The USA presidential election 2008

[Astroruss]

Nov 5, 2008 14:23:31 GMT -5 Farouche said:

Mr Nice -----------------
I have to radically disagree
its one thing to encourage/educate people to share of their own free will and and another to forcefully take them away from one group of people and give it to another

Notice I said nearer to. The point was to draw the parallel between something the far right despises and fears and the guy in whose name they feel entitled to act.

Christ wouldn't be into politics at all, but he'd be a damn sight more into people sharing everything between them than he would be into a competitive system. I think that much is pretty obvious. That's why it's sort of funny that it's the far right who claims the guy as their best friend, mentor, and inspiration.

Jesus the Christ would not have been involved in any Earthly politics. From the Roman times onward, he was a Separatist and nothing more.

[Farouche]

One the things I'm looking forward to with this presidency is when the novelty of having a black guy in the spotlight wears off, and people see him not as The First Black President, but as just plain The President. I'm curious as to whether this could really help to further de-"otherize" blackness.

Ultraruss ----------------
The next step is for a non-Christian president. Then maybe the first woman or Hispanic President. It'll happen eventually.

Hmm, we should take bets on this. ;D I actually don't know which will come first... This is pretty much the first election in which diversity became a major selling point for both parties, and it'll be interesting to see what they come up with next time. I would think that of those options, I'd guess maybe a woman would come first, and then later a Hispanic... and then at some point, maybe someone as subtly non-Christian as a Jew. But there are a lot of points of diversity up for grabs, with such a relatively homogeneous collection of presidents past.

I saw a French news broadcast on election night, where a French citizen was saying that his country would now have to elect a gay president to show us up in the diversity race. ;D

Ultraruss -------------
Actually, from a purely potential standing, as far as expectations go Obama's gonna have the most pressure from so many different groups. I hope he can do it. I don't want to see him fail.

Amen to that. I have high hopes for him compared to the last eight years, but at the moment Obama sort of symbolizes all possibilities to all people. In that sense, he's bound to disappoint; no human can live up to all those standards. But I think this coming administration has the potential to do a lot of good things, even if not all the good things.

[Sweet Pea]

keeping in mind that many 'whites' tend to hold 'non-whites' to a higher standard, i would expect that there could be a backlash when obama doesn't prove to be capable of solving all the world's problems in four years. i'm hoping not, but it could happen.

the mccain-palin ticket lost alot of white votes due to their ineptitude. but since it's easy for people who have a 'show me' attitude to come to the conclusion that a president has failed, we could see a significant swing vote veer to the conservative ticket in the next election. if the real preference was for a white president all along, and if the republican ticket produces competent white people next time around, alot of people who voted for obama as a last resort could swing back.

as time goes by and the proportion of non-white voters continues to increase, this will be less and less of a determining factor in elections though. i agree the thing to look forward to is the day a candidate's skin-color isn't even a factor. unfortunately, for alot of people, it is still a significant comfort factor - people liking to vote for people who look like them.

bush lost alot of hispanic voters for the republicans too through his ineptitude while in office, many of whom were historically conservative voters. some of those voters could possibly swing back to the conservative side, especially if they're disappointed in their lot in life at the end of the next four years.

i'm hoping that the tremendous support obama received from new voters and young voters means that the stranglehold the old (white) boys club has had on politics in this country is finally broken as the old dinosaurs are finally laid to rest. looking back on the last several decades it seems almost inconceivable that this issue should still be so important to so many in 2008. sometimes it seemed like the new millenium would never come. but things are definitely looking up.

[Astroruss]

I didn't vote for Obama or Biden, of course, but unlike many white people I have not problem with Obama at all. Technically, he's only half black/white, but that doens't matter so much. He was raised most of his early life by his mother and her family, and looked into his black heritage as a teenager. To me, that sets a fairly sound, ordinary kind of person there. We all tend to learn about our heritage as we get older. We are naturally curious.

With McCain's experience and respect in the political arena, and Obama's appeal to all non-whites, I really felt like we had a win-win situation for our latest election.

The only problem I have with Obama is his taxation plans. He's already stated that he wants to spend trillions (likely) of dollars on social programs, meaning higher and more taxes. For a country as huge as ours, third in the world for population and getting bigger every year, social programs on that kind of scale will take a long time to implement. Perhaps even two generations for effect. Social sercurity took that long too. Social welfare and improvement is fine, but people take it personally when others touch their money.

Then, too, is the other original problem. Being a liberal, Obama will want to bring amnesty into the picture. This will please the liberals, but bring howls of outrage to the conservatives, many of the whites and the blacks.( And I think there are many more conservative blacks than conservative whites, proportionally.) The blacks in particular look on the illegals with disgust; the illegals are a huge threat to the blacks and poor whites in labor and services. Now, down here, I see plenty of foremen that are black that like the illegal workers because they work so well. But most black people i know and work around despize them for their cheap labor. And of course the language barrier doesn't help any.

These are the kinds of problems that Obama must address in order to remain President and in power. He's as much promised them already. And apart from the war (which the media hasn't really touched in the last few months, go figure them hypocrites ) these are the biggest and most touchy problems we face in our country. Not gonna be an easy situation at all.

I'm really afraid that between the extended plans, amnesty, and the new taxes he'll need for funding, and short sighted media jackals on him just like with Bush and Cheney, Obama's gonna to create a huge mess.