electoral college or no?

I had a hard time coming to a conclusion for the answer to whether or not the electoral college should be reformed, and I still don't think I have come to an absolute answer. While going through the quiz, I kept changing my mind every page and my final answer was yes- which was what the majority was. I kind of think it could go either way though. I feel like the whole thing should not be done away with because the basis for it is very good and there are some key things about the college that are very important. Also, it has been working a very long time now and no one has changed it so it can't be that bad right? It has only messed up once in the last how many years, and I think that's pretty decent. However, there is always room for improvement and I'm sure there is some way we can change the college so that there is never any error... I'm just not quite sure how. I feel that if there was an extremely important change that needed to be made it would have been done already, so whenever someone comes up with a better way to do this then it could be reviewed.

to regulate or not to regulate?

I accidentally posted this in my senior exhibit and just noticed.... so here it is again.

I think this is a very good debate and could easily go both ways. My initial thought is that government should not be able to regulate interest groups because that kind of defeats the purpose of them. They are intended to make a change in the people's affects on the government. That being said, if they regulate them and disapprove of stuff they are trying to do, then they it's a government group-not a group of the people. However, I think they should almost originally be approved by the government because no regulation makes it possible for people to create absolutely absurd interest groups. Granted, they probably wont get much participation, but they still should not be formed if they are going to be dangerous or extremely hurtful/harmful.

Obama vs. McCain?

If I could vote in the upcoming election, I would vote for Barack Obama... because he seems to be the much lesser of two evils.
Although he may not have as much hands on experience as McCain, he still has been able to study the patterns of political history, and can learn just as much from it. He's younger, fresher, and I think he has more up to date ideas for the future of our country. I also agree much more with the way he wants to handle issues in our government. He knows how to address problems, and is an excellent public speaker. I think he has fresh ideas about how to handle aspects of our country-- for example, how he wants to improve education so everyone is able to go to college, improve math and sciences because they are so important, etc.
Also, I would say one of the main reasons I became a Obama supporter is because I really dislike McCain. He's old, has cancer, and his VP (who would be our president if something were to happen to him) is awful. Not only this, but he isn't a strong public speaker, he doesn't seem to have anything new to address or change and he thinks the American people are his 'friends', not people that he should be working for. Some of his ideas seem absurd- in education, how does he expect to let every family choose where they would like to send their child without having one school overflowing with kids and the next not have anyone. How does he think we were going to have enough 'clean coal' to be an efficient resource when there isn't even such a thing as 'clean coal'? I think Obama is the smarter choice for the future of our country, and even though he may not be perfect he's better than Mccain in my eyes.

Just realized I never posted this..

since the attachment didn't work, here's the link:
http://www.mccainfreewhitehouse.org/


I think this ad has a really different take on the whole election. It's not talking straight to the voters, but to kids too young to vote and trying to get them to convince there parents. I've never seen this done before, and think it's a pretty interesting tactic. Kids like to have there parents see their side of things, and agree with them. Since I've already had discussions on my opinions about who my parents should vote for, I think it's neat they're trying to get other students to do the same. This video comes from moveon.org which has the whole website designated to how you can have "the talk" with your parents about them not voting for John McCain. It tells you what to say when they say things like 'But Obama wants to raise taxes", etc. Overall, I think its a pretty neat concept.

Pres Debates #2

Well, to start off... I will quote Kevin Carmony (don't know who he is.. but he had my exact thought) :
"If I hear John McCain say "my friends" one more time, I think I'll have to turn off the TV and Radio until it's safe to come back out again."


Anyways,
This debate was kind of hard to watch. I noticed that my Dad wasn't even watching it about half way through, and when I asked why he just replied that he had to turn it off because he couldn't take anymore of it. I think both candidates could have 'stepped their game up' on this one, and taken the opportunity to really address the serious questions American people have about our economy right now. They need to show to us the SPECIFIC things they will do in order to improve things, and that it makes them the better candidate. It's not all about making the other one seem worse, because right now neither of them are the perfect person for the job in my eyes. This is such a serious election too, and we need to be able to put faith that one of them can keep our country from crashing. It seemed that almost all of the people in the forum asked similar questions, just re worded but all revolving around if America can overcome this economic crisis. This is obviously what's on everyone's mind and they need to address this.

And let me just add that I CANT wait to see the SNL skit for this one :)
the VP debate skit is pretty good too if you havent already seen it..

VP Debate

I think both VP's did a good job of speaking and properly represented their candidates. I am still on the side of Biden because he is voicing the things I am in favor of, but Palin still did a much better job than I was expecting.

I found this debate harder to watch and stay interested in because of the fact that they are just re saying what the candidates did during their debate. Neither of them made it especially exciting, and I think they went back and forth at each other (or just saying how the other one was wrong because of this, and what they're doing is right because of this) and it just made it unpleasant. In my opinion, Palin tried too hard to fit in and make herself part of the middle class/soccer mom ideal, which I don't think is the case. You have to have at least money to get that high in politics, and she may not have as much as anyone else in these positions, but she certainly seems to have more than the average american. I also found it interesting that Palin said flat out that she wasn't going to answer the questions asked, but just revoke what he said and show how she's right, he's wrong.
Overall, I think it was a strong debate but hard to say if one did better than the other simply because Palin's performance was so much stronger than anyone anticipated.