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[Dooly]

Is that Putin picture a parody or a real campaign ad?  Neither answer would actually surprise me.

[Arc]

[Brentai]

Latest polls have Obama up 6-7 points over McCain, with about 30 more electoral votes for whatever the hell that's worth.

Does not account for the second, second coming of the Great Depression of course.

[Thad]

Latest polls have Obama up 6-7 points over McCain, with about 30 more electoral votes for whatever the hell that's worth.

The electoral votes are worth a hell of a lot more than the national polls.

[Classic]

Have electoral college projections from these polls for "swing states" actually been accurate this far back?

[Thad]

Probably not.  People kept trying to tell me in '04 that Arizona was a swing state.  I laughed at them.

Now people try to tell me it is a swing state THIS year and I don't laugh so much as feel sad.  I mean, I think there's got to be some level of denial in EVERY election, but seriously, MCCAIN IS GOING TO TAKE HIS HOME STATE, GUYS.

[Arc]

[Mongrel]

That needs a Zardoz phtoshop so bad.

[Arc]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFOTC30RhHY

[Mongrel]

I'm with Grandpa there.

[Thad]

NYT: McCain's pulling his campaign out of Michigan.

[Arc]

I'm with Grandpa there.

If it weren't for Eisenhower, a road trip from coast to coast would still take a month.

The interstate highway system is brilliant for commerce and all, but take a closer look at it. It's basically a military transport system. Early in his career, Eisenhower was charged with driving a convoy of trucks from the east coast to Fort Ord, California. It took almost two months. Of course, America had a massive rail system that could move men and materiel around the country fairly quickly, but rail systems are fragile. Without a network of highways, you could effectively cut America in half in a strategic sense with a squadron of WWII bombers by hitting railheads and bridges. Eisenhower knew that and immediately set about diversifying America's transport modes. This was not popular with the then-powerful railroad industry. In fact, it spelled their eventual downfall.

Would that happen now? Fuck no. No elected official in America would dare dropkick an industry like that. And even if he wanted to, his party wouldn't allow him to for fear of losing campaign contributions. You could argue that at some point about a month into sweating a cursing his way across the dirt and mud of Flyoverland, Eienhower thought to himself: "If I am ever elected President, I'm going to drop a million miles of cement all over this fucker.", but what he did was pretty outstanding.

Also, telling the military that they couldn't have every toy they wanted right in the middle of the Red Scare was incredibly ballsy. The only reason Eisenhower got away with it was because he was fucking worshipped, but still, it took guts. That's the thing about Eisenhower that most people don't get. They equate him with the true birth of a nuclear-based military, but Eisenhower shitcanned a fuckload of projects.

It helped immensely that he had the credibility of running WWII. That's what gave him the cache to do what he did. But to step back a bit, he managed the greatest military campaign in modern history then helped shepherd one of the greatest economic boom periods in history. He was basically a social progressive, an economic pragmatist, and he came from pacifist roots to boot. Basically, he knew his shit and no one could question him on it. Going over the YouToobs last month, I found this exchange of Kennedy asking his advice during the Cuban Missible Crisis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkzjodKAQhA

[Büge]

Eisenhower knew that and immediately set about diversifying America's transport modes. This was not popular with the then-powerful railroad industry. In fact, it spelled their eventual downfall.

I thought what killed railroads was GM buying up huge tracts of tracks and then dismantling them.

[Arc]

General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Firestone Tire, and Mack Truck joined together to destroy city trolley systems, and eventually bought up tracks within 83 cities, replacing them with buses by their puppet corporation, National City Lines. This was done over the course of 25 to 35 years, but was not concentrated on statewide or countrywide rail lines.

[Metal Slime]

McCain's strategy of being only negative has failed against Obama. His new strategy? GO EVEN MORE NEGATIVE.

[Thad]

That's pretty much the Republican strategy for everything.  "Well, the economy's in the shitter.  We need to lower taxes and decrease regulation!"

[Spaco]

When politicians use negative campaigning, voters get tired of it and are less likely to show up at the polls. Less people at the polls equals better margins for McCain.

[Catloaf]

When politicians use negative campaigning, voters get tired of it and are less likely to show up at the polls.

Isn't that only when both sides are using negative campaigning?  Obama's doing nothing but super positive campaigning from what I've seen.  The only negative things I've seen from his campaign recently is "things suck, so I'm voting in hopes that things won't suck so much in the future."  And that isn't what people mean by negative campaigning.

[Thad]

When politicians use negative campaigning, voters get tired of it and are less likely to show up at the polls.

Uh, 2004 -- remember that one?  The one with all the negative campaigning? -- had the highest turnout of any election in American history.

[Mongrel]

McCain's strategy of being only negative has failed against Obama. His new strategy? GO EVEN MORE NEGATIVE.

This is one of the better things he could do... for Obama.