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Oh please! Did you not hear his slogan "Change you can believe in"? The entire foundation of that slogan was an attempt to convince people he wasn't a Washington insider.

That you interpreted it as such doesn't mean that's what it meant.

Indeed, I don't see how you could reasonably have believed it meant that. How can a federal senator and a many-term federal senator possibly base their campaign on the idea that they're "outsiders" to the federal government?

"Change" doesn't mean "outsider", no matter how often McCain tried to say otherwise.

He'd look pretty ridiculous saying "Vote for change by voting for a Washington insider", now wouldn't he?

He'd look pretty ridiculous if he believed that change could only come from the outside.

CBS Evening News with Katie Coric pretends to be "balanced" in its coverage of events for each candidate, but did nearly nothing about the "breaking news" of Obama's suggestion to kill the American coal industry

Research can be fun. Not only can you correctly spell the name of the newscasters you decry, you can also find out what the candidates said, rather than what somebody told you they said. The SF Chronicle reported this in early 2008, and even had the full audio up for months. You can still find the audio via the Wayback machine. Here is the money quote:

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted"

This quote was hardly news, and it was not even particularly controversial news until Governor Palin attempted to make it an issue. Senator Obama stated that coal plants can be built, but plants that pollute above a threshold will have to pay for excess pollutants. The US has been doing it for SO2 since about 1990, and there was been an exchange in Chicago for CO2 since 2003. It is called Emissions trading, sometimes called a Cap and Trade system. Perhaps Governor Palin simply did not read that John McCain also supports such a system.

or his association with Bill Ayers.

The press hit on Ayers quite a bit during the primary season, to the point of public exhaustion -- certainly past the point where people cared reading about it. Why would they drill it again during the fall campaign without any new information? And, before you say there was no new information because the media did not dig, take a moment to examine that logic:

1) The media reported X in the summer.
2) The media was biased because they reported no new information beyond X in the fall.
3) There was no new information beyond X found because the media was biased.

It is too bad there is no HTML <circle> tag to make clear the logic here. A far more reasonable explanation of #2/#3 is that there was nothing new to discuss above and beyond what was hashed over in the primaries. Or maybe there was, the mainstream media suppressed it, and outlets like Fox News simply lacked the resources or basic competence to dig themselves, or they too are part of the conspiracy. Possibly, but the Null hypothesis applies to social studies as well as hard science.

Yet they dove (and continue to dive into) the trivial issue of Sarah Palin's clothing...

I frankly do not care how much Palin spent on clothes, and I agree with you the media spent far too much time attacking her on trivialities, when there were more important issues to discuss.

ignoring that Hillary Clinton spent even more on the clothing she wore during her campaign this past year (or had it donated by various famous designers).

When you make a claim, substantiate it. For good or for ill, news outlets reported $150,000 on clothes. It was out of the ordinary for a high-office candidate, and so arguably newsworthy, and and they had data, so they could print it. Without data, they have to shut up, or print am embarrassing retraction. You, on the other hand, assert something as fact without even a 10 second google search. And it is the other side that is biased? Puh-leeze.

Bias is unavoidable. If you lack the judgement to see it in a given news outlet, you owe it to yourself to seek out many competing sources. T

ve" when Obama was talking about the fact that McCain would tax healthcare (ie, telling the truth)

Actually, the taxing healthcare remark was and still is a misrepresentation of McCain's healthcare bill. I would try to explain it ,but it would be better to just go here for the facts: McCain's Healthcare Plan.

No. I also called you a troll. You seem to want a chronological timeline of what Obama will do in advance of his presidency, with legislation included. I can't debate the future with you. I'm not a psychic. You should also take a gander at John McCain's issue site:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

I think you'll find that it is written at the same depth (I would contend it actually explains less, but that might be my political leanings). Here's Ron Paul's website for the sake of completeness:

http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/

The cap & trade system Obama's talking about is marginally different from the one McCain supports and has supported in the past. From McCain's own site... Personally, I'm a way bigger fan of nuclear over coal, since it's so much cleaner.

And, your link to Obama on home schooling says nothing either way on Obama's opinion on home school.

If I were going to judge, I'd say you've done close to zero homework on your various stances. There's a whole big internet out there which should allow anyone with even a slight interest to hear multiple perspectives and just about any issues. To choose not to suggests to me willful ignorance.

Both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama agree that education needs to be thoroughly reformed.

Who needs education aimed at making the students cram for tests only for the ego of the schools? What good is it if your child forgets everything after them? That doesn't help at all. This, to me, is the core of the issue. Rankings. As an aside, No Child Left Behind makes extensive use of those, to determine which schools should get additional funding.

What I'd like to see is a school system that doesn't focus so much on rankings, fudging scores to get a higher one, pressuring the underprivileged and underscoring to drop out in the process. Those people deserve undiscriminating education too, and equal access to education is something both candidates advocate.

The parents who got complacent will (hopefully) get going with this one, too! Choice quotes from each candidate:

McCain Parental involvement is critical to the success of any pre-K program. Current federal programs will be focused on educating parents on the basics of preparing their children for a productive educational experience. These programs will place an emphasis on reading and numbers skills, as well as nutrition and general health. Reinforcing to parents the fundamental importance of reading to their children as a primary way of expanding their vocabulary and preparing their young minds to learn will be emphasized at every level.

Obama (PDF warning) Investing in early childhood education during the infant and toddler years is particularly critical. Though parents remain the first teachers for our children, an increasing number of infants and toddlers spend significant parts of their day with caretakers other than their parents. In addition to ensuring that child care is accessible and affordable, we must do more to ensure that it is high quality and provides the early education experiences our children need.

Both agree that a child's education starts with the parents' involvement in it. It's common sense to some, I'll admit, but:

Obama Research shows that early experiences shape whether a child's brain develops strong skills for future learning, behavior and success. Without a strong base on which to build, children, particularly disadvantaged children, will be behind long before they reach kindergarten. Investing in early learning also makes economic sense. For every one dollar invested in high quality, comprehensive programs supporting children and families from birth, there is a $7-$10 return to society in decreased need for special education services, higher graduation and employment rates, less crime, less use of the public welfare system, and better health.

The schools have a responsibility in children's education, but then so do the parents! And not just for education, either. Providing healthy food to one's child(ren) is essential to their proper development. Care and affection given to one's child(ren) cannot be replaced by anyone else, and is also essential.

The Govt has a role, but it's not the silver bullet.

(Disclaimer: I'm Canadian, but I'm quite interested in this election.)

Right now, for most Americans, their employer decides, who their health-insurer will be, which, by extensions, decides, who their doctors will be.

McCain's plan is to give kill that setup for good by removing the tax-breaks employers currently get for providing it — Obama was right to comment, that McCain's plan would destroy the current arrangements. Where Obama is mistaken (or misleading) is in implying, that would be a bad thing, for some reason. Instead, McCain wants each of us to be free to buy health insurance wherever we want — if we want it. He'll compensate for the loss of health-related tax-break to businesses with tax-credits directly to us, and we'll no longer have to associate changing (or loosing!) a job with changing (or losing) health-care coverage. The Illiberals hate that plan for (I kid you not): leaving the decision-making process up to individuals.

Obama's desire, even if it is not immediately obvious to an untrained eye from his public speeches, is to have a Single-Payer health-plan, where the government will be making the payments, and thus, automatically, the decisions. The current employer-selected plan will die just as surely as in McCain's plan (what Obama does not tell you), but it will be replaced by something far worse, not better.

So, here are the choices:

1. People decide for themselves — as per John McCain.
2. Employers decide for the employees — the current situation.
3. The government decides for everyone — as per Barack Obama.

Make your pick...

Alright, after reading a bit on both their websites, I'm going to try to state the facts and my opinion.

McCain : Actually puts numbers out there on how much you're going to "save" according to your tax bracket. But it's confusing to me how one column is showing a flat tax credit of $5,000 for this and then another column (after factoring something called "Income Tax Liability") showing what you save. He concentrates on guaranteeing me a "Better than Congressman" health care plan when I have no idea in hell what kind of health care they get. He also spends more time talking about Obama's health care plan than his own--which I would prefer to read myself and draw my own conclusions. I guess he focuses more on "net tax benefit" to each tax payer which sounds very enticing from a utilitarian standpoint.

Obama : First off, his health care page has a lot of really bland generic bullshit slurry--quite different from his Iraq withdrawal plan. While he doesn't spend anytime attacking McCain's plan, I don't see how some of these bullets are going to do anything for Health Care. Every talking point sounds good but nowhere do I see a plan of A) how/when this will be implemented or B) what the net effect will really be. For example: "Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees." What is a "catastrophic illness"? Reduce by how much? Who's footing this bill? What percentage is going to the employer Vs the employee? While he offers some lengthy PDFs on his site (that I don't have a lot of time to read), I'm skeptical he has any objective, measurable, attainable goals.

So that's my quick take on this topic. Honestly, I'm not impressed with either candidate. I give a nod to McCain for actually throwing some numbers out there and wonder where the $2,500 per family figure is coming from in Obama's promises. This isn't going to factor into my voting because the roots of this. I grew up on MinnesotaCare so I'm probably going to lean toward the plan that makes the most of providing basic health care to those who can't afford it. My parents never could have afforded vaccinations and I don't think I ever went to the hospital aside from that. Others aren't so lucky. Call me biased or misinformed but I don't see either candidate really doing anything creative/ingenious with health care to the point of it being worth arguing over.

Horse****. They've both addressed the national debt. http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/fiscal/ObamaPolicy_Fiscal.pdf http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/reform.htm

Now if we could just clean out the assholes who caused this current economic meltdown that started at Freddie and Fannie.... Sens Dodd (Banking Cmmt Chairman) and Obama (#2 lifetime money take in only four years), Rep Frank (Chief House cheerleader for subprime lending while fucking the guy in charge of subprime lending for close to decade while overseeing em), etc.

Wrong. The CRA may have encouraged more lending to people on the low end of the pay scale, but it certainly isn't responsible for lenders handing loans out like halloween candy to anyone and their dog, with no proof of employment, collateral, etc. Banks aren't that stupid. They believed they'd make that money back one way or another. Either the person pays, or they're insured. That's one big area where things went wrong. Remember AIG? Remember credit default swaps? Remember who deregulated those so that AIG and the banks didn't have to disclose any info about them, and AIG didn't have to maintain a capital reserve to cover them like any normal insurance company would? Remember who else supported this?

And that's just the beginning too. There are a lot of factors involved. It's just stupid to try to point to one thing and pin everything on it. There were horrible assumptions made about the real estate market, serious problems with the ratings models used for these securities, huge increases in speculation, and problems with trading software that helped to compound the problems. And that's just some of what we know now. There's probably a lot more factors that we'll learn about over the next year or so too.

There are many secular ideologies/idealogs that can be equally as oppressive as religious ones. For example this or this or this. (oblig.)

What if someone accidentally registered info@johnmccain.com? [It's the go-to direct address for McCain's contact page]

Why, many people would applaud such a person as a hero.

What if someone accidentally registered info@johnmccain.com? [It's the go-to direct address for McCain's contact page]

Why, many people would applaud such a person as a hero.

What if someone accidentally registered info@johnmccain.com?

[It's the go-to direct address for McCain's contact page]

What if someone accidentally registered info@johnmccain.com?

[It's the go-to direct address for McCain's contact page]

Actually, this video was previously posted to the JohnMcCain.com website. I can't find it now and that may be due to the DMCA notice or what have you, but I think the reason for trying to post it to YouTube may be more of wanting people to watch it when searching YouTube for political videos.

Believe it or not some people are more likely to watch a video they randomly come across on YouTube rather than actually go to a campaigns website.

Here's one of many videos on the JohnMcCain.com site. The video that got the DMCA takedown was on a similar page.
http://www.johnmccain.com/videolanding/documentary.htm

Before you reply: "WTF?!" McCain has a decent policy on our space program, and has supported it while in Congress. This is one area where he's not like Bush.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

Those aren't the hard questions. Those (aside from the pot) are the questions that are so basic they have whole pages on their website outlining their position. If you pay any attention to politics at all, you would have already known the answers.

"Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."

Barack is completely behind net neutrality, where as McCain is not, but don't let the facts get in the way of the way you try and put FUD out there.

So your post is essentially accurate but do yourself a favor when arguing, especially if your point is valid and treat both sources equally. For instance link to the McCain site for your argument if you're going to link to Obama's. Don't link to the primary source on one and weighted blog analysis in your favor on the other. The relevant quote from the McCain site would be...

When Regulation Is Warranted, John McCain Acts. John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like "net-neutrality," but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices. John McCain has always believed the governmentâ(TM)s role must be rooted in protecting consumers. He championed laws that penalized fraudulent marketing practices, protected kids from harmful Internet content, secured consumer privacy, and sought to minimize spam. When businesses struggled to assess the legal role of electronic signatures, John McCain led legislative efforts to ensure that these Innovation Age signatures were legally sufficient so that e-commerce could thrive. His record reflects the careful balance between protecting the essential elements of the Internet and securing the Internet as a safe tool of commerce, education and entertainment for our citizens. Offering simple common sense solutions to real problems is at the core of the McCainâ(TM)s innovation agenda.

This can be found at his page on technology

All that said...you are more or less correct.

And if you think you will get *any* change from an old man who has been in Office 30 years...

In the past two years, Senator and Mrs. McCain have contributed $340,323 to charitable causes, according to their tax returns (they file separately). Senator McCain's giving constituted about 28 percent of his income for each of those two years.

From 2000 through 2004, Senator Obama and his wife contributed less than $3,500 a year in charitable donations -- about 1 percent of their annual earnings (they were paying off student loans according to their spokesman). In 2006, however, that total jumped to to $60,307 (6.1 percent) and to $240,370 (5.8 percent) in 2007. (Sorry, couldn't find their tax returns on his website - anybody got that link?)

Here's the numbers for last year:

McCain earned $396,527, paid $118,660 (30.7%) in taxes,and gave $105,467 (27.3%) to charity.
Obama earned $4,139,965, paid $1,396,772 (33.7%) in taxes, and gave $240,370 (5.8%) to charity

I'm not criticizing either candidate here, just pointing out the facts.

That The Anointed One and Captain America are both involved in this...

It's funny you should mention the energy policy thing. You really don't hear much of anything from the mainstream media other than who wants to drill ANWR and who doesn't.

It's McCain's fault that he doesn't promote his energy policy more. If you check out his energy policy web site, he first talks about domestic oil and gas, but then he goes on to talk about all kinds of green energy promotion ideas. Including, yes, a $300 million prize for development of battery technologies for a "Plug-in hybrid" and fully electric automobiles.

So, once again, I see little difference between these two. They are both globalists, and will sell out America in the interest of the New World Order.

Stop spreading lies.

"John McCain Will Protect The Creative Industries From Piracy. The entertainment industry is both a vital sector of the domestic economy and among the largest U.S. exporters. While the Internet has provided tremendous opportunity for the creators of copyrighted works, including music and movies, to distribute their works around the world at low cost, it has also given rise to a global epidemic of piracy. John McCain supports efforts to crack down on piracy, both on the Internet and off."

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/cbcd3a48-4b0e-4864-8be1-d04561c132ea.htm

Quite possible, and the McCain camp is still trying to figure out what Linux is, and if it is a threat to national security.

It's a shame to interrupt this little McCain hatefest, but for the record the media at http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Multimedia/ seems to work just fine on my Linux workstation.

I think considering his experience he has an idea of what Linux is.
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/cbcd3a48-4b0e-4864-8be1-d04561c132ea.htm

me@LiMac:~$ lynx -head -dump http://www.barackobama.com/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:02 GMT
Server: PWS/1.3.22
X-Px: ht dal-btn-n15
ETag: "74ea62-af3-48b339d1"
Content-Length: 1220
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Last-Modified: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:01:37 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=1446
Expires: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:59:08 GMT
Connection: close

me@LiMac:~$ lynx -head -dump http://www.johnmccain.com/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 106909
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Location: http://www.johnmccain.com/Home.htm
Last-Modified: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:41 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
ETag: W/"18c861ab137c91:280"
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:59 GMT
Connection: close

You can also try: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

Most signs point to the fact that McCain hates Linux, not Obama.

me@LiMac:~$ lynx -head -dump http://www.barackobama.com/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:02 GMT
Server: PWS/1.3.22
X-Px: ht dal-btn-n15
ETag: "74ea62-af3-48b339d1"
Content-Length: 1220
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Encoding: gzip
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Last-Modified: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:01:37 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=1446
Expires: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:59:08 GMT
Connection: close

me@LiMac:~$ lynx -head -dump http://www.johnmccain.com/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 106909
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Location: http://www.johnmccain.com/Home.htm
Last-Modified: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:41 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
ETag: W/"18c861ab137c91:280"
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:59 GMT
Connection: close

You can also try: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

Most signs point to the fact that McCain hates Linux, not Obama.

Let me tell you first what I won't do. I won't hand over my energy policy to my vice president, without knowing necessarily what he's doing. I wont have my vice president engineering my foreign policy for me. The buck will stop with me, because I will be the president. My vice president, also by the way my vice president also will be a member of the executive branch, he won't be one of these 4th branches of government where he thinks he's above the law. But here's what I do want from my vice president, I want somebody who has integrity, who's in politics for the right reasons, I want somebody who is independent. Somebody who is able to say to me, 'you know what, Mr. President, I think you're wrong on this and here's why' and will give me (applause) who will help me think through major issues and consult with me, would be a key advisor. I want somebody who is capable of being president and who I would trust to be president. That's the first criteria for vice president. And the final thing is I want a [vice] president who shares with me a passion to make the lives of the American people better than they are right now. I want someone who is not in it just because they want to have their name up in lights or end up being president. I want somebody who is mad right now, that people are losing their jobs. And is mad right now that people have seen their incomes decline, and want to rebuild the middle class in this country. That's the kind of person that I want; somebody who in their gut knows where they came from and believes that we have to grow this country from the bottom up.

I apologize if this reduces the number of McCain troll points for somebody interested in getting some McCain campaign schwag.

I added the bold text for emphasis in the Obama quote above.

Another thing: a voting record is useful for evaluating a congresscritter, but not via a simple number. It requires more careful analysis. This is because a congressvarmints will sometimes vote for positions he opposes when the defeat of those positions is assured, but the positions are popular with the congressvarmint's constituents (or the opposite: vote against a position he supports when passage is assured without his vote). And while both members of the House of Representatives and Senators both do that, Senators have yet another trick because of the existence of the filibuster in the Senate. An example is Senator Joe Lieberman, who voted with the Republicans for cloture (i.e., to end the Democratic filibuster) on the nomination of Samuel Alito the Supreme Court. Since it was known that the Republicans had enough votes to rubber-stamp Bush's nomination of Alito, the vote that mattered was the cloture vote. After that, Lieberman cast his vote against confirming Alito, so he could tell the voters in Connecticut, an overwhelmingly Democratic state, that he had voted against Alito. If you were just to look at the confirmation vote, you might think Lieberman had been against confirming Alito, but on the vote that mattered, he voted with the Republicans.

I haven't heard McCain mention anything more solid than calling for drilling and vague promises about alternative energy.

Maybe you should take a look. http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/17671aa4-2fe8-4008-859f-0ef1468e96f4.htm

John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan that will create millions of good American jobs, ensure our nation's energy security, get the government's budget and spending practices in order, and bring relief to American consumers. Click to learn how the McCain Economic Plan will help bring reform, prosperity and peace to America.

Then why has Obama adopted so many of McCain's positions, including on Iraq?

Do you have sources for this, or are you just making it up? Obama's stated position is a 16 month timetable for withdrawal of the main forces. He has had this proposal for months, and it was endorsed by Maliki when Obama visited Iraq before angry noises from Washington forced him to backpedal. McCain's Iraq page has no such timetable, although he started suggesting expedited withdrawal as a possible option after Maliki's announcement undermined his "100 years if necessary" position.

John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan that will create millions of good American jobs, ensure our nation's energy security, get the government's budget and spending practices in order, and bring relief to American consumers. Click to learn how the McCain Economic Plan will help bring reform, prosperity and peace to America. Read More...

Straight Talk Express, here I come!

Our commitment to continuing the human race ranks a little bit higher on the ladder then democracy.

War with Russia = Mutually Assured Destruction

DUH!

Guess we are going to find out.

Obama v. McCain

Obama calls for ceasefire, gets it.
McCain calls for peacekeeping force,also gets it.

http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/kaine-gives-obama-credit-for-russian-ceasefire/ http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainreport/Read.aspx?guid=d33859f1-7f2e-4eef-8ce0-c2f3eb9aa05a

So far, dead even.

Apparently Russia has already given the ceasefire a chance and it didn't work so well for them. President Bush announced a stab at McCain's plan of a peacekeeping force.

My friends in the blogosphere tell me that Ivan will not be able to resist taking shots at those cute Air Force and Navy girls and boys. So we will have "War with Russia".

When we have the "War with Russia" and it results in "Mutually Assured Destruction" I will vote for whatever Obama/Putin/Democrat/Socialist is available. I will also STFU if I am not yet dead.

However, if the war does not result in "Mutually Assured Destruction" I would expect you to think long and hard about those who have sacrificed their lives for your freedom. I would also castigate you to not cast another ballot until you understand the responsibilities of liberty.

No war, we both vote for Ron Paul.

Is it really worth giving up a democratic republic to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction?

Our commitment to continuing the human race ranks a little bit higher on the ladder then democracy.

War with Russia = Mutually Assured Destruction

DUH!

Guess we are going to find out.

Obama v. McCain

Obama calls for ceasefire, gets it.
McCain calls for peacekeeping force,also gets it.

http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/kaine-gives-obama-credit-for-russian-ceasefire/ http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainreport/Read.aspx?guid=d33859f1-7f2e-4eef-8ce0-c2f3eb9aa05a

So far, dead even.

Apparently Russia has already given the ceasefire a chance and it didn't work so well for them. President Bush announced a stab at McCain's plan of a peacekeeping force.

My friends in the blogosphere tell me that Ivan will not be able to resist taking shots at those cute Air Force and Navy girls and boys. So we will have "War with Russia".

When we have the "War with Russia" and it results in "Mutually Assured Destruction" I will vote for whatever Obama/Putin/Democrat/Socialist is available. I will also STFU if I am not yet dead.

However, if the war does not result in "Mutually Assured Destruction" I would expect you to think long and hard about those who have sacrificed their lives for your freedom. I would also castigate you to not cast another ballot until you understand the responsibilities of liberty.

No war, we both vote for Ron Paul.

Is it really worth giving up a democratic republic to avoid Mutually Assured Destruction?

On this page, the second link on the "Talking Points" section:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/relief.htm

we find a list of bullet points like this one:

# John McCain believes we should send a strong message to world markets. Under his plan, the United States will be telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to an end - and the impact will be lower prices at the pump.

The site doesn't explicitly SAY to use them in comments, but it's certainly a strong encouragement. I'd also point out that most of these "talking points", like the one above, say nothing substantive. Weirdly, on the same page he has these talking points:

# John McCain will repeal the 54 cents per gallon tax on imported sugar-based ethanol, increasing competition, and lowering prices of gasoline at the pump.

# John McCain will roll back corn-based ethanol mandates, which are contributing to the rising cost of food.

which are contradictory.

Gee, you are so right. Obama has absolutely nothing else to say about energy. Maybe he should have a plan based on lots of tax credits. After all, that would be nice and socialist.

No doubt Mr. "Vote McCain in 2008!" is looking to score some points with this one.

I'm not saying everything posted here has to be neutral by any means, but geez, this is pretty transparent.

Yeah. It's a pretty shitty thing to do, although, with all the people saying things like "McCain WANTS troops to be in Iraq for 100 years", it's not surprising.

He's trying to manipulate google, sure, but in a more legit way than doing this: warmongering douchebag. The guy in the article is simply promoting 9 specific articles about McCain and suggesting that others link those articles as well to make sure they climb the search results. It's not that different from just passing the links around and telling people to make sure everyone they know reads them. Whereas doing this charming imposter doesn't just get more people to go to a link; it makes a clear association between that link and a phrase denigrating the object of the link.

Here are his income tax returns for the last two years. Maybe you can do the analysis yourself and see if there's something that would support your wild and baseless accusation. You know, because claiming McCain is just trading votes for cash and being corrupt does require a bit of evidence and proof.

I'm waiting...

I anticipate that the online political discourse this year will be even more unreadable than usual.

How on earth anyone could be shocked by this at this point is beyond me. This kind of stuff is fairly benign next to the kind of stuff they do in SECRET. It's when they actually start talking about killing reporters to silence dissent that they REALLY get nasty.

When Mossberg asked if we needed to fix copyright policy, McCain gave a tentative yes: "I think we probably do," to applause from the audience. "But it's got to be carefully thought through--most members of Congress do not understand the complexity of these issues." However, when Mossbrg said that many people think that U.S. patent law is allowing companies to patent existing ideas, and asked McCain if this was a problem on his radar screen, McCain gave such a firm "No!" that it prompted audience laughter.

"I want to focus on the big things," he said.

Stop Tax Shelter Patents by prohibiting the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from issuing patents for "inventions designed to minimize, avoid, defer, or otherwise affect liability for Federal, State, local, or foreign tax"

Hillary's photo gallery requires Flash, so I didn't view it

Obama's site requires Flash. In fact parts of the site require the latest version of Flash.

Giuliani's site uses Flash for most of the photos

McCain makes extensive use of Flash right on his home page. Also, his page on Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity has an out of place </b> tag which confuses Konqueror (version 3.3.2) and causes everything after Ending Pork Barrel Spending to appear bold.

Romney's site is the only one that appears to be designed to take advantage of Flash and provide an alterative to those who don't use it.

Edwards site has an annoying Flash-based advertisement before you can view the home page. I missed it originally because I don't use Flash. He has a variety of audio formats on the site. For some reason he only offers one format at a time. One topic is in WMA while another is in MP3.

Thanks to Netcraft; now we can pick our candidates more easily.
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Windows Server 2003

John Edwards: http://johnedwards.com/ Linux

Barak Obama http://www.barackobama.com/ Linux

Republicans
Rudy Giuliani: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/ Microsoft-IIS/6.0 John McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/ Windows Server 2003 Mitt Romney: http://www.mittromney.com/ Linux

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 20 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

http://johnedwards.com/ - Result: Failed validation / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because on line 341, 358, 371, 384-385, 396, 398, 408, 410 it contained one or more bytes that I cannot interpret as utf-8

http://www.barackobama.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 66 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

http://www.joinrudy2008.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 8 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

http://www.johnmccain.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 95 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

http://www.mittromney.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 22 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict!

If these candidates used their web skills on Federal Websites, they could be exposing themselves to prosecution under the Disabilities Act.
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.h tm