McCain Asks Supporters To Campaign On Blogs

Vote McCain in 2000! writes "McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be. McCain is now asking supporters to stump for him on blogs. Republican Web 2.0 consultant David All was effluent with praise for this outreach, calling it 'smart' and 'unique.' McCain's blogger outreach section has a handy list of political blogs which might be interested in hearing about McCain, such as the DailyKos, Crooks and Liars, and Think Progress. You can even report your posts to the campaign and 'receive points for your success,' though the page doesn't say what exactly the points are good for." Slashdot is not on their suggested blogs list. Can't imagine why.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[RetardsForRonPaul]

Yet, he wouldnt sign on to legislation limiting interrogation techniques to those found in the Army field manual. Again, all talk, no action. Just like his so called "reformer" cred, which seems to be nothing but PR spin since the S&L scandals.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[Anonymous Coward]

But above all else, I NEVER NEVER NEVER thought I would see a man who was a torture victim and POW stand up and support that very torture by HIS OWN COUNTRY.

Like the emails about Obama being a Muslim, no matter how many times this falsehood is repeated, it is still false.

McCain is against torture by the US. This includes waterboarding, sleep derivation, and many other 'interrogation techniques' that the B*sh administration has defended. See: McCain Detainee Amendment [wikipedia.org].

He's computer illiterate

[nojomofo]

McCain is not the stranger to technology some think him to be.

Yes he is: McCain Admits He Doesn't Know How to Use a Computer [huffingtonpost.com].

Why would slashdotters support Obama...

[tjstork]

On tech issues, he's entirely wrong?

Obama is getting money in torrents from IP people from Hollywood to Silicon Valley precisely because he is a strong proponent of doing everything with intellectual property that many slashdotters would virulently oppose. Ultimately, this issue trumps, economically, every issue that influences humanity more than even the war in Iraq or even global warming. Then, to top it all off, he wants to chop NASA's budget. Do the people on slashdot who support him actually read his "Issues" section on his web site, or do they just stop at "Yes we can."

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[elrous0]

He's only against it when he's making a speech. When the time comes to put his money where his mouth is and actually vote for real anti-torture legislation, he quietly votes against it [nytimes.com].

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[EastCoastSurfer]

I don't know the details of the bill, but was that the only issue in the bill? Too often we now see things like "Spending bill of 1 trillion $$$ with a small clause that will save babies" If I vote against spending 1 trillion, I'm now labeled a baby killer.

4 years ago we had something similar in my state on the ballot. It was a tax increase, but was worded you are either for clean air, water, and green spaces or you aren't (where is the option that I'm for a clean environment, but not the tax increase?). The results were thrown out and only slightly re-worded which many still disagreed with.

Are you smoking crack?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, any site where posters pile on Tony Snow and celebrate him having cancer must be moderate. Mainstream conservative blogs restrained themselves from such a disgusting, low-class attack on Ted Kennedy when it was revealed that he had a brain tumor.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[Colonel Korn]

Yet, he wouldnt sign on to legislation limiting interrogation techniques to those found in the Army field manual.

Limiting the interrogation techniques was McCain's own amendment to the 2006 Defense Authorization Act. It was amendment #1557. It's in the Congressional Record, a transcript of which you can read here: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_cr/s072505.html [fas.org]

What you're not understanding is that you're agreeing with the original anti-McCain statement. The post said that McCain used to have values and now he doesn't. You're saying that in 2006 (and also 2007) he fought against torture, but ignoring the factual statements of other posters showing that by late 2007/early 2008, McCain voted against the same thing he had previously championed. McCain now supports torture, but that's a very new position he took up during the primary, because he doesn't care at all about human rights when they might stand in the way of his nomination. McCain is the least principled man to run for president from either major party since Nixon.

Re:I can help!

[yhetti]

Tax cuts disproportionately affect "the rich" because the "the rich" pay a disproportionate amount of taxes. If you do a 1% tax cut, the guy who pays 100k a year in taxes will clearly get more back, in real dollars, than the person who pays zero in taxes (i.e, makes under $30k a year or so).

Corporate taxes, on the other hand, are stupid in a completely different way. Corporate taxes disproportional affect the poor because 100%+ of corporate taxes are passed on to the consumer -by definition-. A poor person and a rich person buying the same basket of goods pay the same real dollar amount in corporate taxes via markup, but the poor person pays a much higher percentage of their real income in "corporate" taxes.

Mass transit in the US is a complete scam and would be an utter failure. Most major cities already have mass transit systems (that are failures) because in the US, as soon as people can afford it they move *out* of cities into the suburbs. Mass transit in the suburbs is not effective and ends up costing more than just buying the cars.

He does -not- support torture of terror suspects. He supports strong interrogation techniques, but John McCain is in a unique position, WHICH YOU ARE NOT IN, to define what torture is. If he believes that certain techniques do not constitute torture, I tend to believe him.

The old GI bill isn't broken and he knows it. The "new" GI bill is a scam by Congress to siphon more money away from taxpayers. If they followed Montgomery and its children -correctly-, it wouldn't be a problem.

Gah..I can't believe Slashdot has reduced me to defending John McCain. Multiple times...

Re:"Effluent" ?

[iamdrscience]

Effluent actually is the correct word, the double meaning is just a delightful coincidence. From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: effluent
Function: noun
Date: 1859
: something that flows out: as a: an outflowing branch of a main stream or lake b: waste material (as smoke, liquid industrial refuse, or sewage) discharged into the environment especially when serving as a pollutant

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[smilindog2000]

I agree that McCain is not for the most part McBush. I will call you on Obama being vague, though I agree he makes a lot of vague statements in his stump speeches. In terms of actual policy statements, Obama's been the most precise, broad, and detailed of the entire bunch from the beginning. For example, check out McCain's "Issues" page. He only talks about 14 issues, and in political rhetoric for the masses. Compare that to Obama's issues page [barackobama.com]. He talks about 21. In his book, "The Audacity of Hope", Obama talks in more depth about real policy than I've ever read from a politician. Name an issue, and I'll go look up his position in the book.

Across the spectrum of issues, Obama is mostly avoiding politics as usual, and is being straight-up with us, unlike McCain. For example, how will McCain save Social Security? No one knows. It's not one of his issues. How will Obama do it? He'll raise taxes and increase the age for receiving benefits. It's not a warm fuzzy answer, but a rare honest one.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[flitty]

Wait wait wait...

2) McCain rarely backs George Bush.

Mccain voted 95% of the time with bush in 2007 and 100% of the time in 2008 [thinkprogress.org]

3) McCain never sucks up to the religious right, either.

One Word: Hagee. And speaking in front of Pat Robertson's college is TOTALLY not sucking up. Also, talking about "activist judges" and overturning Roe v wade isn't sucking up to religious right either.

He has repeatedly drawn distinctions between what happens at Gitmo and -actual- torture.

The fact that you think what is going on at Gitmo isn't -actual- torture makes me think you haven't really looked into what's going on down there. Perhaps you should go see "Taxi to the Dark Side".

The difference is that he's not convinced that solitary confinement for a few weeks or interrogations are neccesarily torture.

Here's what he says in his book:

It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.... There is little doubt that solitary confinement causes some mental deterioration in even the most resilient of personalities....

Sounds like something the US should endorse/use, eh?
Oh wait, you are an astroturfer, aren't you? You guys started quick!

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[pnuema]

John McCain Opposes Net Neutrality [newsmax.com]

Obama is for Net Neutrality [senate.gov]

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[FishWithAHammer]

It is possible that he thinks this is the only way to get elected, and he wants to get elected.

Which is why I'm reserving judgement on voting for McCain (although he'd have to start biting heads off babies to make me vote for "58 States" Obama, so I'm biased). I'm still thinking he's going to come out at the convention and make the neoconservative idiots very, very mad. If not, I might vote Mickey Mouse.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[flitty]

Ok Source with video [thinkprogress.org]

Re:effluent with praise?

[trolltalk.com]

Republican Web 2.0 consultant David All was effluent

It's not just him - all "Web 2.0 consultants" are effluent clogging the 'tubes

Effluent == raw sewage, which makes sense becase most politics is like a septic tank - the big chunks float to the top.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[pnuema]

This is utter horsehit. The oil in Montana and North Dakota is in oil shale, not in liquid form. You would essentially have to strip mine the entire area. Look here [blogspot.com] for more info. The environmental impact would be huge, and this technique is only economically viable when oil is incredibly expensive.

The real reason gas is so expensive, that no one is talking about, is that Bush borrowed so much money to fund his tax cuts and the war in Iraq that the dollar has been plummeting against the Euro [yahoo.com] and Yuan [yahoo.com]. Nice republican talking points there, but sorry, this isn't Fox. We actually check our facts.

Re:Spam for McCain!

[gfxguy]

I'm replying to this and losing all the moderation I've done (not one troll, I never give out trolls), because I have to disagree with this completely.

During the 2004 Election I was actually suspended from being able to post; heated debate to be sure, but there people who were throwing around curses, name calling, slinging mud; I did nothing of the sort - no name calling, no intelligence insulting.

My only crime was that I was going against conventional slashdot "wisdom." I supported Bush, I supported the war, and I made my opinions clear without stooping to petty insults and name-calling, and I was the one who got temporarily banned. I can't make any statements about everyone else who may have been involved, but I did see at least SOME of the posters who stooped to that level continue posting.

I said "screw it" and didn't even come back to slashdot for years. I really doubt anything has changed in that respect, but I decided that it was supposed to be a tech site that I occasionally got some information from, so it was silly to just stay away, but I have no doubt about why I was suspended from posting - it was due to a lot of negative moderation from people who simply disagreed with my opinion.

Re:Why would slashdotters support Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting... I took up your challenge and (re-)read the technology policy proposals: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/

It's true that he's in favor of enforcing intellectual property laws both at home and abroad. Then again, no serious executive candidate is going to argue against enforcing the law.

However, let's look at the other bits of policy:
1) Reform the patent system (!) That's pretty huge, and one /.ers have wanted since its inception.
2) Modernize internet access country-wide
3) net neutrality (generally seen as a good thing on /.)
4) Diversified media ownership
5) Right to privacy
6) Open up government
7) Invest in sciences (maybe NASA isn't the optimal/only way to spend money on science?)
8) And a "CTO" position to make it happen.

So yeah, those are all very good positions. Perfect? no, but at least _someone_ in the race is talking about technology and seems to "get it."

Some supporting facts...

[tjstork]

http://www.facingup.org/image/entitlements-spending [facingup.org]

Have a look at the chart comparing 1970 to today. Look at how much entitlements have consumed the federal budget.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[Shakrai]

Beyond that, there is absolutely no way you can ignore the evidence. I'll say it again. Cheney leaves Haliburton to be VP. Haliburton (like most companies do) gives him a parting gift of over $30 million. Haliburton is an energy company. Cheney now plays an intergral part in establishing our energy policy.

Are you really so dense that you can't see how fucked up that is?

To a certain point I actually think that's ok. You want people who are involved in industry to have a voice at the policy table because it's far too easy for politicians to hand down mandates while having no idea of how hard they will be to actually implement or how much they will cost. Any Geek should be able to appreciate this -- how many times has the PHB handed down an assignment while completely underestimating (or outright ignoring) how much money it will cost or how hard it will be to accomplish?

GWB's administration crossed the line when it gave the industry folks the ONLY voice at the table. This is actually one of the things that I don't think Obama gets enough credit for. He wants the health insurance industry and energy industry to have a seat at the table when policy is being decided -- he just doesn't want them to be able to buy every chair (to use his words). He isn't some kneejerk liberal that's opposed to business and making money -- he's opposed to businesses buying our Government and ramming their agenda down our throats at the expense of the greater good.

Re:Okay. Here's *MY* blog entry, Senator

[Xonstantine]

He was a maverick not afraid to point out the stupidity of cutting taxes while not cutting spending.

Well, here's the rub. It's foolish to not cut spending, regardless of what you do with taxes.

You know that $9 trillion number you wax poetically about? That's only if you use the type of Enron accounting that would land you in a Federal pound me in the ass prison if you were a corporation. Using GAAP, the Federal government is in debt to the tune of $100 trillion. That's 1 followed by 14 zeros. That's the deficit gap between our promised non-discretionary spending, and projected tax receipts.

Raise taxes to pay off the debt? That's rich. $100 trillion represents the pre-tax household income for every working person in the United States for the next 25 years. We aren't going to tax our way out of this problem.

And note, that's to pay off just our CURRENT promised obligations under Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Prescription Drug Plan.

The only saving grace to Obama is that, judging by his platform, he's going to increase our obligations exponentially (and that's saying something after the Bush presidency), so we will bankrupt sooner, and we can hit the reset button on this socialist pandering bullshit with future generation's money.

Re:Spam for McCain!

[PeolesDru]

Wow. Talk about internet savvy. I'm sure you can look at that video on YouTube and learn for yourself that McCain was not expressing a *preference* for staying in Iraq for 100 years, but rather was expressing the *liklihood* of there being a US military presence in Iraq for 100 years. But that's been twisted by the left, who say that he wants to be in Iraq killing babies for 100 years.

Just to put things into perspective, how many years now have we been in Germany and Japan and South Korea? Why doesn't the left want us to stop "occupying" those countries? I think it's because if the European countries had to pay for their own defense instead of having it subsidized by us, then they wouldn't be able to afford their socialist eutopias, and after the USSR the left doesn't need any more examples of how poorly command economies fare in the real world.

Re:Spam for McCain!

[Anonymous Coward]

Were you posting from a different account? 'cos I'm looking at your posting history around the 2004 election timeframe [slashdot.org] (caution: link works only if you're logged in) and while some posts are indeed modded down, most of the time (actually all the times I checked) it's because they're offtopic. There's a comment about hating your sister in law that was modded down, and another about Slashdot moderation. For non-offtopic posts, you seem to have been left alone or modded up.

Perhaps there's a time-period I'm missing, but this looks like a case of Republican-persecution-complex to me.

Subject Datestamp Replies Score 1149 Re:Worldwide results [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 13:5422 1150 Re:France may not affect America [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 13:5022 1151 Re:Worldwide results [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 13:4712 1152 I agree with the premise of the Ohio ruling [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 13:2912 attached to The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum [slashdot.org] 1153 Re:The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye.. [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 13:1812 attached to The Eye: Evolution versus Creationism [slashdot.org] 1154 Re:Amazing [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 11:262, Funny attached to The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum [slashdot.org] 1155 Sad... [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 10:212 attached to Does Redskins Loss Presage A Kerry Win? [slashdot.org] 1156 Still too expensive.... [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 10:1812, Insightful attached to Why Apple Should Port Games [slashdot.org] 1157 "The Millionaire Next Door" [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 9:332 1158 It's just so sad... [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 9:212, Flamebait 1159 Re:Does this mean Kerry will win? [slashdot.org]*2004-11-01 9:162 attached to Does Redskins Loss Presage A Kerry Win? [slashdot.org] 1160 Re:Why can't he just return it? [slashdot.org]*2004-10-29 14:272 1161 Re:Why can't he just return it? [slashdot.org]*2004-10-29 13:5812 1162 Re:Why can't he just return it? [slashdot.org]*2004-10-29 13:462 1163 Re:Why can't he just return it? [slashdot.org]*2004-10-29 13:1813, Insightful 1164 Re:Why can't he just return it? [slashdot.org]*2004-10-29 12:5122 1165 Re:Why can't he just return it? [slashdot.org]*2004-10-29 12:4512 attached to XBox Owner Sues Microsoft [slashdot.org] 1166 Re:It's easy to say that if you are not unemployed [slashdot.org]*2004-10-28 21:3212

Re:Spam for McCain!

[Rei]

It an apples-to-oranges comparison. Does your customer work 12-14 hours a day and generally 6 days a week? Does she have to simultaneously juggle dozens if not more of issues at a time?

First off, she's a friend, not a customer. Secondly, no, she doesn't have a full time job or juggle dozens of issues at a time, because she has *brain damage*; she's on disability precisely because she *can't* do any of those things. But even she can manage to use a computer.

No, using a computer doesn't automatically make you an expert on tech issues. But it makes you basically a patsy for whoever you choose to be your advisors on the issue because you have no personal experience to compare it to. And McCain's advisors, by the way, are telco lobbyists.

Re:Spam for McCain!

[Salgak1]

There are a LOT of conservatives planning to sit this one out.

No. Conservatives are lining up to vote for him. There are a lot of neoconservative fuckwits planning to sit this one out. There is a difference. [thecentrist.net]

I see. Somehow, I have a hard time believing a site called "The Centrist" would have a line on what Conservatives are thinking.

A quick review of the political spectrum:

Conservative * * * *Centrist * * * *Liberal

And they'll vote for him because the neocons can't get their heads around the idea of a black guy in the White House. It'll happen.

Neocon ? Isn't that a perjorative typically used by the Left ? Bottom line: it does appear that many on the Right may well sit this one out. It has nothing to do with Obama being an African-American. It has everything to do with Obama having the most liberal voting record in the Senate, according to the National Journal [nationaljournal.com] and McCain ignoring or going against conservatives on issues dear to them, like Immigration and Global Warming. .

Re:Spam for McCain!

[mosb1000]

Any conservative who posts on this site can vouch for the accuracy of this claim. Moderators mod down views they don't agree with, and on slash-dot that means that conservatives are moded down a lot more than up. I've had comments moded to +5 during the day, only to see that they've been moded down to -1 overnight. How could that possibly be objective? It's not. The minority opinion is lost unless you read at -1.