The Perils of Passion

if you dont vote dont complain voting is the responsibilty of being free if you dont vote you may as well be a slave

Quoting shriramram: "I am PhD in psycology and I am 100% right." I don't know where you got your PhD but wherever it was, they forgot to let you read Freud, who tells us that when the father falls the eldest son steps to the front of the line and the mother moves into place behind him.

HERE'S yOUR pROOF HALLOW. I AM VERy GLAD yOU ASKED THIS QUESTION.
THIS pROVES THAT OBAMA IS THE REAL DEAL SON.

Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.

Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.

Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.

Avian flu: Obama was one of the first Senators to speak out on avian flu, back in the spring of 2005, when it was a quintessentially wonky issue, not the subject of breathless news reports. There's a list of Democratic efforts on avian flu here; Obama shows up early and often. He has sponsored legislation, including what I think is the first bill dedicated to pandemic flu preparedness. It's a good bill, providing not just for vaccine research and antiviral stockpiles, but for the kinds of state and local planning and preparedness that will be crucial if a pandemic occurs. (I was also very interested to note that it requires the Secretary of HHS to contract with the Institute of Medicine for a study of "the legal, ethical, and social implications of, with respect to pandemic influenza". This is actually very important, and not everyone would have thought of it.)
"We recommend that this administration work with Congress, public health officials, the pharmaceutical industry, foreign governments and international organizations to create a permanent framework for curtailing the spread of future infectious diseases.

There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.

THIS IS A pERFECT EXAMpLE OF WHAT OBAMA CAN DO AND HAS ALREADy DONE, BRING DIFFERENT FACTIONS TOGETHER TO ACHIEVE A COMMON GOAL.

o YEAH.. NOW THE MEDIA WANTS UNITED FRONT. PEOLE GIVE IT TO THEM IN NOVEMBER.

Good for you for supporting Hillary, Anna! Her 100% pro-choice voting record, plan to fund alternative energy research, and experience being in the public eye make her the stronger candidate.

As a liberal Democrat and feminist, who has never in 40 years voted for any Republican, if Senator Clinton is the Democrat nominee, I am staying home this November. I am not going to hold my nose and vote for this incredibly disgusting individual. The Clinton???s, as has our other baby boomer president, squandered their presidencies. The Clinton???s are attempting to bar the door to true transformation of this country. We should all pray that their fear and hate mongering does not succeed.

I have to say, it's nice to hear someone speaking rationalese. I understand that Obama and Clinton are currently running against each other, but both need to look at the larger picture of the general election. If what the candidates really want is to help Americans then they need to stop attacking each other and show a little respect for each other and the party they are supposed to be representing.

As a Barack Obama supporter, I would have no trouble supporting Clinton in the general election if she wins the nomination fairly. However, if Obama is ahead after all the primaries and caucuses with elected delegates and Clinton pulls a fast one with the MI and FL non-elections and with superdelegates, then I will not vote in the general election. As a resident of WA state which had a caucus, I resent Clinton saying that my vote doesn't matter because it was a caucus. That is not the way to keep the party together. She may be competent and smart but she does not know how to heal a country that is hurting from all the hate politics of the past.

and thanks for not mederating and censoring your comments like the facist Wolf Blitzer.

www.begup.com

I'm glad you're back. By that I mean with something I agree with 100%. That was an excellent article. There isn't much difference between Obama and Clinton and most voters vote with feelings and not fact. The candidate has to examine every word that comes out of their mouths because if you slip once you're dead. That's not a very rational way to pick who you're going to vote for. Now I have to google Pyrrhic to find out what the heck that means.

www.begup.com

From a scientific point of view, Quindlen???s statement that ???a significant number of voters didn't actually know what lever they would pull until the very last minute??? is not valid. That may have been be true for some people on Super Tuesday, but a ???significant??? amount? And, so what? Texas, Ohio & PA primaries are different and nivolve different people of different backgrounds. Plus, Quindlen employs fuzzy math to make her point. It???s erroneous. Quindlen had to have extrapolated ???signifcant??? numbers from any one or a number of polls from 2 weeks ago.

What really is telling is that she doesn???t even cite the poll(s) she is basing her article on. What kind of jouranlism is that? Bad? Biased? Slanted? Pro-Hillzilla? It certainly isn???t objectice or accurate.

I think we would all ackowledge that polls are neither reliable barometers or ???guranteed??? portents of things to come.

My main problem with Quidlen???s statement from above is that we have no idea how large the ???respondent group??? is, which is critical to understanding whether any (alleged) ???signifcance??? is real or not.

E.G., If Gallop polls 1000 people (and I have actually read some polls where only 500 people or less are asked exiting questions), neither of these numbers are ???significant??? considering there have been millions of people exiting voting stations so far.

As for NBC???s poll that ???reported that seven out of 10 Democrats said they would be happy with either one,??? again, I would really like to know the size of the sample or people polled.

Likewise, I think for Quindlen to cite NBC???s poll without telling the reader where and how NBC
got there ???allleged??? numbers is missleading and meaningless.

As Bubba has said, ???Give me a break!???