Opening Thoughts Regarding This 2008 Presidential Election

I've been talking to and emailing numerous folks about different aspects of this presidential campaign for awhile. I've been sharing links to articles or websites generally and talking about issues/opinions with friends quite a bit. I decided to centralize all that here.

For example this first post is essentially a message I sent to an old friend fleshed out some.

Why does John McCain come across as "The Penguin" played by Danny DeVito in the second "Batman" (Tim Burton's) movie?

Bottom line, these debates don't matter to Democrats. Democrats are puzzled why there are still undecided voters because if any of the following had been revealed to be true about Senator Obama or his running mate Senator Biden the campaign would be over:

1) the candidate has a teen, unwed daughter.

2) the candidate had not been out of the country or held a passport until two years ago - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/us/politics/30veep.html

3) the candidate had been personally blessed against witches and witchcraft by some type of priest on camera - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwkb9_zB2Pg&feature=related

4) the candidate's spouse had been a member of an organization that at one time advocated that their home state secede from the United States of America. - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26524024/

5) the candidate allegedly believes that the earth is literally six thousand years old and people like you and me walked alongside dinosaurs. - http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinreligion28-2008sep28,0,3643718.story?track=rss

6) the candidate had attended a sermon, again on camera, where a guest preacher, preached that those that follow the Jewish faith need to be converted to Christianity. - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13098.html

7) the candidate had not been able to name one newspaper or magazine the candidate reads on a daily or regular basis, and bailed out on the answer by saying “all of them”. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9go38MgZ4w8

One has to wonder what the Republican reaction would have been had any of the above been true of Senator Obama or Senator Biden.

But of course all the above is supposedly true, as reported by various media outlets, about Vice Presidential candidate Governor Palin, picked by Republican Presidential nominee Senator McCain.