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16 August 2008
Is anybody watching this Rick Warren presidential candidate thing?
So far, at least, there haven't been too many surprises (though Clarence Thomas might've been one, for me anyway), it seems like he's made some good points, and is doing a great job of emphasizing the common ground between himself and Warren's congregation/audience. I don't know if there's anything Obama could say to win the votes of, oh, let's call them the John Hagee crowd--but he's doing well at reaching out to a more moderate Rick Warren/T.D. Jakes crowd of Christians.
C-Span's really playing up the massive scale of Saddleback. I always try to watch this kind of stuff on C-Span, but I wonder how everybody else is covering it.
Ooh, good, none of the third people he named are GWB's favorite political philosopher. And that's to McCain's credit, from where I'm standing at least.
His greatest moral failure was the failure of his first marriage. I wonder where the Keating Five thing ranks.
$3 million for bear research, and we laugh about it. Possibly because, in a country of 300 million people, our individual share is one cent. Hell, I'd gladly put up a shiny dime for bear research.
This is the only thing of importance to happen here in Lake Forest in the last year. I hear A LOT of helicopters outside. The campus of the church itself looks like an office park with date palms.
Lots of softball questions, but that's no surprise (they didn't call it a 'civil forum' for nothing). And both candidates performed pretty well, I think, though I don't know if they'll change anybody's mind.
bunnyfire, I think all news channels covered it. I watched it on CNN and C-Span. C-Span will re-air it later tonight and tomorrow morning at 10:30 eastern.
The defining civil rights issue of the 21st century is school choice? Huh?
What was he supposed to say? Immigration? That might be the right answer, but he can't admit it without undermining his essentially irrational position.
School choice is an interesting issue to raise, though -- it lights up latent-racist circuitry all over right-wingers' brains.
(NB: I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, given the degree of resegregation that has happened in public schools.)
I've not been watching this. I'm gonna go check C-SPAN and catch the rebroadcast.
Well, that's the thing. The question wasn't about civil rights--McCain totally volunteered that shit. And Warren definitely didn't ask any questions about the greatest civil rights issues of the 21st century (though maybe he should've--it would've given McCain a good chance to talk about abortion, and reminded everybody of Obama's racial identification).
I didn't watch even though it was on my network. I'm kind of in, "I'm closing my eyes, tell me when it's over" mode. I am far from being an Obama-bot, but OMG, he is so, SO much smarter than the other guy, I can't even imagine what it will be like if he doesn't win.
Well, actually, I can... it'll be like the last eight years, combined with the Reagan era. Which means I'll have to shoot myself, if I don't starve first.
Haha--McCain's very next sentence was something like 'Now, I know that somebody's going to quote that out of context.'
That 'Where do you define rich?' question is one of the very few that might've been interpreted as hostile to McCain. I mean, for him at least, there's no right answer. Any number that's too low will peel off people who are torn between voting with their conscience and with their wallet, and any number that's too high will strain the long-fragile links between the Repubs dual constituencies of social conservatives and rich people.
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