McCain Rallies:

Some quotes from a NY Times article:

When a man told him he was “scared” of an Obama presidency, Mr. McCain replied, “I want to be president of the United States and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be, but I have to tell you — I have to tell you — he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” The crowd booed loudly at Mr. McCain’s response.

Later, a woman stood up at the meeting, held at Lakeville South High School in a far suburb of Minneapolis, and told Mr. McCain that she could not trust Mr. Obama because he was an “Arab.”

Mr. McCain replied: “No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, a citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.” (He did not correct her false depiction of Mr. Obama.) At that, the crowd applauded.

...

Crowds in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have repeatedly booed Mr. Obama and yelled “off with his head,” and at a rally in Florida where Ms. Palin appeared without Mr. McCain, The Washington Post reported that a man yelled out “kill him.” At the same rally, a racial insult was hurled at an African-American television cameraman.

...

At one point, after a voter told him he wanted to see a “real fight” at the debate and the crowd responded with a roar, Mr. McCain replied, “We want to fight, and I will fight, but we will be respectful.”

Then he added, “I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments, I will respect him.” The crowd interrupted Mr. McCain to boo, but he kept talking. “I want everyone to be respectful and let’s make sure we are, because that’s the way politics — —”

At that point, Mr. McCain was drowned out by applause.

It appears that McCain is putting some effort into explaining to his supporters that Obama is a respectable person, which I appreciate. His television ads don't seem to do that though. Frank Rich writes that things have gotten way out of hand.

Heart Risks

A little post from the Wall Street Journal comparing McCain's and Obama's risk of a cardiac event in the next 10 years. This particular post says it is the risk of "death or heart attack":

McCain: 

17% - if he is taking blood pressure medications for kidney stones and not blood pressure, as his doctors claim.

22% - if he is taking blood pressure medications for blood pressure problems.

Obama:

1% - if he is not smoking, as he claims.

3% - if he is sneaking cigarettes.

So, as you can see, there is a big difference in health risk. Age is largely the reason for the huge difference. I have seen a couple other numbers thrown around, which don't appear on a well-known journal, but I'll note one anyway.

According to a Dr. McDougall, McCain's heart risk is 27% (apparently assumes diuretics are for blood pressure), and Obamas remains 1% and 3%. McDougall also says that "Over the next 4 years a man of 72 years has a probability of dying of 16% and over 8 years, 38%.  At age 47 a man has a 2% probability of dying of within 4 years, and 5% within 8 years." I haven't verified these calculations, nor can I vouch for the veracity of the website, but common sense says that a 72 year old with various health problems is at much greater risk of dying or further health problems than a healthy 47 year old.

All that said, for what it's worth, McCain's doctor says that he is in "excellent health." From what I can tell (which is admitedly limited), he is holding up well during the brutal campaign season, which I imagine would be difficult for anybody.

John McCain is Computer Illiterate

Frankly, I would have a hard time believing this, but it's in the tape:


I'm worried about potentially electing a president who seems to not even use a computer, much less know how one works.

Say it ain't so, Barack

Muslim voters feel snubbed by Obama
My impression from this article is that many Muslims want to support Obama, but he or his campaign is declining their help out of fear of being associated with Islam. The article points out that he has done a few nice things and made some apologies, but I expect better out of Obama. He is supposed to be a leader, not a panderer. Lots of Americans are wrongly suspicious of anything or anyone connect to Islam. We need a real leader to step up and work to end this prejudice rather than shy away. When his website says that his being called a Muslim is a smear, that wording in itself is offensive to Muslims. If he is campaigning on unity, he needs to walk the walk.

Kudos to Jon Stewart for making fun of Obama for his recent fumblings, like his new campaign logo and the public campaign finance rejection.


It's good to see Stewart is still trying to be a straight shooter. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with publicly financed campaigns, and I wish Obama would explain himself a little better on that issue. Had he said this and explained himself from the get-go rather than changing his mind after having a record fund-raising campaign in the primaries, it wouldn't be an issue. All of the clips of Democrats defending Obama's decision also fail to give explanation of why he declined public finance or explain how his decision is "reforming" public finance.

After a little research, perhaps this is why Obama has turned down public funding, although I still wish he would clarify it a bit more:
"Mr Obama's clear financial advantage over Mr McCain is offset in part by the resources of the Republican National Committee, which has far more money in the bank than the Democratic National Committee. Both national parties can spend money on behalf of the presidential candidates outside of public funding laws."

And lastly, for this post anyway, I'm a little bit concerned about Obama's close ties to ethanol, as written about in the NY Times. This may be an issue to follow more closely in the future as I'm not sure Obama has actually done anything wrong so far, though he appears to support corn-based ethanol as an alternative fuel. I'm not entirely familiar with the economics and science behind this issue, but it seems to me that corn-based ethanol is not particularly efficient and may have played a role in the global rise in food prices this past year. Paul Krugman has written about the problems with corn-based ethanol. Sugarcane-based ethanol seems to be much more efficient, but currently all sugarcane ethanol imports are tariffed to protect American corn ethanol. McCain has the exact opposite stance on corn-based ethanol and wants to lift the tariffs on sugarcane ethanol. Although I'm still trying to make sense of all of this, I think that McCain may have a good point.

"Straight Talk Express"