@BenG: see the light? Man, I live in the light. I’m just trying to share a little with the rest of y’all. ;-)

@wj: Duck goes back to the farm and writes his memoir. So, I guess we should expect Obama to quit and go back to community organizing, huh?

Are yoiu starting to see the light? Well, one point about McCain you said isn’t true – he HAS changed policy on many things, some for good reasons, some not so good. Depends on your perspective, I suppose. I just read a quote taken from a speech he gave in 2000 when he stated his opposition to the Bush tax cut proposal. Not only did he change his position on the Bush tax cuts, back then, it sounded a lot more like Obama’s tax position, about making it easier on the poor and middle classes.

Another example that comes to mind is drilling for oil closer to the coast and in pristine parts of Alaska. Didn’t he oppose this type of drilling for oil when it placed the economy of the States in jeopardy?

Of course when you mention how his attitude during the campaign has changed, I would ask; isn’t that due to the changes he made in who ran his campaign? It was his stated policy to run a different kind of campaign than that which destroyed his previous run for president. Then he turned around and hired so many of the same people that ran the smear campaign against him. That’s self defeating.

There’s also the easing of the tensions with the Religious Right that he once criticized for being “agents of intolorence”, but now he embraces them for supporting him. Then there’s the Sarah Palin pick that makes one wonder what he was thinking. I’m sure there’s more I could come up with but Leapsecond summed it up for me and you get the point.

I mean, for me, it was easy to pick between the candidates because Obama’s political beliefs are much closer to my own than McCain’s. However, if I were in the middle politically, I do not think the issue you raise would matter so much to me. Perhaps Obama is a “duck” as you put it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe he has strong convictions and he wants to promote them on a national scale. There’s a difference between being ambitious and power hungry. I would hesitate to call Obama the latter.

Whereas, with McCain, he’s served for a mighty long time and his campaign this time has gone against nearly everything he believed in previously. Now, how do we judge that?

.

Harshly.

Although, I would argue that, policy-wise, he’s actually pretty similar to where he was in 2000. It’s the attitude that’s seemed very different this time.

The longer someone serves, the more sense you get as to what’s important to them and what isn’t.

Whereas, with McCain, he’s served for a mighty long time and his campaign this time has gone against nearly everything he believed in previously. Now, how do we judge that? Will 1998 John McCain be president, or will 2008 John McCain? (I’d think 2008; he has to pander to the GOP’s massive far-right constituency)

I think your points on Obama are totally valid, Alan, but I think it’s very hard to judge McCain as well, due to his shift to the right and his tendency for Rovian-campaigning, which he condemned in 2000.

I wonder if the realization from Congressional Democrats that he might have been “calculatingly” liberal will tarnish his working relationship with them if he happens to become president.

“One use for it is when you favor an idea, but you think the bill has a fatal flaw of some sort,” she said. “Another is when you have a conflict of interest. And another is when you want to play both sides of the fence . . . or to avoid casting a vote that your next opponent will try to take out of context.”

Across the aisle, Sen. John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, defined “present” as “no with an explanation.”

Cullerton said another use of the seemingly squirrelly vote is to “signify displeasure with the process, but not the concept.” He added that you’d be hard-pressed to find members of the General Assembly—including key allies of John McCain—who don’t use it from time to time for various reasons.

Illinois legislators have been casting “present” votes since at least 1931, according to the House clerk’s office. But the idea hasn’t swept the nation.
”
There are many other references with this info available online.

As for calculation, again, all politicans do that. In fact, one reason that McCain is behind is because he’s calculated so poorly. The question isn’t IF Obama has calculated, but how much. I understand the dance. Run towards the wings in the primary, run to the center in the general. McCain did that too but, with McCain, I have a lot more history to know when he’s just being a typical pandering politician and when he actually means what he says.

Vote for Obama because it feels right. You know it. Listen to him speak, look at his charm. Just repeat to your self Hope and Change and Hopenchange. Economy Bad War Bad Republicans Bad Obama Change Obama Good. Thats all you need to know.

Strangely, that’s the bedtime story my wife most prefers to tell our children.

Did he vote “present” so often in the Illinois Senate because he lacked conviction, because that’s how the Illinois Senate works or because he knew it was smart politics not to have a record on certain issues?

Do any of those answers make him a satisfactory candidate to you?

In the U.S. Senate, is he really its most liberal member or did he simply make a series of calculated votes designed to win the admiration of the Democratic base?

Again, you need to pick one because he is either one or the other. Do either of those choices make you comfortable?

I just have trouble judging him because his political record is difficult to interpret. The question for a skeptic like me is: where does the calculation end and the conviction begin?

You are thinking too much. Vote for Obama because it feels right. You know it. Listen to him speak, look at his charm. Just repeat to your self Hope and Change and Hopenchange. Economy Bad War Bad Republicans Bad Obama Change Obama Good. Thats all you need to know.

It doesn’t scare me away, but I think you handled the topic fairly and convincingly.