Doug,

Well put.  Ray clearly supports Obama, and that’s his right, but note where the D’s are going.  They plan to attack Palin personally.  But that will backfire badly.  See my most recent post.

Ray of Manassas, Have you seen Obamarxist not in front of a teleprompter? He bombs, stutters, stammers, uses a bunch of crutchs like ummm and uhhh to get thru his speech.  And I guess you will be telling everyone that he writes his own speeches? And you are right, she didn’t stumble thru her speech even though they were having problems with the teleprompter durring her speech. (I guess we conservatives don’t have all the hollywood elite helping in the behind the scenes theatrics) And as to Scott being biased to Mccain, gee i guess he isn’t the most impartial reporter, like the ones MSNBC or CNN have(insert laughter here). Most of the mainstream media which include the mainstream print media are fully in the bag for Obama. Not to mention the non mainstream media like us weekly mag run by the same guy that runs rolling stone and is a maxed out Obama supporter. One cover is a glowing shot of Obama with the title why I love my wife (or something to that effect) and one cover of Palin with a title that pretty much slams her and articls that have many factual errors based on things they read in blogs…

1 He needs to keep the politics of fear in play to solidify his hold over his base. Emphasize what a dangerous world it is, refer to 9/11, talk very tough about how he will do whatever it takes to keep us safe (my friends). He should emphasize his military service and praise our military repeatedly without making any references to his mediocre-at-best record on veterans affairs.

2 He should use the phrase “tax and spend Democrats” as much as possible without letting on that the “borrow and spend Republicans” have run up the largest debt in American history (after having inherited the only budget surplus in modern American history). Our children will be using our social security to pay that one off!

3 He should belittle Obama’s accomplishments and emphasize his lack of experience without letting on that he himself has less executive experience than his running mate.

How should Obama counter?
Well, Obama is appealing to a different base, isn’t he. Nobody seriously believes that McCain will be any (or much) different than Bush, so simply continuing to emphasize the abysmal failures of the past eight years will continue to be highly effective (going to war with a country that posed no threat to our security, torture, abandoning basic human rights, lying, illegal surveillance, half a million dead in Iraq, a country in ruin (still), 4 million displaced, record deficits, failure to catch bin Laden while growing the Taliban to record numbers, using the justice department as a political tool, Harriet Myers, Katrina, “Bring ‘em on”, doctoring government scientific reports to cover up evidence of global warming, Alberto Gonzales, using signing statements to evade the law, giving tax breaks to the rich while gutting programs for the poor, no child left behind, breaking the military, sending troops into harms way without flak jackets, Dubai port security (whatever happened to that anyway…oh yeah, they eventually got the contracts, right?). Nobody wants another year of that!

Scott, just a quick thought. You appear to be rather biased towards Mr. McCain. “Sarah’s super-speech”? She read words from a teleprompter someone else had written! Some of the words has to be written out phonetically so she would pronounce them correctly. Yes, she did a “super job”, as one would expect from any experienced public speaker - well, not George W. Bush - but MOST experienced public speakers. We’ll see if she makes it through the debates without a “box” hidden under her suit jacket ala Mr. Bush. The amazing thing was she did not stumble under the pressure of the night. But as for the rest, I’ll take a wait-and-see on that.

Well, let’s see. John has been talking about being the force behind change, not Obama. So what I would like to hear from John is what he is going to change. Tell us how the Bush Administration failed us in the past eight years and what John’s going to do to “change” policy.

How is John going to reduce the deficit? More of the Same by cutting taxes - again? Keep us safe by invading countries where the terrorists DON’T live? How is John going to stop the record shedding of jobs currently ongoing under Bush Administration leadership? Where is new oil coming from? More drilling? So why did the Bush Administration not start drilling 8 years ago? They had both houses and the White House.

How is John going to bring our housing values back up? For John to run on “change”, John must run FROM Bush. I have not heard a word all week about the problems caused by Bush. So, instead of “change” we can expect more of the McSame.