The Official VP Debate Thread

[mraynrand]

Question: What's the difference between a Tool and Dye company and a Tool and Die company?


Answer: 38 million google hits

As much as I love you rand, that is very elitist of you...using a spelling error as an arguement of superiority. Yea, I know that isn't what you were doing, but libs love people who can spell, but not really accomplish much else.

I was actually curious - I didn't know if Dye or Die was correct. There were 4 million hits for your spelling 'Dye'. 4 million. So I figure it doesn't matter. A lot of people spell it your way. You say potato, Quayle says potatoe.

[mraynrand]

Wow. Who knew Mac and Palin were populists.

Let's see....average Americans vs. Elites, hmmmm, I guess everyone but you knew this.

Your comparison only makes sense if your are looking at intelligence. I'll take the elite brains of Obama and Biden over the average (or below) of McCain and Palin.

Every time I hear someone call Obama an elitist I'm thinking "Good! After 8 years of Bush, we could use one." This country was founded by elitists. Do people think Washington, Adams and Jefferson were millworkers? They were the elite of the elite. It will take someone of elite intelligence to fix the mess left behind by the guy who everybody wanted to have a beer with.

AMEN. I never get the mentality, "I love Palin/GWB! She/he's just like us!" Why would you want someone like you? Wouldn't you want someone with more expertise? What if I ran the Packers? The team would suck. So why would I want "someone like me" running the country?

Hell, I'll give it a try....cuz elitists never actually create anything. They sit around a room and pontificate about how much smarter they are than the schmoe in my previous post who actually is creating a product and putting it on the shelf. While they are patting their own backs he is getting his hands dirty. While they are plotting how to take his money (tax) and help the less fortunate he is actually EARNING it.

80% of this economy is built on small business...the working guy who took a chance and probably failed 5 times before he made the country better...his reward, some prick elitist who wants his money cuz he got "lucky" working 70 hour weeks in his garage eating raman noodles til he got it right when so many "less fortunate" people could use the fruits of his labor. Those elitists know NOTHING about what it takes to succeed anywhere except politics/bloviating. Do I want them and their disdain for those who actually make this country great running the country...FUCK NO, not in a million years.

Now after this little lesson I can predict your response.

But all the workers that worked at his factory deserve a bigger share of that 17 million, why should he need so much. My answer...because without him not ONE worker would have had that fucking JOB!! They deserve the wages they can command on the open market for their labor and not one dollar more. Want to give them a raise? Then make it even more profitable for joe schmoe to create jobs so unemployment drops and hard worker can command higher wages.

That's a great response. I would only add that elitists think that the guy who earned 17 mil should give it up in taxes (It's patriotic!). But they somehow think that that 17 million gets put under the mattress outside the economy. No it doesn't. It gets invested or spent by a successful probably shrewd businessman (or woman) who will invest/spend it probably far more wisely than the government. That investment and spending creates jobs and opportunities.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Wow. Who knew Mac and Palin were populists.

Let's see....average Americans vs. Elites, hmmmm, I guess everyone but you knew this.

Your comparison only makes sense if your are looking at intelligence. I'll take the elite brains of Obama and Biden over the average (or below) of McCain and Palin.

Every time I hear someone call Obama an elitist I'm thinking "Good! After 8 years of Bush, we could use one." This country was founded by elitists. Do people think Washington, Adams and Jefferson were millworkers? They were the elite of the elite. It will take someone of elite intelligence to fix the mess left behind by the guy who everybody wanted to have a beer with.

Well, at least you're being honest.

But Obama? Biden? Smartest people in the room?

BTW, in Korea, the mailmen are the smartest people because most communities existed before city planning and mailmen are the only ones who know exactly where everyone lives.

Well, now we can see why you have such problems. You confuse intelligence with knowledge.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Economics: Right. Mac doesnt' have a clue. And, he is relying on Gramm...who definitely contributed mightily to this problem.

Don't you have any shame, sir, at all? You always refer back to this specific de-regulation: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Note it is Gramm-Leach-Bliley. The act was passed in 1999 (1999, that's right, 1999). The Senate voted the 90-8 for it and Bill Clinton signed it. Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dick Durbin, Tom Daschle and Barack Obama's running mate, Joe Biden. ALL VOTED FOR IT. The "Leach" in the legislation's title endorsed Obama for president

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080812/NEWS/80812013/1056/news09

and was a founder of Republicans for Obama.

http://www.republicansforobama.org/

So stop with the exclusive Blame Gramm bullshit. He was one of many, including prominent Dems and Repubs that have since gone Dem who enthusiastically passed that legislation that Bubba gladly signed.[/url]

I forgot to add:

^^^^
Example of somebody losing it.

Rand, you are hilarious. You can't even stand the term "contributed mightily." You are suggesting that he didn't? And, the response was because a poster was blaming dems. There is plenty of blame.

Yes, Clinton signed it..something you guys loved. He was moving towards your side.

However, i wasn't just referring to that bill. Nice try.

Let's review..so you can actually learn something.

In the 1990s, as chairman of the Senate banking committee, he routinely turned down Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt's requests for more money to police Wall Street; during this period, the sec's workload shot up 80 percent, but its staff grew only 20 percent. Gramm also opposed an sec rule that would have prohibited accounting firms from getting too close to the companies they audited—at one point, according to Levitt's memoir, he warned the sec chairman that if the commission adopted the rule, its funding would be cut.

What else did our friend Gramm do? Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Lugar the measure had been considered dead. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted.

Hmmm. What was in this bill? Exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight, allowing Enron to run rampant, wreck the California electricity market.

And..wait for it..wait for it...CREDIT SWAPS. The devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.

Basically, Gramm allowed Wall Street's biggest players to run a secret casino. Betting on the risk of any given transaction became more important—and more lucrative—than the transactions themselves.

But, there is a bit of poetic justice as UBS, the firm he joined after giving them the keys to the kingdom wrote down 37 billion this spring..equal to the previous 4 years profits!!

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Wow. Who knew Mac and Palin were populists.

Let's see....average Americans vs. Elites, hmmmm, I guess everyone but you knew this.

Your comparison only makes sense if your are looking at intelligence. I'll take the elite brains of Obama and Biden over the average (or below) of McCain and Palin.

Every time I hear someone call Obama an elitist I'm thinking "Good! After 8 years of Bush, we could use one." This country was founded by elitists. Do people think Washington, Adams and Jefferson were millworkers? They were the elite of the elite. It will take someone of elite intelligence to fix the mess left behind by the guy who everybody wanted to have a beer with.

Look, I'm no fan of bush, but he is an elitist too, so drop the "avg. joe got us in this mess" stuff. The bush family goes to the top schools, is born rich and has been for generations. they are elitists...not in the way libs like to think of elitists, but they are.

Second, you can't really blame all that is wrong in this country right now on bush and republicans. I would say its more like 70/30 dems faults. If I had to point to ONE pol it would be barney frank. Lets not forget that the economy was kinda sound in 2006 when libs took over. We were overspending, but that is about all that was wrong. Now if we want to say the roots of the problem go back further than 2006 I agree...we go back much further. EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD OWN THEIR OWN HOME!!

Yeah, it goes back further. It goes back to the last president who actually spoke straight with us. His name was Jimmy Carter. He talked about sacrifice. He talked about energy independence. He talked about us becoming a nation defined by what we purchased over what we really were.

And, he was attacked...from the left and from the right.

You want to ascribe blame. Look at RR. Who was thrilled about giving credit. Who contributed to the culture of buy, buy, buy...even if you can't afford it.

[bobblehead]

Question: What's the difference between a Tool and Dye company and a Tool and Die company?


Answer: 38 million google hits

As much as I love you rand, that is very elitist of you...using a spelling error as an arguement of superiority. Yea, I know that isn't what you were doing, but libs love people who can spell, but not really accomplish much else.

I was actually curious - I didn't know if Dye or Die was correct. There were 4 million hits for your spelling 'Dye'. 4 million. So I figure it doesn't matter. A lot of people spell it your way. You say potato, Quayle says potatoe.

without looking it up I would guess you are right. Dye as in to dye a shirt is changing its makeup which is what tool and dye is doing. Die is pretty much one meaning as far as I know and that is death or end. The actual process of tool and dye leads me to believe your spelling is accurate for this case. Funny, I'm not too lazy to respond, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

[th87]

I agree though TH87, that if you ran the Packers, they would suck, as they would if I ran them. If you're trying to equate that with Palin, then it's a bad analogy. She's like the successful NFL coach who wants to move up to be a GM, or like a winning college coach who wants to coach in the NFL. She's been great at everything she's done, and now she has to expand her knowledge base and take on a bigger challenge. But to try to suggest that she lacks experience or expertise, like a football fan to a GM is absurd. I wouldn't want 'someone like you' running the country either, but 1) hopefully Plain won't have to run the country until 2013 and 2) again she's someone like you in her 'working class' 'Average American' background and upbringing, but she's well above average in ability and accomplishment.

To me, she's more like a high school coach running the wishbone getting an NFL offensive coordinator gig.

Could it work? Do you believe in miracles?

[th87]

As I said, background/looks/voice/accent/whatever is NOT what it is about.

It's ALL about VIEWS VALUES, POSITIONS ON ISSUES--POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. That is why the leftists spew so much HATE toward Sarah Palin.

And yes, George W. Bush IS an elitist and IS NOT "one of us" in the background sense. As for views, values, political philosophy, after 8 years in office, I'm still not sure about that. The answer to that question, however, is rapidly moving toward irrelevancy.

Lastly, on the spelling issue, I lean toward "spelling counts", since you have to look long and hard to find a spelling error by me.

Okay, fine. It's political philosophy. My philosophy is that I'd employ the current spread formation, but switch to a power blocking scheme. Does that mean I'm qualified to coach the Packers?

Governor of Alaska is like student council president in a big enough high school. Does anything important happen there?

[th87]

Hell, I'll give it a try....cuz elitists never actually create anything. They sit around a room and pontificate about how much smarter they are than the schmoe in my previous post who actually is creating a product and putting it on the shelf. While they are patting their own backs he is getting his hands dirty. While they are plotting how to take his money (tax) and help the less fortunate he is actually EARNING it.

80% of this economy is built on small business...the working guy who took a chance and probably failed 5 times before he made the country better...his reward, some prick elitist who wants his money cuz he got "lucky" working 70 hour weeks in his garage eating raman noodles til he got it right when so many "less fortunate" people could use the fruits of his labor. Those elitists know NOTHING about what it takes to succeed anywhere except politics/bloviating. Do I want them and their disdain for those who actually make this country great running the country...FUCK NO, not in a million years.

Now after this little lesson I can predict your response.

But all the workers that worked at his factory deserve a bigger share of that 17 million, why should he need so much. My answer...because without him not ONE worker would have had that fucking JOB!! They deserve the wages they can command on the open market for their labor and not one dollar more. Want to give them a raise? Then make it even more profitable for joe schmoe to create jobs so unemployment drops and hard worker can command higher wages.

Work on those prediction skills - I actually see what you're saying. Your millionaire friend should be able to get out there and see if he can apply his common sense know-how to running a government. He has a proven track record of success and there would be great value to his input.

But that wasn't the issue (and your friend isn't Joe Blow either - he's exceptional). It's that Palin sounds like Joe Blow and people love her ONLY because she sounds like Joe Blow and stumbles and bumbles whenever she's on TV. As though that's somehow endearing. If someone speaks much worse than I do, can't coherently form a thought without going into their talking points, and isn't aware of simple political facts like the Bush Doctrine, I'm going to have a very, very hard time believing that this person's competent for the second job in America.

That's just me. I want someone who knows what they're talking about. You can have a folksy accent or whatever. Just know what you're saying, and give me something of substance, rather than stupid buzzwords.

So there it is - in my opinion, she sounds like an idiot AND hasn't done anything of substance. That's scary.

It seems like people would LOVE if Forrest Gump was in the running for VP, as long as he says things like, "God bless America!" and "We must protect our freedom!"

Well, I could say, "We need to open up the Packers offense and not be so conservative," or "We need to be more aggressive on defense." Great thoughts, but does that make me qualified to implement it? Not really.

[HowardRoark]

But that wasn't the issue (and your friend isn't Joe Blow either - he's exceptional). It's that Palin sounds like Joe Blow and people love her ONLY because she sounds like Joe Blow and stumbles and bumbles whenever she's on TV.

I didn't think she stumled or bumbled. She just cloyingly dropped her g's.

I think the Bosniacs do that too though, so I can live with that.

As far as Katie....I honestly think she was caught off guard as to how much of a bitch this woman actually is. I think if she would do an interview again today, she would do better.

[mraynrand]

and isn't aware of simple political facts like the Bush Doctrine, I'm going to have a very, very hard time believing that this person's competent for the second job in America.

And what pray tell, is the Bush Doctrine?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457.html

[mraynrand]

Rand, you are hilarious. You can't even stand the term "contributed mightily." You are suggesting that he didn't? And, the response was because a poster was blaming dems. There is plenty of blame.

Much better. To hear you talk about it, the whole thing is on Gramm, as Chair of the banking committee. That was my point.

For example, writing stuff like "Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted." - Did you write that yourself or get it off Daily Kos or Huff post? As though these guys know the stuff well enough to read through it all. They have staffs to read it and understand it. Are you saying Clinton's staff of brilliant economic minds couldn't tell him about the devastation to come and that he shouldn't sign it?

[mraynrand]

To me, she's more like a high school coach running the wishbone getting an NFL offensive coordinator gig.

I'll accept this. But it's a whole lot different than an analogy where a fan (say th87) is allowed to run the whole organization/team.

[bobblehead]

That's just me. I want someone who knows what they're talking about. You can have a folksy accent or whatever. Just know what you're saying, and give me something of substance, rather than stupid buzzwords.

So there it is - in my opinion, she sounds like an idiot AND hasn't done anything of substance. That's scary.

Now, I'm not voting mccain/palin, so I ask this in all seriousness. You won't vote for the #2 based on those reasons, but a first term senator from Illinois with no executive experience is cool?

A guy who's list of blunders includes saying he would bomb in pakistan without their gov'ts approval, a guy who would meet with imanutjob with no prereqs? A guy who's understanding of economics is as fundamentally flawed as mccains and initially said he would nearly double capital gains taxes to 28%? I would also point out that in obama's debate he said uh and umm about 5 billion times. Yea, he is well spoken and sounds like he knows what he is talking about.

Palin, imo, is solid cuz she did take on the oil companies in alaska, has been an executive at two levels, and simply "gets" econ 101. Did she blunder with the russia comment? I guess so, but when is the last time katie or anyone else asked obama about his foreign policy experience?

Finally to show bias, katie couric immediately following the debate:

"Well Sarah Palin avoided making a fool of herself tonight..."

MY GOD, wtf was she thinking. I put this one right up their with judy woodruff:

"America threw a tantrum tonight" (tears and all, bottom lip quivering)

Me, I'm going to vote for real change. I'm hoping mccain loses by 2 points and Barr gets 3% showing the republican party that they must get real about small gov't and taking on real issues if they want to win.

A mccain gov't is as bad as an obama gov't, but too many people just can't see that.

[th87]

and isn't aware of simple political facts like the Bush Doctrine, I'm going to have a very, very hard time believing that this person's competent for the second job in America.

And what pray tell, is the Bush Doctrine?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091202457.html

Fine. Potentially bad example, but it's commonly known as preemptive warring.

Focus more on the slant of her replies: "We have to stop these terrorists that are HELL BENT on destroying America!"

These are simply emotionally-charged catchphrases. Very little substance. I want substance. I want someone that looks like they know a whole lot more than I do. This is an executive position at stake, not a pep rally.