Joint statement from Obama and McCain:
The Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns have agreed to hold three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate in September and October sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The campaigns have come to the earliest agreement on presidential debates reached in any general election in recent history. This announcement reflects the presidential campaigns' agreement on dates, locations, and the formats for the fall debates. Campaign-appointed debate negotiators House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said they were pleased to have reached an early agreement to provide the American people with the opportunity to see and hear the candidates debate the critical issues facing the country. The two campaigns have accepted sponsorship of the debates by the Commission on Presidential Debates, subject to the debates being conducted under the terms of their agreement.

Summary of McCain-Obama Debate Agreement
The two campaigns agreed today on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are:

First Presidential Debate:
Date: September 26
Site: University of Mississippi
Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security
Moderator: Jim Lehrer
Staging: Podium debate
Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment

Vice Presidential Debate
Date: October 2nd
Site: Washington University (St. Louis)
Moderator: Gwen Ifill
Staging/Answer Format: To be resolved after both parties’ Vice Presidential nominees are selected.

Second Presidential Debate
Date: October 7
Site: Belmont University
Moderator: Tom Brokaw
Staging: Town Hall debate
Format: The moderator will call on members of the audience (and draw questions from the internet). Each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond to each question. Following those initial answers, the moderator will invite the candidates to respond to the previous answers, for a total of 1 minute, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment. In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or internet), and not the moderator.

Third Presidential Debate
Date: October 15
Site: Hofstra University
Topic: Domestic and Economic policy
Moderator: Bob Schieffer
Staging: Candidates will be seated at a table
Answer Format: Same as First Presidential Debate
Closing Statements: At the end of this debate (only) each candidate shall have the opportunity for a 90 second closing statement.

All four debates will begin at 9pm ET, and last for 90 minutes. Both campaigns also agreed to accept the CPD’s participation rules for third-party candidate participation.

:peace: and :heart:
Raine
 
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For those old enough to remember, we were once engaged in a "cold war" with Russia (then - in combination with other countries such as Georgia - known as the USSR). There were no missiles fired, no battlefields but for those of ideology and politics. The division between East and West was referred to as the Iron Curtain, coined by Goebbels, popularized by Churchill, and symbolized by the Berlin Wall. When the wall fell about 29 years ago, it was cause for worldwide celebration.

One of the darkest symbols of the cold war was the constant threat of nuclear anihilation. There was a constant tit-for-tat build-up on both sides creating an enormous military-industrial complex that was always coming out with newer better missiles, bombers, and fighters. Russia finally blinked (financially) and the rest is history. This - and the war in Afghanistan - broke Russia's back and bank.

The iron curtain was maintained by a paranoid political machine in defense of its ideology, and reinforced with brutality and fear. It's demise brought hope for a kinder, gentler world where people could disagree with their (or other) governments and not worry about retribution. When the curtain fell, however, the curtain rod remained behind, and now it seems that the U.S. is trying to create a new set of drapes to hang there.

This time, things are different.
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217 comments (Latest Comment: 08/21/2008 03:46:12 by Mondobubba)

Now, I’ve spent the last few weeks…days…hours…trying to figure out how best to use all the data I’ve been collecting and use it to practical purposes. It finally occurred to me, I am going to dispel some myths about the current campaign and how well someone may have done, and how poorly another one would do.

First, I’ll discuss what is talked about, ad nauseum, by the media. And that is, Obama and McCain are in a close race. Of course, how can you blame them, in a culture that loves the 5 second sound bite, who has time to listen to in-depth analysis of state-by-state polls? Hell, some states haven’t had a proper poll since February. So, if we were to look at what National polls say…




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159 comments (Latest Comment: 08/19/2008 04:00:38 by BobR)

Good Morning.

It's August....but next month is September, and you know what that means.

For weeks now, I've been seeing a highly irritating commercial hawking a "Silver Leaf Commemorative" for the anniversary of 9-11.

Never mind that it's so tacky that if it was a sailboat, we'd be pulling 12 knots with the wind two points off the bow...





Let's go through the breathless copy point by point, shall we?
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62 comments (Latest Comment: 08/17/2008 06:02:33 by livingonli)

Back in the year 1996, Al Franken wrote a book entitled “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot: And Other Observations” When it was released, many right wingers, including the very prominently named Mr. Limbaugh decried it as an attack and a smear campaign. Were one to read the book, however, the reader would find that in and amongst the many jokes about Rush’s weight, his several divorces, and his out and out lies, that Franken was in fact attempting to throw a satirical light upon what was quickly becoming standard operating procedure for the right wing: building liberal straw-men to knock down at will.

Indeed, Franken mentioned in many interviews that his book was not so much about making jokes at Limbaugh’s expense as it was about bemoaning the loss of civility in public discourse. Increasingly, especially amongst conservatives, it seemed that one had to pass an ideological purity test in order to be considered “one of us”. Those who harbored different opinions on one or two subjects were immediately looked upon as “unclean” and cast aside. In his own way, Al Franken may have hoped to mend that rift in civility and bring some sort of common sense back to political discourse. Unfortunately, it seems as if the body politic has taken those sutures and torn them asunder for the sake of convenience.
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132 comments (Latest Comment: 08/15/2008 05:45:29 by livingonli)