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Old August 25th, 2008, 11:57 PM posted to rec.outdoors.fishing.fly
Tom Littleton
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Posts: 1,741
Default And speaking of the, um, "arts"...


wrote in message
...
You ever been to George County, MS? It's pretty hard to get more
amongst the folks than there - you got Lucedale in the east and Benndale
in the west, and the entire middle is, well, George County, MS...of
course, so is the east and the west...


ok, I think I see a point coming here.....

I disagree with a lot of the above insofar as it'll all get laid
(solely) on the GOP. I think most people don't really _know_ who
"fleeced them" (and really, most such folks were not actually fleeced in
the least, or if they were, they willingly and greedily participated in
causing their own problems - for example, folks who went out and bought
property they should have never bought, much less been allowed to
finance), but they blame it on politicians in general. Look to
Congress' approval rating versus Bush's - Bush ain't winning any
popularity contests, but compared to Congress, he's doing pretty well.

IAC, what I think you're seeing is more of a "who's the least bad"
rather than "who's the better choice." And frankly, I don't see either
Obama or McCain as the clear choice for "Joe Sixpack," which ever way
they feel.


As is often the case, we can easily agree to disagree, but I see that you
aren't really arguing my key point. Which is:
If you think the working public, as a whole, doesn't react MUCH more
viscerally to John McCain losing track of his houses, compared to some
esoteric BS about convention transportation, you have lost touch. As I've
stated, consistently, one of the things that frightens me, looking at the
longer view, is an America pulling apart rich from poor, with no gradation.
Such situations, historically, lead to either repression or revolution, and
I wish neither on my descendants.
For me, the questions this election are simple:
1.Can Obama pull together the best and brightest in the nation to attack a
multitude of problems we face, and undo a host of problems created in the
past 8 years(mainly due to a disdain by Republicans for intelligence, in
deference to ideologic purity)?
2. Can Obama use the force of his personality to pull the nation together,
post-election, to develop consensus on the host of common interests held in
the nation, and move forward as a nation?
3. Does Obama truly understand the problems, and show the willingness to
take advice in order to solve them(that is what a true Executive does, is it
not?)?

my answer to all the above is yes. I am convinced of that.
Could John McCain do the same? Perhaps, but I have grave doubts. His age
leaves him woefully out of touch with anything close to cutting edge
thought. His focus on the military point of view leaves him myopic regarding
most other social and economic matters(party, he admits as much). His
temperment has, at times, been shown to be violently confrontational, when
challenged. Finally, to secure his nomination, he has sold out to some of
the same folks that brought us this divisive sack o **** we call US
politics, at present. Perhaps, Obama's key strength, for me at least, is
that he took down one of the other divisive centers(the Clinton camp), and
owes the hard right nor the traditional Dem elite very little.
.....as a friend of mine says, YMMV,
Tom