Pamela Jean Owens off-line

Well, here I am in Tyler, Texas, in the coffee shop of my mom’s retirement home.  Not a particularly exciting place to watch a debate!  And I’ve already bummed her out by my up-front witnessing to the good news of the Democratic Party in public wherever we go.  How come it’s ok to witness to the good news of Jesus Christ and no one should be offended, but it’s considered bad manners to witness to the good news of political change?  I’m proud to be a Democrat, all the time, but especially this year!  If you are proud to be a Democrat, let it be heard.  Shout it out!  “Read my lipstick:  I’m voting Democratic” (bumper stickers available from Emily’s list).

It’s been exciting in the Dallas area to see a collection of “I’m voting Democratic” yard signs.  “Had enough of Bush now?  Vote Democratic ‘08″ and many more.  So much fun to see them all over my hometown!

CNN is now going bonkers about the poll changes today — wow!  the multi-colored map doesn’t look like it did a few weeks ago AT ALL!

CNN says the whole world is watching the debate tonight to see what the next U.S. President will be doing that will make a difference in the world economy.  Duh!  This is sort of important, isn’t it?  Why is the economy hurting McCain and not Obama?  Well, maybe finally faith in the rich guy has been shaken.  If so, it’s sure about time!

Will he raise the issues of Bill Ayres and Rev. Wright tonight?  Are those issues for the American public at this point?  Surely not at this point.  I knew both of them in Chicago, Bill as a friend, Rev. Wright as an adjunct faculty member at the Divinity School.  I hope McCain has something more important on his mind than Obama’s pastor or his colleagues in city government.

8:02 p.m

It is so good to see a moderator respected by absolutely everyone!   Let’s hear it for Bob Schaefer!

well, right off the bat, one leveler -0- they are sitting instead of standing.  That means we don’t see anybody’s cute backside, or not cute.  No walking or pacing or getting up and down.  No way to tell who is taller than the other.  Remember, until 2004 the taller candidate won every election since television debates in 1960.  Al Gore?  Remember, he DID win the popular vote, just not the Supreme Court.

8:17 p.m.

“Countries that don’t like us very much” is a pretty large category these days, Sen. McCain, have you been to Europe lately?  We aren’t liked much anywhere except where we are buying oil; they love us, just the way we are.

“The most spending since the Great Society……”  Well, the dollar is worth a lot less than it was in LBJ’s day — my rent was $17 a week, for a nice little two room apartment with a bathroom down the hall on what is now Music Row in Nashville.  But would everyone about to start getting MediCare, or who is thankful their parents are getting MediCare, really want to go back to before the Great Society?  When I was in high school, what we now call MediCare was being opposed by the Republicans as “socialized medicine.”   Now we have a Republican president who wants socialized financial institutions.  Something is very confused here, IMHO.

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9 p.m.

Education and Health Care are the Civil Rights issues of the 21st Century.  McCain acknowledges that on education, but he just doesn’t get it on health care.  They are a right, not a privilege.  Joe the Plumber knows that, give him some credit.  If he’s making $250,000, he’s now management, not labor!  Duh!

Please comment if you want to, or if my comments aren’t working, drop me a note here or on Facebook.

AND REMEMBER, GET OUT AND VOTE!  VOTE EARLY, VOTE ALL THE WAY DOWN THE TICKET. AND GET EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO VOTE TOO.

2nd Congressional District Nebraska, Today’s Poll Numbers at www.fivethirtyeight.com

47.3 Obama, who is opening a 2nd Nebraska office tomorrow, with a 31% chance of victory taking the 2nd District electoral vote!

51.3 McCain, who is now pouring money into Omaha!

Nebraska Polls as of 10-7-08

WHAT  ARE  THE  REAL  ISSUES  TONIGHT?

If anyone is concerned about Bill Ayres, the supposed “terrorist pal” of Obama, please get in touch with us (me and Rick, my husband).  We ARE the same age as Bill and Bernadine, and our older son played baseball against each their younger son and their step-son in Little League when they were in grade school, and played baseball with each other in High School.   They were also buddies in Advanced Latin class and various  Our daughter and their older son went to high school together.  Bernadine and I were active in an interfaith organization Women Against War during the FIRST Gulf War, and also during the Clinton blockade of Iraq.  They are very extraordinaty people, and we have been in their home, just like Obama has.  But what is extraordinary about them is not that they were once part of the Weather Underground wing of SDS.  What is extraordinary about them is how committed they are to making the world a better, safer, kinder, healthier place for us in America, and for the rest of the world.

 Let’s see. McCain doesn’t want to raise taxes on anybody.  And he wants to buy up all the bad mortgages, my friends, which is going to be expensive, but he can do it, after all, he’s a maverick. 

I’m sorry, that sounds like funny money to me.  Whats he going to use for money?  Is he using Monopoly money?  Or monopoly money?

Barack Obama and Warren Buffet do not think the American economy is fundamentally sound.  Neither do I.  How does Warren Buffet for Secretary of the Treasury sound?

Let’s see, was it Wall Street that got drunk, or was it George Bush, or both?

How about a tax on all the homes owned by people with more than one, or, ok, since some elderly people have one in the south and one in the north, how about on all the homes past two per family?  That would be good news!

BEST LINE SO FAR as of 8:39 p.m.: “I think [Senator McCain's] Straight Talk Express lost a wheel along in there.”  (with regard to leaving the tax cuts on the rich alone).

Hello, have you told Sarah you think we have a damaged planet, John?  Oh that’s right, she does agree now that the climate is warming, but she has private knowledge from one of her fellow church members that it is another sign that we are near the end of days.  As soon as she gets that nuclear button, she can help Jesus get on down here to start the Millenial Times.

Q:  How many times had McCain voted against alternative fuels?

A:  Zero.

And alternative energy is part of the GOP plan?  I’m confused.

Places where we agree:  America is the greatest nation in the world.  Let’s get that clear.

VERY GOOD QUESTION, Tom Brokaw:  Define your doctrine with regard to the use of American military force in humanitarian situations that do not impact our own national security (Darfur, etc.)

Obama tells us what he will do.  McCain only says what he won’t do, and that we have to do whatever we can.  What does that mean?  Cool hand at the tiller?  Maybe a president with a vice president who can also advise would have a cooler hand, how about that?  Instead of one who has seen Russia off the back deck.

I’m sorry, but telling us that when he sang, “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,” was when he was just joking with an old military buddy doesn’t wash with me.  Bombing Iran is simply not something I want my president joking about.  What if I joked about carrying a gun as I walked through an airport?  Some things are off-limits for jokes, that’s the truth of the matter, and the voters know it.

Question, “How do you reorganize U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan?”  Are they giving Petreus the same money to pay the Taliban tribal lords not to attack in Afghanistan like he’s done in Iraq?  That sounds a lot like we helped the Taliban throw out Russia.  I don’t think that is going to work now that we’ve created a stronger Al Quaeda in the hills than they had before 9/11.

CNN’s uncommitted Ohio voters, male and female, seem to be much happier with Obama than McCain.  Good news.  Let’s watch the polls in Ohio closely over the next few days!

Ok, I can answer the question, No, Russia is not an evil empire now, it’s not an empire!  First rule of debate, Define Your Terms!  Dumb question, Tom.

Saying we have to make “Iran abridge their behavior” sounds like a good idea, but I don’t know what it means.  Obama is giving me a straight answer:  He will never take the military option off the table, but first he will go to the table.  McCain won’t go to the table unless he gets to set the table exactly the way he wants to.  I vote for going to the table.  At least let’s give it a try.  Evidence is, it works. Refusing to talk is not working with either Iran or North Korea, so how about trying talking.

Well, we’re here at Mama’s Pizza watching Gwen Ifill see if she can get more of an answer from Sarah Palin than Katie Couric could do.  Durn right, we are!

 Well, to start with, let’s admit Sarah does look like a grown up tonight.  Basic black, high heeled pumps, almost looks like she knows how to put a subject and verb together to make a sentence. 

Woops.  Spoke too soon.  She still can’t.  Nope, she and Joe Six-Pack are still as grammatically challenged as ever.  Awe, shucks.

Whew, when it gets to tax relief, we go all the way to DARN!  Hope her preacher isn’t listening. 

Looks like they forgot to coach her on where McCain and Obama voted alike.  She just dissed Obama for voting the same way her guy did on the budget resolution.  But golly, gee whiz, she’s only been at this for, what?, 5 weeks, so we shouldn’t be expecting so much of her, durn!

Let’s see, if the oil companies have made 600 billion dollars profit in the past 8 years, and we need 700 billion to bail out the banks, why aren’t the oil companies bailing out the banks?  What am I missing here?  Let’s just change the subject, shall we?  Being the governor of the state feeling the climate change she won’t argue about the causes but she’ll form some committees to figure out what to do.  Just drill, baby, drill, all of Alaska and we can be energy independent.  Of course, then Mr. Palin can lobby for Alaska to secede and form its own nation, and then the U.S. can buy its oil from Alaska instead of from Saudi Arabia.

Ok, let me figure this out.  We can get all the energy we need by drilling Alaska, but she supports a zero carbon emission policy.  Has she found some clean oil that doesn’t create carbon emission?  Has Alaska figured out something new to do with all that oil?

Let’s see, 39 minutes into the debate, and Gwen has given up on getting a straight answer from Palin.  She must have seen how useless it was when her colleague on CBS kept pushing.  Gets too hard for the interviewer to keep a straight face.  But the audience in St. Louis wasn’t able to keep from laughing, despite their pre-debate promise to be silent until the debate ends.

Both men and women in CNN’s uncommitted Ohio focus group go over the top when Biden says straight and clear, “Barack Obama and I will end this war in Iraq.”  But they sure didn’t like Palin’s claim that planning an exit strategy with a certainty of exit was throwing down a white flag of surrender.  Neither the men nor the women are buying it.  Score one for the intelligence of the Ohio uncommitted voters tonight!

The uncommitted women are loving Biden.  Wow!  This is beyond even fondest hopes!

Is Cuba getting nuke-le-ur weapons now?  Sounds like it from Sarah’s answers.  She doesn’t think diplomacy can be sitting down on a sofa.  Yuh gotta be on the line with your friends and allies backin’ yuh up before yuh start talkin’ and all that stuff with bad people like Spain.

I’m not sure now, is she saying Secretary Rice sat down with Israel or Palistine the other day, also?  Did she mean both?  Or neither?  Or does she not really remember?  Doesn’t really matter, since her church is just waiting for the chance to push the nuke-le-ur button and bring on Armageddon in Israel so Jesus can come back and take all the Republicans to heaven and send us Dirty Democrats somewhere else.

“Please, Gwen, can we talk about Afghanistan now? I learned an answer on that one and I’m afraid I may forget it before you let me give it.”

Joe, of course she’s against extending arms control agreeements.  We can’t hurry up to get to Armageddon if we don’t get plenty of bombs in the world.  But you’re Catholic, so you wouldn’t think of trying to help Jesus hurry up and come again.  Catholics would see that as a bit like taking things out of God’s hands, wouldn’t they?

Oh, good.  I’m so glad to know that Sarah watched those Democratic primary debates, so she knows where Biden disagrees with Obama.  Wonder if it was yesterday or the day before that she watched them?

Update from CNN, 9:05 p.m., it took a while, but the uncommitted Ohio men have come around to Biden once we got into foreign policy.  The men are getting tired of hearing that McCain knows how to win a war, because he knows war.  The way I remember it, McCain lost 5 planes before he was taken prisoner, and then he spent the rest of the world in a prison camp in North Vietnam.  There’s a debate over how many of the 5 he was actually responsible for losing, but he lost them.  And would he really have gotten all those promotions if his dad hadn’t been an admiral?  Remember, George Bush graduated from Yale too, but Yale promises to graduate the sons of all its alums.  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_aircraft_did_John_McCain_lose_during_his_naval_career 

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_mccain_crash_five_planes_did_he.html

   He knows PTSD, I’m pretty sure of that, but war?  I don’t think he knows anything about war at all.  He sure didn’t know how to fly a plane very well!  What I want to know is how many crew members he lost or took down with him in those planes?  My uncle flew a bomber in the South Pacific in WWII, and he had quite a crew he was responsible for bringing home safely, and he did, with his plane, every time.  But that doesn’t make him qualified to be president and he never claimed it did.

Dog-gone it, and God bless your wife who’s been a teacher for 30 years, she’ll have her reward in heaven, and by the way, my gramma is a teacher and she’s in the audience right now, and if you are in my son’s class in Alaska, you get extra credit for watching this debate……  What was the question, again, Gwen?  Oh, everybody gets extra credit, awe shucks.

Whew, Gwen, didn’t you know that Sarah Palin wouldn’t know what an Achilles Heel is?  They don’t teach mythology and metaphor in Alaska.  Good for you, Gwen, and Joe, not pointing out that Sarah answered the wrong question.  She thought an Achilles Heel was her strong point, not her weak point.

What do you think?  Let me know!  Who won this debate?  The Democrats called for God’s blessing tonight, but Sarah forgot that line.  Woops!