3 posts tagged “age”
Senator Obama’s Medical records were released today saying he is in excellent health. I suppose that that is in response to Senator McCain’s twelve hundred page medical report that concluded he was in good health also.
I have been wondering how you can have a twelve hundred page medical record that only represents a few years and have it say that you are in excellent health. I personally believe that Senator McCain seems fit as can be, but I didn’t have a question about his health until I heard the size of his medical records and some of the ailments that had come out in the brief review of them that had been done.
I now have questions about any of these medical records and the public stamp of approval where some doctor or group of doctors say the person is in excellent health. What is there about Senator Obama’s records that the “spin” doctors are not telling us? Are there cancerous growth that were removed? Were there major surgeries and reoccurring conditions? What does this public declaration of perfect health really mean?
I suppose that the question is not if a doctor who happens to be a supporter thinks you are healthy enough to be president. As a voter, I suppose the real question is; are there things in your medical records that I would not think leaves you healthy enough to be president.
This whole medical records thing, from both camps is simply showmanship as the whole thing is misleading and subjective. The facts are not really being presented in the few hour the media had to look at John McCain’s medical records. I also think that comparing the medical records of two people with such a gap in age is a little unfair and possibly unethical. It is at the least a little rude. I sure wish the election could stick to at least a majority of actual issues and useful facts instead of this nonsense.
Today Senator Barack Obama was parading around like he had just won an Olympic gold medal. He was in the public and on television beginning a media blitz. But, what are the other two candidates from the major parties doing?
Senator Hillary Clinton’s camp was busy writing a letter to Senator Obama. What, was she finally going to bow out gracefully? Of course not!
It begins with pleasantries such as things about what an historic and exciting campaign it has been and so on (the sound you just heard was the sound of me sticking my finger in my mouth mimicking what it looks like when one gags one’s self). Then comes the shovel and the shoveling. Then comes some dribble about the principles of the party being that citizens should be allowed to vote and that those votes should be counted. This letter goes on and on and sounds so silly and insincere that I can hardly stand to read it. This letter is addressed to a P.O. Box and is to Senator Obama.
Here is what really happened: The letter is an attempt to generate some kind of good press with all of the bad press Senator Clinton is getting right now. The Hillary Clinton camp distributed the letters publicly, long before it ever could possibly reach the P.O. Box or hands of Senator Obama. The wording of the letter is clearly not intended to persuade Senator Obama to do anything, the intention obviously a publicity stunt. The worst part is even without all of the details you probably assumed all of this on your own.
This whole stunt seems a little desperate and childish doesn’t it.
Dear Senator Clinton’
We can all hear, just say whatever you want to say to the senator and to us out loud. What’s with the stupid letter?
Wishing you would drop out to remain respected;
Alethinos Paradoxos
P.S. I think it may be time to bow out gracefully, you are starting to seem desperate and you are beginning to look more like a sore looser than a great and determined political mind.
Wow, maybe her letter is not so bad after all, that feels pretty good. This letter writing thing is okay. Which leads me to the next tasty tidbit.
The next question? Drum-roll please?
The question is: “What is the Senator John McCain camp doing?”
Answer: “Writing letters to Senator Obama, of course.”
Next we get news of a letter from a certain Mark Salter. Author, coauthor of books with Senator McCain, and long time employee of John McCain.
Let’s backtrack a little.
In an interview earlier, Senator Obama said that Senator McCain had “lost his bearings.” This explains why “Mark Salter, Senior Advisor” (exactly as his name appeared on the letter) starting by saying something about this being an attempt to point to Senator McCain’s age. When I heard this my first thoughts were: “Is Mr. Salter, “Senior Advisor,” implying that the only people who “loose their way” are people who are old. I can honestly say that I did not even consider age when I heard the comment.
The letter attempts to condemn those sorts of attempts to say things that elude to something that you cannot say directly, but if you can get into the minds of voters will affect how they vote. I agree totally.
Then it happened. By “then,” I mean in the same letter to Senator Obama. Mr. Salter goes on to say that Senator Obama is specially protected by the media and the public because he has a “protective barrier” which “declaring serious limits to the questions, discussion and debate in this race.” Hold that thought…
Then comes a couple of paragraphs about “Hamas” and how the political adviser to the leader of Hamas thinks Senator Obama could bring change and would make a good president. The “kicker” comes with the statement, “The McCain campaign has never suggested that Senator Obama supports Hamas' agenda, but…” Did you notice what word I stopped at. Senator McCain may not, but clearly his “Senior Advisor” is about to.
Then he goes on to evoke the names of every scary person on the planet only leaving out “Freddy Kruger” and “Jason” probably because they do not really exist. He used the names of “Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” “North Korea's Kim Jong II, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Raul Castro” in discussing who Senator Obama has stated he meet with to try to make deals with our enemies.
Okay, have you been keeping score?
1. Senator Obama has something about him that makes him especially protected from questions, discussion, and debate. What exactly is that something he is getting at?
2. Senator McCain or his camp would never try to say that Senator Obama supports Hamas (is this a good place to type the letters “LOL”). Why then does the word “Hamas” appear five times in six successive sentences. Hmmmm?
3. Also, I cannot see any hidden attempts to bring up the past rumor that Senator Obama is secretly Muslim here.
4. Then came all the scary names: “Iran,” “North Korea,” “Kim Jong,” and “Hugo Chavez.” No hidden messages here.
Let’s see, why would Senator Obama get a special “protective barrier” around himself that nobody else gets. Hmmmm, what’s different about Senator Obama? Wait a minute? Could it be? I think Mr. Salter, senior advisor to Senator McCain may have just pulled out the race card and slammed it on the table.
What about evoking such names as “Hamas” and “Hugo Chavez,” could that be the fear card. Oh, how childish the Clinton and McCain camps have become.
It is good to know that we may have found the lesser of the evils; at least Senator Obama would not sink to this level. Writing a silly letter, disguised as a letter directed at talking some sense into another candidate, hoping the public will hear about it and be swayed by its hidden messages.
Oh my, how not true that is. Senator Obama’s camp responded to Senator McCain’s letter with a short response.
Beginning with “Clearly, losing one's bearings has no relation to age…” the response takes a turn to the retaliatory. There are descriptive words like “bizarre rant,” “distract,” and “attack..” Talk about a third George Bush term, about continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies, and failed strategy in Iraq. Then there’s “it's not the kind of campaign John McCain has promised the American people that he would run.”
Are these children and their playmates really the best candidates we can drum up from this entire country? Come on! All these people and there is not one more, somewhere in all these people that is better than these three?
Is this what any of these three would look like as president? It would be like putting a four year old in the Whitehouse as president.
I see that in looking for the lesser evil, we are going to have to dig real deep.
If you watch, listen to, or read the commentaries on the primaries taking place every couple of weeks, the news has drifted into a public battle of race, age, and gender. I have been struck by the amount of news that basically states that Senator Hillary Clinton is winning over middle class, whites (the exact words that the media seems to be comfortable using), older “white” voters and is campaigning to win over women. The other side of the coin is that Senator Barack Obama is winning over African-American voters (in the media known as “black voters”) and new, young voters.
This race may not be what has split the party, but no matter how you think it got there, I think it is safe to say that, the party is split and it is being made obvious to the whole planet.
The last few days of news has brought lots of stories and discussion about the possibility that events of this primary season are negatively affecting the party as a whole. Some say that the events of the last few months are not negatively affecting the party. Again, that may or may not be the case, but the party has a huge negative point at this minute: The party is divided.
I have been befuddled by how comfortable the media has been in reducing the campaigns to the group that seems to vote for the candidates. Now we can all think of Sen. Clinton as the candidate of middleclass “white males” and “older white” voters while Sen. Obama as the candidate of African Americans and new voters. But, in thinking about it, although these facts are uncomfortable, they are true and this is news.
The problem is not the reporting, the problem is that the Democrats are comfortable with this as a whole. It does not matter if the party split yesterday, over this primary season, or ten years ago, it is still split and the gap between the different factions is growing.
The problem has the potential to move from a large crack in the party to a completely broken party in the near future.
If Sen. Obama wins, the middleclass white males will feel disenfranchised and may not be in as much of a hurry to vote for him simply because he is a Democrat.
If Sen. Clinton wins, by the overturning of the popular vote by superdelegates, or by getting the states that Sen. Obama did not campaign in to count, a large part of the African American community will feel cheated by the candidate that represents middleclass, “white” America. Has the party not thought through how overriding the popular vote of the people or including the votes of states that the first African American candidate did not campaign in (in accordance with instructions from the party) would speak to the African American populous.
In polls the voters have made it clear that if their respective candidate did not win, they may vote for a Republican, Independent, or at the least no longer affiliate themselves with the Democrats.
Both middleclass “white” and the “black” voters are major demographics that have been the base of the party for the past few years. One of these groups is likely to be alienated in the next few months. Then what? How about the young voters that are voting for the first time? Alienate them and you have succeeded in alienating the future!
I suppose the party has counted on being to get the two candidates coming together after some sort of solution is reached and running together as presidential and vice-presidential candidates. This would be the case normally, but this current unusually prolonged primary season and the nature of the “firsts” represented in the candidates, has allowed more time for voters to get their heart set on their candidate and to foster more dislike for the opponent.
The end of the party seems to be coming faster than the end of the primaries. If I were a Democrat (and not a complete independent) I would think that this has to stop now, because this one presidency is not worth risking the destruction of the party. As an independent that thinks the party system is broken, I think if the one party explodes in front of the entire planet it will force the government and the country as a whole to look at revamping the party system.
