Monday, April 21, 2008

*this* is elitism

4 comments:

Nita said...

Things you should probably know before posting this type of nonsense:

1) Senator McCain donates all his royalties from his books to charitable organizations. This sum has totaled over $1,800,000 since 1998 when he signed his first book deal. Senator McCain's book income of $256,898 for 2006 and 2007 is comprised of earnings for Faith of My Fathers, Worth the Fighting For, Why Courage Matters, Character is Destiny, and Hard Call. .

2) Beginning in 1991, Senator McCain has also donated the increase in his Senate salary for that year and each subsequent year to charity because he opposed the Congressional pay increase at that time and pledged not to accept the pay raises. The cumulative total of these donations is over $450,000. So essentially he makes the same as a Senator did in 1991.

3) In 2007, Senator and Mrs. McCain donated $210,933 from community assets to charity, of which Senator McCain's one-half allocation is $105,467. This is 27.2% of his adjusted gross income for the year. This is the highest donation level to charity out of all three presidential candidates. Most of Senator McCain's contributions were made to the John and Cindy McCain Family Foundation, which makes direct contributions to charities. The John and Cindy McCain Family Foundation specifically helps children around their world with disabilities. Specifically, and I don't know if you are aware of this, but Mrs. McCain feels especially compassionate about children with disabilities because she adopted a little girl from Bangladesh with a cleft pallet, who she and John have raised as their own daughter. (This was the same little girl who was upheld by the racists in South Carolina in 2000 as "the black daughter"...I don't know if you remember this).

Basically John McCain is one of the most honorable politicians with regards to his finances. He made significantly less last year than Hillary Clinton (putting Bill aside) and Barack Obama. Him and his wife file their taxes separately but there is honestly nothing wrong with that. And Democrats have very little to criticize on that side since the Kerrys did EXACTLY the same thing.

Becky said...

I'm not concerned with how he spends his money so much as the fact that he's out of touch with Americans who don't have/haven't married into incredible wealth. Listening to him talk about health insurance (he brought up his imprisonment, again, rather than answer the issue), the recession (his solution: more people should go to community college? how?), and his position on condoms in preventing the spread of AIDS in Africa (didn't have an opinion of his own at first, then decided he didn't think it was right to use condoms to save lives, not very straight talk or progressive), I don't have the sense that he really knows about the underlying issues. Some of this of course is also going to have to do with the fact that I disagree with his actual positions on almost every front.

My main concern though is that he's completely "flip flopped" (which was a cardinal sin for Kerry, right?) on a number of issues that used to make him moderate, and that now seem to make him dangerously close to another Bush presidency. Especially on making tax cuts for the very wealthy permanent, abandoning any idea of being a moderate on appointing judges, and having a cavalier attitude about putting our soldiers and national wealth at danger in wars that most Americans don't agree with. I'm also worried that if he has anger problems, he's not the best man for a job in which he's going to need to repair some major damage to America's reputation and diplomatic relations. I'd prefer someone who can talk us *out* of another mess like Iraq (or have the foresight not to do it in the first place, kind of like Cheney in the mid 90s).

This chronicles McCain's flip flops thus far: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15227.html

Nita said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!

Well that's a TOTALLY DIFFERENT ISSUE than the stupid video you put up about all the money he has.

I'll admit that McCain flipflopped on the taxes thing. I think he has a point about spending being too high under Bush. (McCain is a stalwart on cutting spending). But beyond that, I think it also had to do with him be fed up with Bush. The 2000 campaign was pretty brutal. I don't think he was ever interested in nominating liberal judges to the bench. He's always sorta been a strict constructionist.

Basically, your beef with McCain, and your statement as to why he isn't "in touch" is that you don't agree with him. And that's fine. But he isn't some sort of elitist. The man has served this country with honor. He has put his life on the line repeatedly. And now both his sons are in Iraq, serving their country. He has never asked for recognition for all the sacrifices he made for this country.

And there are so so so many things he has NOT flipflopped on even though they really jeapordize his political career. Like Iraq. You may not agree with him on it, but he stood up for the surge when it was not politically fashionable to do so. He stands up for environmental reforms even though many conservative critics have bashed him on it. He has stood up repeatedly for stem cell research even though people have bashed him on that. He has made a point to make compromises with the other side, even when his own party has come out against him. For God's sake, McCain-Feingold is HATED by most conservatives (Don't even get me started on McCain-Kennedy).

Look, I don't like everything John McCain stands for, but not only is he in touch with the American public, but he is an honorable and dedicated individual. And far far far from a perpetual flipflopper.

Becky said...

I just posted his comment on Obama being "insensitive" to the poor, which I find pertinent. There's something about just the extent of his super-richness that turns me off from McCain. You're right though, that most of it comes from the fact that I just don't agree with his policies. And it freaks me out that he's moving more toward Bush's policies than keeping to the stances that defined him as the "political maverick." I'm afraid he's going from the maverick to the panderer... and I can't tell how much of it is to rally followers, and how much of it will lead to another term or two of bad policies, failed wars.