Post-convention discussion thread

The conventions are finally over, leaving readers as divided as ever.  Did the conventions change your mind about which candidate to vote for, or did they only solidify your original allegiances?  Share your thoughts!

Photo:  RARE JOINT APPEARANCE: John McCain and Barack Obama, with Pastor Rick Warren, were on stage together only briefly at the Lake Forest forum. Obama spoke revealingly about his faith, and McCain repeated his stories about how he found God.

Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Keith]

McCain and Palin: Populists? Vanity Fair editors estimated that McCain's fierce saffron shirt dress with the popped collar, diamond earrings, four-strand pearl necklace, white Chanel watch and strappy shoes totaled up to $313,100. Her dress cost more than my house.

[sandiegorepublican]

I have to say with respect to the tasteless way the biased liberal media chose to attack Sarah Palin and her family with lies and gusto that I would be embarrassed to be a Democrat if I were one. Wake up folks. Allow yourselves to see what the candidates can offer us as a country, not just your self serving interests. Then maybe you can report the truth without bias like respectable journalists should. I think the entire liberal media has done themselves a huge disservice by the pathetic unprofessional way they are dealing with this campaign. Their desperation is only too obvious.

[Puciret]

It's too bad the American public is so gullible that they will buy into almost anything that rhymes without reason. McCain is campaigning for the WH promising reform with a ditzy governor who is a wacko Evangelical. Ask yourself: who's been in control of the WH for the last ( almost ) 8 years? If I might borrow a quote from the NY times, " I have seen the enemy and it is me." Dems have been in power for only 18 months. With a stubborn leadership that promises to veto ANY legislation that doesn't pass muster the Dems have been somewhat hamstrung by this ego maniac and his storm troopers. Is McCain criticizing his own party and at the same time engaging in self- flaggelation promising to atone for not only the sins of the Republican party but also himself? It's a joke to think we will see any changes coming from a man who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. He is ON the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD as a loyal Bush supporter and has voted with the President 90% of the time. Now he's going to say he was wrong? What happened when he was given the chance to vote against Bush? Wake up America and smell the stench that eminates from the Neo-Nazi right in this country and known euphemistically as the the GOP.

[Almost Angeleno]

GOP definition of "the Liberal Media"...
Any writer, reporter, newscaster or media personality who questions, disagrees with, or rebukes a Republican.

This also includes colleges, the music industry, the entire West Coast, the Eastern Seaboard, ...etc. etc. and well, just about everywhere other than the Bible Belt, corporate boardrooms, and trailerparks.

Sorry folks, the meme from the GOP Mothership just doesn't fly.

[JM]

To SanDiegoRepublican, how fitting you live in a bankrupt city, in a bankrupt country, and you think the Republicans are doing well......Americans deserve the government they get. The Republicans turned a $120 billion surplus into a $1 trillion dollar defecit for your grandkids to pay. And you want more? What a cretin!! John McCain wants to be a change agent. He's part of the PROBLEM, not the SOLUTION. Wake UP!!

[ScottL]

If the american public is stupid enough to believe someone that voted 90% od the time with Bush that he is going to bring change, then they will accept any drivel that Karl Rove thinks they want to hear. Why didn't McCain use the last 20 years in congress to make some changes, Duh?

[troy]

Why is Palin, a VP candidate, being compared to Obama? Racism in America, particularly the Republican Party, is fueling the "dumbing down" of Obama. If Obama were white, no way the Palin/Obama comparisons would even come to the forefront.

There are several, more qualified Republicans that have the same beliefs of Palin. They were not chosen for the VP slot because Palin identifies with the so called Hockey Mom set, which is code for white, under-educated small town women who think they are special because they have children. This is the same set that you find in places like Kentucky, who blantantly let it be known that they wouldn't vote for a black man as president.

I'm also sick of how the media is allowing the Republicans to continue to play the gender card, while Obama is not even allowed to think of playing the race card. If Obama loses, it will set back whatever tolerance gains this country has realized to date, and African Americans will take note of that.

[Dave Keller]

The birth-control issue is important? Why?

[Glenn]

Why hasn't the LA Times done an article on the American flags the Democrats threw away after their convention like Fox news?

[joan ca]

Have a feeling the reason a woman was chosen, a republican ploy. As old Sophia from the Golden girls, "picture this". The debate between the vice presidential candidates, one who has the knowledge, experiece, maturity, as the opposition, woman, youth inexperience. Poor, Poor female (known as the barracuda). Who will feel the stakes are not leveled accordingly. I'm not falling for their under handed tactics. Hopefully others will see it as I.

[CW]

When people like Keith start criticizing about the clothes of a candidate's spouse, you know that this election is not about issues. It's about class warfare.

My big question with Obama's spending programs is how is he going to pay for them. It's estimated that raising taxes on the top 5% and closing tax loopholes will not be enough. That means he'll have to start taxing the middle class. No matter what he promises you now to get your vote, he can always change his mind after he gets elected. He'll probably cause more job losses if he raise taxes on small businesses which provide 80% of all the jobs in the US. And that promise of creating 5 million new jobs in alternative energy is just too good to be true. What if the technology turns out to be totally uneconomical? Is the government going to subsidize it forever with taxpayers' money? Throwing money in preschool education is the stupidist idea. How is it going to help 8th grade students pass algebra? The reason why public education fails is because of low expectation and poor teaching methods. I've lived in Asia so I can compare. US students are about 2 years behind in math.

In a perfect world, everyone has a house, a job, quality healthcare, and a college education. Unfortunately, such a world is unavailable in reality. Obama's typical liberal platform of throwing money to the problems won't work. I'm sure he has good intentions but his solutions are short-sighted. They'll create a even bigger deficit in the long run.

[mspogle]

SARAH: 1. Get OUT of my womb. 2. Stop shoving Creationism into our schools when we need SCIENCE to get our nation competitive. 3. Executive experience, of a town of 8000 and a state with a smaller population than Chicago?4. You went to HOW many colleges in five years? SIX? 5. You threw two of your children under the wheels for your career. 6. WHEN did you get your first passport? 7. Your cruelty to animals is sickening. 8.Strident nasty speaker. 9.You appeal to lowest common demoninator bigots. 10. You are a book banner. 11. You have no vision and little education. 12. Bush's team wrote your harpie speech. 13 Abstinence is best? Really? 14. You endanger women, our children, our Constitution, our standing with other nations, and our country itself. You are a DISTRACTION from real important issues and sensible Americans will not vote for a soap opera; they will vote for what inspires them. You are McCain's window dressing with fangs and an ideologically ugly person. ENOUGH!

[steveJJ]

You left wing hacks have been sipping too much merlot and eating too much sponge cake. Palin was a perfect pick for McCain. When McCain is elected President, Palin will be taking note of the job because it's her's in 2012 and 2016. Hillary eat your heart out.

[Peter]

Troy: Obama can't use the race card? Please, he's been using it since New Hampshire against Hillary Clinton. Their campaign team has essentially made anyone who dares criticize him on anything as a racist. That's the Democrats whole ploy...they make themselves out as a party of the people, yet they have criticize anyone who doesn't believe in what they believe in. Just look above at Puciret's post...essentially calling Republicans neo-Nazis. Yes, half of America are neo-Nazis. Sorry, but there's something called the first amendment in this country. We have freedoms that included "clinging to guns and religion".

With all is said and done, it's going to be close.

[tony]

GOD BLESS, GOD BLESS, all the democrates that voted for McCain in the republican primary

[tony]

this is so unreal george bush is sending us another hurricane

[exalaskan]

My concern in this election is who is more in touch with the needs of the nation as a whole? As a former Alaskan of many years, I know that many people there have always felt separate and apart from the lower 48. It’s a great place to move to in order to escape the continental United States. Most people who moved there during the years before and after statehood stayed because Alaska was the last frontier and thousands of miles away from the problems outside. Outside is a good word – it typifies the belief that many Alaskans have of being outside – apart from the rest of the states. It’s a place of isolation and extreme independence. Seceding from the Union has been a regular topic of conversation ever since Statehood in 1959.

I think lots of Alaskans (including their governor) are still living in a land of milk and honey where resources and nature and wildlife will never run out; where the state rakes in millions of dollars in oil revenue and gives it back to citizens who pay no state income tax; where there is a never ending supply of disassociation from the rest of the country.

Do we want a person one heart beat away from the Presidency of the United States who doesn’t relate to the issues we have here? Is Palin qualified for the complex national and international duties of the highest offices of our country? If qualified means being in touch with the issues of our nation as a whole, I don’t think so!

[Kathie]

The following is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to get banned when she was mayor of Wasilla. I am not sure that Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou and Geofrey Chaucer would be considered dangerous to children. Judy Blume give me a break. Harry Potter, who is kidding who. I also fail to see why Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff should be banned.

This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board.
When the librarian refused to ban the books, Palin tried to get her fired.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

[Jeugenen]

REAGAN CONSERVATIVE PALIN TO BE BOUND AND GAGGED BY NEO-CON MC-CAIN
Podhoretz Neo-Con puppet, Insane McCain, intents to bind and gag Reagan Conservative Palin, to subvert Christian culture and Constitutional rule. The choice of Palin was a cunning act of Crypto-Neo-Marxist desperation, driven by their hysterical Obamaphobia.

[Michael]

How about getting some straight answers from Palin? When is she going to talk to reputable journalists about her record, experience and positions on the issues that matter to Americans?

Sign the petition to interview Sarah Palin now athttp://www.interviewsarahpalinnow.com/

[Kris]

I would have to say yes, the conventions really sealed the deal for me. I have always found it a bit narrow-minded for anyone to associate themselves with one party or another without hearing both sides. I have always instilled in my children to hear all sides of a case/argument before making a decision. I mean, would you vote for Hitler based on the simple fact that he called himself a republican or democrat? And, is abortion really thee deciding factor for Republicans? Considering, it's still legal after 8 years with Bush and his supreme court picks. That being said -

The DNC left me with a new found sense of hope and empowerment - it really made me want to go out and do something neighborly and socially responsible.

On the other hand, the RNC left me feeling hopeless. As a Christian, I was [to say the least] disappointed in all the childish and snide remarks and lies that were made - by certain Republican speakers who also call themselves Christians. I think too many Christians are playing God [judge and jury] and are anything but Christ-like. Had any of the Republicans at the RNC actually watched the DNC - they would have been able to catch Palin in about 4 lies on what Obama stands for or allegedly "doesn't stand for".

It has always pretty much been the mainstream's ideology that all Politian's are shady - so why all of a sudden are we taking politicians at their word now? Research, question, and research again. Do not buy a lines taken out of content - read the whole story. And please, no more selective hearing!

Can we stick to the resolving of our issues - as a whole? Is it really about 1 (out of a million) pregnant teenager, or a trash bag full of flags, or [God help us] lipstick. Any candidate who feels that they offer the American people what is needed most, right now in this country - need only stick to the issues.

In fact, I didn't really need Obama to tell me, because the RNC only proved, that we have nothing to look forward to but the same misguided, arrogant administration we've had for 8 years - if McCain & Palin win. It's like "Look over there (terrorists) so you're not looking over here (the turmoil of America)!" Fear, Fear, and more Fear. It's amazing what us Americans will agree to when we're in a state of fear.

I don't get it - why should we have to choose between freedom and security! I think it is important for all of us to objectively hear all sides of this campaign and more importantly, to focus on the issues. I know this is very hard with all the biased media and the unwarranted Palin frenzy but we need to push all the smoke and mirrors to the side for the sake of our country.