to be popular. You can all remember that back in high school, everyone really wanted to be popular. Some of us just weren’t. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have principles and values that you stay true to. And that’s what this President has done, and it’s what he’s taught a lot of us, including me.

Read the rest

Yesterday, the McCain campaign released an online advertisement that responded to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) criticism of its tax policy as “making a virtue of selfishness.” The ad — which featured a yellowed picture of a scowling Obama — misspelled the word “virtue.” Here is a screenshot of the “virture” ad:

“VIRTURE” (11/2/08)

Read the rest

Throughout this historic campaign season, the economy has without a doubt been the most dominant issue on the minds of American voters. Once the turbulent markets have subsided, we must continue to support policies that will return purchasing power to those hit hardest by our current crisis: America’s middle class workers.

While bailouts, regulation and taxes have dominated much of the national discussion, there is also an intense battle being waged over a critical piece of legislation that will revitalize our struggling middle class and get our economy back on track.

This battle over the Employee Free Choice Act is one that began well before our current crises, but which has gained new intensity as voters look beyond the political rhetoric and more closely examine the candidates’ positions on issues affecting the middle class.

Reacting against public momentum and the real potential of a pro-worker President and majority Senate, anti-union corporations have engaged in a well-funded attack to mislead the public on the Employee Free Choice Act. Read the rest

Worries in the west regarding the global economy went up to a new stage when Russia, Iran and Qatar announced that they were going to create a gas cartel. The decision of the three countries raised concerns and was criticized by the European commission, which considers that the cartel could increase prices on gas due to the fact that it would gain control of 60 percent of all gas reserves on the planet.

The chairman of Gazprom, which is world’s largest extractor of natural gas and the biggest company in Russia, Alexey Miller, stated that the three companies were creating a “big gas troika”. He mentioned that the decision to create the carted would mean increase in prices for hydrocarbons.

“We are united by the world’s largest gas reserves, common strategic interests and, which is of great importance, high cooperation potential in tripartite projects. We have agreed to hold regular – three to four times a year – meetings of the gas G3 to discuss the crucial issues of mutual interest,” said Miller. Read the rest

First, there was the angry man who told John McCain to hit Barack Obama “where it hurts.” Then came the woman who called the Democratic nominee “an Arab.”

And don’t forget the man who stood up before a packed crowd and said he was “scared” of an Obama presidency — nevermind the racially tinged cat calls and rounds of boos from McCain’s other gymnasium crowds.

The town hall format was supposed be the Republican nominee’s favorite campaign forum, highlighting his shoot-from-the-hip style, his broad knowledge on a slew of issues and his irreverent wit. He loved it so much that he challenged Obama to a string of town hall debates.

But with their potential for amplifying unscripted outbursts and attention-diverting disasters, the microphones at high school gymnasiums and basketball arenas across the swing states have gone silent during the final stretch of the presidential campaign. Read the rest