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DATE: 25 Sept. 2008

 

TO: My Political E-Mail List

 

SUBJECT: Obama vs. McCain on the Issues — Sources, Quotes, Links, etc.

Dear Family & Friends,

 

Although most polls show Obama with a lead, in both vote by likely voters and electoral college votes, this race for president is far closer than it should be. My God, the policies of the Right have brought us to the brink of financial and military ruin!

 

I’ve been asked by various concerned citizens in California and swing states to provide information that can help persuade swing voters. Below are some of the best sources of information I can recommend, to compare and contrast Obama and McCain, ON THE ISSUES — where this race will be won if we win it, and where this race should be won, shouldn’t it?

 

VOTING RECORDS

 

Here is an excellent source for summarizing the voting records of Obama and McCain (rather than going through the Senate’s Web site roll calls or http://thomas.loc.gov/ for all the hundreds and thousands of votes cast) ...

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/

 

Here’s the info for Obama ...

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/

 

... which gives his bio, missed votes (Running for president, he unsurprisingly missed 46% of the votes in the current congress), voting with party (He votes 96% of the time with the official Democratic Party position), votes, and — perhaps most telling — his key votes ...

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/key-votes/

 

Here’s the info for McCain ...

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/

 

... which again gives his bio, missed votes (He missed 64% of the votes in the current congress), voting with party (He votes 88% of the time with the official Republican Party position — and as Obama and others have stated elsewhere, over 90% of the time with Pres. Bush’s position — so much for his being a “maverick”), votes, and key votes ...

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/key-votes/

 

OFFICIAL WEB SITES’ “ISSUES” SECTIONS

 

http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/

 

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

 

FROM WIKIPEDIA

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain

 

McCAIN’S FLIP FLOPS ON MAJOR ISSUES

 

Documented in The Real McCain short video by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films, watched countless times on YouTube ...

 

http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/468-the-real-mccain

 

Documented in the book Free Ride: John McCain and the Media, by Media Matters for America’s David Brock & Paul Waldman ...

 

http://mediamattersaction.org/freeride/

 

Documented in the book The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him. Why Independents Shouldn’t, by Cliff Schecter ...

 

http://www.realmccainbook.com/

 

So much for the “straight talk express.”

 

OBAMA’S JUDGMENT AND FORESIGHT ON IRAQ

 

In 2002, Obama foresaw the disaster in Iraq ...

 

http://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.php

 

Meanwhile, McCain says we’re at the brink of “victory”: Thousands of our troops killed, tens of thousands horribly injured, tens (or hundreds) of thousands of innocent Iraqi adults and children killed and wounded, hundreds of billions of American taxdollars (and counting) spent, and the government of Iraq now in the hands of leaders closely allied with Iran. With victories like that who needs defeats?

 

McCAIN ON DEREGULATION AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

 

McCain’s “odds on” favorite to be Treasury Secretary is former Sen. Phil Gramm, who called average Americans “whiners” for complaining about the economic situation and who authored and sponsored the chief legislation that deregulated the financial markets, which brought us to what even Pres. Bush admits is the gravest financial crisis for the world since the Great Depression ...

 

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/16/krugman-on-gramm/

 

In particular, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act stripped away a large measure of the New Deal safeguards, set up to prevent another Great Depression ...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

 

... a bill that McCain supported ...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_McCain#Financial_deregulation

 

Unfortunately, the deregulation legislation was later amended, to gain near unanimous support in the Republican-controlled Congress, from Democrats, too, and was signed into law by President Clinton (Sounds a lot like what happened with electricity deregulation here in California about the same time, which also blew up in everyone’s faces). But the fact remains, as everyone knows, that the GOP has been leading the fight for deregulation, for generations, a position that McCain has continued to defend ...

 

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/21/mccain-deregulation/

 

... McCain last weekend: “I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy.”

 

And of course, there’s this chestnut, delivered the very day Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch and the stockmarket were tanking: “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4KY39jLdu4

 

... almost verbatim what failed GOP Pres. Herbert Hoover said as the stock market was crashing ...

 

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/17/mccain-channels-hoover/

 

Hmm. I’ve got about a trillion reasons why McCain is, again, completely out of touch (Actually, there are HUNDREDS of TRILLIONS of dollars of credit swaps etc. at risk all around the world, which is why nations around the world have been taking extraordinary measures — typically taking their taxpayers’ money and putting it at risk).

 

OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS ON THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

 

In March of this year, Obama was been speaking out in favor of increased regulation of the financial markets ...

 

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGBNsq

 

Obama’s fact sheet on modernizing the regulation of the financial markets, while helping homeowners and stimulating the economy ...

 

http://obama.3cdn.net/f9836ef496f75a9be0_39gimvt5b.pdf

 

Statements of support for the Obama plan from leading financial authorities ...

 

http://obama.3cdn.net/6eeb319f6baadbfd3c_ic6mv22hk.pdf

 

Obama and the Democrats in Congress — under the leadership of Sen. Christopher Dodd, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee — are standing up to Pres. Bush and rewriting his Bail-Out bill to include things that he — and big financial institutions and a lot of the GOP — did not originally want:

 

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/econprinciplesf?source=20080923_BO_I_P

OVERALL

 

If you look at the issues, at every turn, in both foreign and domestic affairs, Barack Obama has been standing with the better interests of the American people.

 

John McCain’s much-touted “experience” has been responsible for wasting thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars overseas and putting at risk trillions of dollars here at home and around the world.

 

Then again, it’s hard to pin him down on the issues, since the “straight talking” “maverick,” flip flops on almost everything, including the current financial crisis ...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWI35eNnDOw

 

That’s NOT the kind of “change” America can afford. America deserves much better. We need to stand together to stand up to the powerful interests that have brought us to the brink of ruin. Sen. Barack Obama has made that the central theme of his campaign, our campaign. That is a message that should help persuade the undecided.

 

This nation is ours, to lose or to preserve and nurture.

 

Doug

 

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