i'm sorry i'm only doing this for class and wasting internet space with useless analysis of political cartoons

alright... this week's political cartoon is about that silly governor who tried to sell obama's senate seat to the highest bidder. here he is, very blatantly holding a nice chair, obviously representing the senate seat in question, and talking about selling it on Ebay
according to lawrence c. stroud: illinois, or iowa, whicheve state that is, has a history of corrupt politicians, and its nice to see blagojevich keepiong with tradition. [let us hope monsieur obama is not a part of that illustrious tradition]
however, he has been carted off by the PO and people are clamoring for his resignation.
what will happen to the senate seat?
what will happen to the governors seat?
what will happen to the governor?

only time will tellllllllll.

Current event political cartoon

so this cartoon is about how sara palin ruined the election for john mccain. she helped his ratings at first but then..everything died. so here we have obama thanking mcCain for adding palin to his ticket bcause it did help obama to win the election

Volunteering

so yeah... i rpetty much got all my volunteering hours done ON election day... my day started at 5:30 am. i went and voted at the elementary school :)..
then i returned to volunteer and hand out sample ballots..where i met mr. Debenedittis aka Steve the mayor....[
then kathryn and i volunteered handiong out little flyers and asking ppl if they voted at 6:30 at night in the cold wet rain... FUN!

Final Election Blog Post

So here it goes: the winner is...[drum roll]... Barack Obama.


SURPRISE!! 353 to 185 electoral votes. popular vote..probably lots for barack..he has all the highly populated states with lots of democratic voters and lots of electoral votes. thanks california.


Senate race: The democratic candidate mark warner wins over Republican Jim gilmore. Warner has been leading by 30+ points in the polls for weeks. it is nearly impossible for him to lose...


House of Reps: 10th district winner is Wolf. I would vote for him 1. because judy feder? really? we can do better... also he must be doing something right.. he's been in office for longer than i've been alive.
11th: to be honest, i only know one person who's running: Gerry Connolly, and he looks like a nice guy. plus, he seems to be winning 58% of votes according to recent polls so yeah. he wins!

the end. NO MORE CAMPAIGN COMERCIALS!

Election post 4

Polling Week:

I
McCain is at 42%
Obama is at 52%
"With 1% of registered voters saying they will vote for another specific candidate, only 6% remain undecided, one of the smallest levels to date." -Gallup Polls

Analysis: with only a 3% margin of error on polls, it is obvious that McCain is falling behind. he has maintained between a 40-43% support rating for the past few weeks, but in the past 3 weeks, support of rObama has risen 4% from 48% on october 5th. it may have something to do with the recent endorsement of Coloin Powell, a major figure in the republican party.

II
Debate watchers were more likely to say McCain did a better job than Obama in the third debate than in the second debate (30% vs 23%), but McCain's best showing was the first debate, when 34% said he did the better job. Barack Obama was seen as winning all three, however, with 46%, 56% and 56% of people saying they preffered Obama to McCain in the debate.

Analysis: The debates are one of the most important factors in influencing voters for one candidate or the other, and according to other polls, the combination of Obama's strong performances and the overwhelming approval rate of his performances has positively influenced voters to vote for Obama. It's is most likely his poublic speaking skills which had the most effect on viewers as far as deciding who won, and McCain just doesn't have the same skills as a public speaker as Obama.

Senate Race:
I
Warner(D)- 57% to
Gilmore (R)- 31 %
11% undecided

Analysis: the democrats are winning everything. possibly because of the new found power of the democratic party, headed by barack obama. Senate races in several states are showing a strong lead for the demiocratic candidates, and it may just be time for the dem's to completly take over the senate. the races are still too close to tell in a few states, but overall in VA and elsewhere, the democratic candidates maintain a strong lead over the Republicans

ROLL OF POLLS:
+give almost accurate, up to date information.
+majority of people say theytrust poll results as accurate measures of public opinion.
+show what issues are most important to voters

-candidates are sometimes too concerned with poll results to focus on issues
-poll results published too early or too late will influence voters on certain issues

Volunteering sucks.

soo... sunday my friend lizzie and i went volunteering for Obama. i did it mostly because they kept calling me and hounding me, and somehow got my cell phone number and creeped me the hell out, so i went to shut them up. also to learn some more about obama, see if i want to vote for him.
what i found out is don't go to neighborhoods that the volunteer organizers tell you they have already canvassed. people there are mean. out of 24 houses visited, 11 people answered the door, and only 3 of those people were even civil to us. the rest yelled, got angry and slammed the door on our faces. the people who were nice were the ones who had not been visited before, AND who had already made up their minds to vote for obama. slo really, the whole idea here is, WHY ARE WE DOING THIS IF THEY ALREADY KNOW WHO THEY'RE GOING TO VOTE FOR AND IF THE VOLUNTEERS HAVE ALREADY BEEN TO THAT NEIGHBORHOOD????? just give them a flyer that say "GO VOTE DUMB-ASS." it would be easier.

current event tres

current news is as follows: 2nd presidential debate was this week. no one embarrassed themselves.. McCain was Ok and Barack was himself. it was an odd format: having the candidates walk around and the audience ask questions, town-hall style. it was interesting that McCain seemed more comfortable talking directly to the audience than obama did...ususally he is not the easy public speaker.
Newest news: ACORN in undre investigation in 9 states for voter fraud: aka letting ppl vote who shouldnt be... ACORN is currently leading the republican attempt to smear Barack's name and experience so this could be a potential problem for the republican party and candidate. perhaps it will swing votes away from McCain??

election post 3

for those of us who don't know, the VA senatorial race is going on at the same time as the presidential election. candidates are Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore.

Mark Warner (D): former Governor of VA who delivered the keynote speech at the Dem national convention. he was expected to pursue the presidency in 2006, but decided to take over for John Warner as senator for VA instead.

Jim Gilmore (R): Former attorney general for VA for 4 years and Governor for the 4 after that, he was in the race for the presidency until 2007 when he becanme the first major candidate to drop out to run for senate.

The most important issue facing the 2 candidates is state taxes and the economy... the senators are also worried about kick starting the housing market after the recent drop in the market and the recent financial crisis.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds former Democratic Governor Mark Warner’s with 60% of the vote and former republican Governor Jim Gilmore with 34%

Election Blog # 2

even before the stock market started doing funky things and all the banks decided to fail, the economy was the most important issue to me. the recent economic issues have just added to it. money is a big deal to me... but on top of that i'm thinking a lot about being able to afford college, getting a good job, paying bills. car insurance? an apartment? how am i going to own things and pay for things if the country falls into another depression? will i be able to get a job at all?? scary shiit.. a local issue prominent in this part of VA especially is immigration (the illegal kind) i know in north carolina a judge is fining 7-11 owners for letting illegal immigrants hang out in front of the store...they need work too... also a green card. dont punish the business owners because othe ppl are loitering. just put up a sign.
as far as the candidates and the debates go..i didn't see the whole debate but i don't think i missed much... there was no clear winner, but both candidates held their own pretty well (AKA they didn't say anything worthwhile but B.S'd enough to make it seem like they answered the questions; we all already know that Barack is a better public speaker, though he did look a little angry when McCain was talking.. he was staring him down.. and McCain didn;t look at him...
so it was extraaaa boring :/
after the debate obama ran an ad saying if you actually want some substance (which i know you do!) go to my website! so he at least is taking advantage of technology to help his campaign.. McCain may be a little too old or old fashioned for that, but he has plenty of TV ads to compete with barack on that front

Current EVENT 2

ok...so news is the presidential debate was friday night... McCain didn't cancel; the VP debate is thursday. is putting one on friday and one on thursday supposed to showthat the VP debate is less important. 10 bucks says more ppl watch it. but the VP debate should be as important as the presidentail debates for a number of reasons. 1. the VP has to run the country if anything happen to the president, and McCain is no spring chicken. 2. people often forget that thjey need tyo vote for the VP as much as the president.. mayeb not as much in this election, simply because of how heated the contest over the VP candidates was.
other news that that... the 700 billion bill is going half for half in congress right now.. as a result ppl are panicking that it wont be passed and the stock market is contuining to drop. it seems to me if that's what happens when there is only a chanceit wont pass... what will happen if it doest? crashhhh ?

current event reflection uno

so. current events for the current...times are as follows: stock market is falling apart. congress proposed a 700 billion dollar bail-out (that's quite a lot of money...) and is currently fighting about it, and also proposed to scoop up and bail out fannie mae and freddy mac (which are a really big deal) one question (not to be a pain in the ass, i actually want to know) did no one see this coming? isn't there a way to tell when big companies are about to go under? i mean... they weren't all shady about it enron-style so why wasn't it visible earlier that the companies were on the verge of failing? were there signs? like i said,i dont know. Also, i dont know if this 700 billion dollar bail-out is a good idea either. the U.S. already has quite a large naitonal debt so where is this money coming from? fogeign countries? that's a poor decision to let other countries have anymore power in our economy than they already do, but it is necessary to save fannie and freddy before they're past the point of no return, just for stability's sake. i wish i knew more about the economy, enough to have an intelligent discussion about this...alls i know is it's mighty scary to see the stock market in trouble.. depression scary? we shall see....

post 1

well... to start off with i am not a big fan of politics... in general they make me angry, and so do politicians. i dont like listening to them or watching them or hearing about them, or really anything to do with politics in general. but when forced to make a decision i would have to sayi am on the republican side of most issues and generally support McCain. Like most people, my ideology and political views have come from my family and especially my parents. granted, they're hard-core conservatives and i'm not nearly that bad, but i do share a lot of their views on everything except social issues. as far as the next president goes, my main hesitation in supporting McCain are his stands on social issues: he's pro-life, anti-same sex marriage, and sarah palin's a bit of a nut about not having sex-ed. Barack Obama is young and charismatic and obviously a better public speaker than McCain, but i just don't see enough experience there to put him in charge of the country. plus, he wants to make a lot of economic changes which might not be a good idea given the precarious state of the economy right now. maybe it;s just better to let things work themselves out... i'm open to being persuaded by either candidate and i'm thinking about sitting through the presidential debate before making a final decision