US Elections 2008 - II

04-11-2008, 12:04 AM

Australian man fathers & Daughter Have 2nd Baby
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EewWBMFOX9o

Shambhu · 04-11-2008, 12:26 AM

The count from that FLDS group is 555 rescued so far.

Did people notice how pristinely clean the "temple" was? How spotless the white color on it was? How magnificently manicured the lawns were? How perfectly geometric the white walkways were?

This is the key to the mind of the western man. The attention span, short as it is, gets still shorter when the imagery is all sqeaky clean. The FLDS affair, which deserves serious attention, will only be treated as the "flavor of the month" story. Larry King, Nancy Grace, ...., and now we move on..

Be well-dressed, and you got it made. Don't think too deeply about anything. Keep your mind on your money and your money on your mind. Bomb countries. Subvert cultures. But keep it clean for your own people. They even have a name for this aberrant behaviour: :" The American Dream".

04-11-2008, 01:32 AM

Shambhu you are on dot. These stories don't effect me anymore, previously I used to get literally sick. I remember throwing up and really got sick after hearing and seeing some footage of sapceage cult mass sucide in Southern California.
Incest thing comes in media atleast twice or thrice a year. Some called it life style as swingers they are aslo acceptable.
This is fourth big case in last six month.

04-11-2008, 10:21 AM

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...0,6553901.story

QUOTE"This is a machine city, and ward leaders have to pay their committee people," Campbell said. "Barack Obama's campaign doesn't pay workers, and I guarantee you if they don't put up some money for those street workers, those leaders will most likely take Clinton money. It won't stop him [Obama] from winning Philadelphia, but he won't come out with the numbers that he needs" to win the state.

A neutral observer, state Rep. Dwight Evans, whose district is in northwest Philadelphia, said there may be a racial subtext to the dispute. Ward leaders, he said, see Obama airing millions of dollars worth of television ads in the city -- money that benefits largely white station owners, feeding resentment. People wonder why Obama isn't sharing the largesse with the largely African American field workers trying to get him elected, Evans said.

"They view it that the white people are getting all the money for TV," said Evans, an African American and former ward leader. "And they're the ones who are the foot soldiers on the street. They're predominantly African Americans, and they're not the ones who are getting that TV money."

**acharya** · 04-11-2008, 10:23 AM

QUOTE(Shambhu @ Apr 10 2008, 06:56 AM)

Be well-dressed, and you got it made. Don't think too deeply about anything. Keep your mind on your money and your money on your mind. Bomb countries. Subvert cultures. But keep it clean for your own people. They even have a name for this aberrant behaviour: :" The American Dream".
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This is known as social management.
Media and education is used heavily to tame the population into these zombies

04-11-2008, 10:42 AM

We blame Indian sick politicians, here you go buy Democracy American style <!--emo& Big Grin

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Barack Obama may lose support in Philadelphia over 'street money'QUOTEFourteen months into a campaign that has the feel of a movement, Sen. Barack Obama has collided with the gritty political traditions of Philadelphia, where ward bosses love their candidates, but also expect them to pay up.

The dispute centers on the dispensing of "street money," a long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote.

Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot soldiers and loyalists who make up the party's workforce.

It is all legal -- but Obama's people are telling the local bosses he won't pay.

That sets up a cultural clash, pitting a candidate who promises to transform American politics against the realities of a local political system important to his presidential hopes. Pennsylvania holds its primary on April 22.

Obama's posture confounds neighborhood political leaders sympathetic to his cause. They caution that if Obama withholds money that gubernatorial, mayoral and presidential candidates have willingly paid out for decades, there could be defections to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. And the Clinton campaign, in contrast, will oblige in forking over the money, these ward leaders predict.

"We've heard directly from the Obama organizer who organizes our ward, and he told us it's an entirely volunteer organization and that I should not expect to see anything from the Obama campaign other than ads on TV and the support that volunteers are giving us," said Greg Paulmier, a ward leader in the northwest part of the city.

Neither the Clinton nor the Obama campaign would say publicly whether they would comply with Philadelphia's street money customs. But an Obama aide said Thursday that it had never been the campaign's practice to make such payments. Rather, the campaign's focus is to recruit new people drawn to Obama's message, the aide said.

"It hasn't been about tapping long-standing political machinery," he said of the Obama campaign's field operation.

Carol Ann Campbell, a ward leader and Democratic superdelegate committed to Obama, estimated that the total amount of street money Obama would need to lay out for election day is $400,000 to $500,000.

"This is a machine city, and ward leaders have to pay their committee people," Campbell said. "Barack Obama's campaign doesn't pay workers, and I guarantee you if they don't put up some money for those street workers, those leaders will most likely take Clinton money. It won't stop him [Obama] from winning Philadelphia, but he won't come out with the numbers that he needs" to win the state.

A neutral observer, state Rep. Dwight Evans, whose district is in northwest Philadelphia, said there may be a racial subtext to the dispute. Ward leaders, he said, see Obama airing millions of dollars worth of television ads in the city -- money that benefits largely white station owners, feeding resentment. People wonder why Obama isn't sharing the largesse with the largely African American field workers trying to get him elected, Evans said.

"They view it that the white people are getting all the money for TV," said Evans, an African American and former ward leader. "And they're the ones who are the foot soldiers on the street. They're predominantly African Americans, and they're not the ones who are getting that TV money." <!--emo& Big Grin

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Hardscrabble neighborhoods across the city have come to depend on street money as a welcome payday for knocking on doors, handing out leaflets and speaking to voters as they arrive at polling places.

Peter Wilson, a ward leader from West Philadelphia, said: "Most of the ward leaders, we live in a very poor area, and people look forward to election days. . . . People are astute. They know the Obama campaign has raised millions of dollars." <!--emo& Tongue

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Street money is an enduring political practice in Philadelphia and cities including Chicago, Baltimore, Newark and Los Angeles.

In Jon Corzine's successful race in 2000 for the U.S. Senate, people from out of state poured into New Jersey to be part of a huge get-out-the-vote operation. Some were paid $75 apiece in street money, as part of the well-funded Corzine campaign's election day efforts.

In the 2004 presidential race, U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in street money to Philadelphia's Democratic apparatus, according to city party veterans. <!--emo& Big Grin

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A famous scene played out at a Democratic committee meeting during the 1980 presidential primary. Vice President Walter F. Mondale came to Philadelphia hoping to boost support for President Jimmy Carter, then in a tough nomination fight with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Mondale made his pitch, touting Carter's record on human rights and the economy.
................

"It's our tradition," Williams said. "You don't come to someone's house and change the rules of someone's house. That's just respect." Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/b_cowboy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='b_cowboy.gif' />

dhu · (This post was last modified: 04-11-2008, 08:01 PM by dhu.)

QUOTE(ramana @ Apr 10 2008, 11:20 PM)Dhu, Have you been watching the cults/sects arrest in Texas? looks like the charges are based on children' safety laws but the media doesn't go into the fundamental/root cause of these sects. There is something Biblical in this whole mess that Muhammed goes and marries a child and the same is going on in West Texas in the 21st century.
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Haven't noticed that particular instance. I was referring to latest article by Balagangadhara (Stereotypes) and tying into Antonio de Nicholas (Left neocortex does not get direct sensory input). Infantilization and sexualization are the two main modes of Western stereotyping; there are plenty of such instances in western interaction with the far east, which have been ably explored under the postmodern rubric of the "colonial gaze" or fetishization.

Always we should remember Rosser's famous line about Indologists: that they love their subjects in the same way that a pedophile loves the child. We can always spot an aspect of 'forced familiarization' or rather the 'feigning of a false familiarity and closeness' in their interactions with their subjects. Balagangadhara even describes seeing the "professor's smile" in his hour long audio.

04-12-2008, 03:05 AM

Obama had visited India and Pakistan when he was 19QUOTEObama spent âabout three weeksâ there, his press secretary Bill Burton said, staying in Karachi with the family of a college friend Mohammed Hasan Chandoo but also traveling to Hyderabad, in India.

04-12-2008, 09:08 PM

Forced marriages, child abuse, physical assaults, denial of education to girls, keeping women indoors, slavery and christians preach to others on human rights and their 'superior' religion. <!--emo& Smile

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QUOTEForced to marry a 50-year-old with six wives when just 18 ... One woman's harrowing tale of escaping the Texas polygamist sect
Link
12th April 2008

Watching the TV this week I wept as pictures were broadcast from an isolated part of Texas.

I saw 416 children - from infants to teenagers - and 133 women being taken into protective police custody.

They were driven away from a place they called "home" - a 1,700-acre desert compound run by the polygamist sect once controlled by their "prophet", Warren Jeffs.

The reason I was crying was simple - those images of women wearing ankle-length dresses and holding the hands of bright-eyed children brought back terrible memories. For I was once one of them.

Many of those teenage girls were pregnant and some already had babies.

Few of the 416 youngsters brought out of the sect in the Texas desert knew their full names, birthday or even their own mothers.

Some had been beaten so badly they had suffered broken bones. Girls, some as young as 12 and 13, had been expected to have sex with much older men.

But as the freed youngsters played with donated toys, social workers claimed the shadow of fear was finally lifting for the children.

No one knows better than I do what the horrifying reality of life was like at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, south of Dallas - I was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

Only I was lucky enough to escape. I came from six generations of polygamists who formed the 10,000-strong FLDS, as we called it.

The organisation was part of the Mormon church, but broke away to defend the rights of its male members to have more than one wife - a practice the Mormons stopped at the turn of the last century.

When I was young, I remember being looked at with scorn when we went into the town in our long pastel dresses.

The residents called us "polygs" and sometimes threw rocks at us, but I didn't mind.

It proved to my young and naive mind that all the people in the outside world were evil.

At the age of 18, in 1986, I was made to marry a 50-year-old stranger - a fellow member of the cult - because that was expected of every young woman in our community.

It was deemed perfectly natural: the leader, our prophet, decided whom you should marry and you were supposed to do it without hesitation.

Except I did hesitate. When I was forced to marry, it was a turning point for me - a moment which made me question everything I had been taught.

But so strong had my indoctrination been, I still lived by the tenets of our faith, ignoring the questioning voice in my mind.

So, during the next 15 years, I bore my husband, Merril, who had six other wives, no fewer than eight children - five boys and three girls.

I had no alternative than to obey his demands - including treating him like a god.

If I refused, or failed in my tasks, I was punished. My every move was watched, and I was never allowed my own money. I knew I was being controlled and it frightened me.

My sister (also a member of the FLDS) and I used to have a grim joke: "Don't drink the punch" - a reference to the mass suicide of 900 members of the cult The People's Temple by drinking a poison punch under the orders of the Rev Jim Jones in Guyana in 1978. We were terrified it might happen to us.

Indeed, ever since Jeffs inherited the leadership of our cult from his father in 2002, he'd been preaching that he was Jesus Christ incarnate.

He spoke about moving his followers to what he called the "Centre Place".

My husband was close to Jeffs, who was rumoured to have 180 wives, and there was every chance that he, too - together with me and his other six wives and 54 children - would be among the first to be taken to the Centre Place, wherever it was.

Once I complained to Jeffs about my husband's treatment. Jeffs told me I was foolish. I never complained again, even though I wasn't allowed to kiss or cuddle my children because the cult forbade it.

I also wasn't able to protect them from Jeffs, who'd started marrying off younger girls to sect members.

My 12-year-old daughter, Betty, was once kept a virtual prisoner in his house for three days. I was never sure what happened to her there.

And so, in April 2003, at the age of 35 and with just Â£10 to my name, I ran away with my eight children.

Three years later, my testimony formed a crucial part of the case that led to Jeffs being jailed for being an accomplice in the rape of a 14-year-old girl who was forced to marry her adult cousin.

He is still awaiting trial on other child sex charges.

I was there the day Jeffs was convicted of the rape charge: September 25, 2007. It was an unforgettable feeling. I was finally free of his malign influence.

FLDS has also created many other Warren Jeffs - men intoxicated with power, determined to dominate their many wives and children.

But to explain why, and tell you what life was like under the spell of the FLDS, I really need to go back to the beginning.

You see, mine was no ordinary childhood. My father didn't want me to attend an ordinary school and so I lived on an FLDS compound.

My father would be travelling for his business - men were allowed to move freely, while women could do so only with permission, and even then were virtual prisoners thanks to their constant pregnancies.

My mother grew depressed by her isolation - complaining that she had nothing to live for and how she'd rather be dead.

So brainwashed was I that when I was six I told her: "Mama, I think Dad better hurry up and get a new wife."

That's the way I was trained to think. Not long afterwards, Dad did find a new wife.

But even back then I began to notice strange things - such as the fact many women wore dark glasses.

It wasn't long before I realised it was because they had black eyes from being beaten by their husbands.

Beating was commonplace in our house, too. My mother beat my two sisters and I every day - everything from small swats on the behind to a lengthy belt whipping.

I never told my father about the beatings, because it was accepted in our culture. What my mother was doing wasn't considered abuse; it was considered good parenting.

Anyway, there was no one to object to, or see what was going on. Our community was so isolated it was rare we saw anyone from outside.

Back then, I felt the luckiest girl in the world to be one of God's elite. I was FLDS royalty because I had a long bloodline of polygamy.

My grandmother told me stories about how her great-grandfather was one of the first men to introduce the principle of "celestial marriage".

She also taught me that my sole purpose on earth was to have as many children as possible and that God would reveal the name of the man he wanted me to marry by sending a revelation to our prophet.

We also grew up knowing an awful lot about the end of the world.

It had been drilled into us that we were God's chosen people, and when the apocalypse came - as it inevitably would - we would be saved, while the wicked would be killed and the world destroyed.

There was just one caveat. Before God slaughtered the wicked, he would allow them to try to kill us.

So the government, which was wicked, would try to kill everyone in our community, but - providing we were faithful - God would hear our prayers and protect us.

That was why we kept ourselves to ourselves so ferociously.

As a young woman growing up, I didn't question any of this - any more than I questioned why we were never taught about sex.

When we had health education at school inside the compound, all the chapters about human reproduction were cut out.

Sex was something a husband was to teach his wife. There were some women in FLDS who married and still believed that babies came from kissing.

When I was 17, I worked for a year as a teacher's assistant in the compound's school, and by the time I was 18 I had a secret dream of becoming a paediatrician.

I didn't know any other woman in the FLDS who was so ambitious, but I was determined to try, so I told my father of my desire to go to college.

He said he'd ask our prophet - who was then a man known as Uncle Roy, who controlled the church before Jeffs' father.

Just a few days later, my father woke me up.

"I had a chance to talk to Uncle Roy," he announced.

"He told me you could go to school to be a teacher. But he said that before you go you should marry Merril Jessop."

I was stunned. My future had just vanished. Now, even if I continued with my education, I'd have to do so while being constantly pregnant - as was expected of married women. My husband would also be able to overrule any decision about what I did.

I looked at my father in horror. I hardly knew Merril. He was 50, and I'd gone to school with his daughters. Now I was going to be one of their mothers.

"How does Merril feel about this marriage?" I asked him.

"How does he feel about marrying a child?"

My father simply said: "Oh, he's done it before. I talked to him and arranged for you to marry him this Saturday."

That was just two days away.

My father went on to tell me that this came down from the prophet of God and I should see it as a blessing.

"You should not question it, or allow the devil to interfere in your feelings."

My parents didn't intend to let me out of their sight until the wedding.

When Merril arrived at my house that morning, he didn't even acknowledge me - but when he left, he clearly expected me to follow, and I did.

As we pulled away from our house, I felt as though I was in a horror movie that was playing out in front of me. Except the horror was real and there was no escape.

I had no experience with men. I had never dated a boy. Relationships outside of marriage were taboo in our culture. But I certainly knew I didn't want Merril to touch me.

On my wedding night I was paralysed. I didn't want to consummate the marriage, but had no choice.

Merril took off my nightgown and shifted his body on top of me, but he couldn't perform and thankfully gave up.

The next day he took me to his house and introduced me to his three other wives - he was to get two more quite soon - as well as their ten teenage daughters and four other daughters aged between nine and 12.

But even though I hadn't wanted to marry Merril, didn't love him, let alone like him, I still believed in the FLDS doctrines.

I thought my husband was the revelation the prophet had received for me. I believed I was destined to bear his children and serve him until he died.

I also realised the only way to protect myself in my marriage was by remaining of sexual value to him.

Sex was the only currency I had to spend in my marriage - every polygamist wife knows that.

A woman who possesses a high sex status with her husband has more power over his other wives.

If she becomes unattractive to him, she is on dangerous ground - usually winding up as a slave to the dominant wife.

So although I hated Merril touching me, I knew I had to make myself attractive to him, even though there was no chemistry between us and our sex life was always perfunctory.

In fact, throughout our 17 years of marriage, he saw me naked only a few times, and the bedroom was always completely dark.

Nevertheless, I did bear him eight children - all of whom were regularly beaten by their father.

The only way I could stop Merril beating my children was to have sex with him.

But when my seventh child, Harrison, developed cancer as a baby and was whisked away to hospital, I finally realised that no one in our community cared about him.

Poor Harrison was so ill, but no one from the community came with us, no one expressed their concern.

Despite the intimate living arrangements I had with Merril's other wives, even they stayed silent.

This was a mark of the essentially competitive relationship we all had - the internal rivalries between six wives were hugely complex.

But this whole experience was a wake-up call for me. For 32 years I'd been brainwashed into thinking that every person outside the FLDS was evil - but suddenly I saw the only people willing to fight for Harrison's life, and stay at his bedside, were outsiders, the wonderful doctors and nurses who saved his life.

I secretly started to make plans to flee - from my husband, from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and from its leader Warren Jeffs.

To avoid suspicions, I had to keep up the pretence of marital relations, which produced my eighth child, another boy called Bryson.

Thankfully, I managed to avoid the attentions of my husband and Jeffs. And just before 4.30am on Monday, April 21, 2003, I ran away.

I packed my eight children into our van and drove away from the compound, even though my 12-year-old Betty was screaming: "Mother, you're stealing us. Uncle Warren will come and get us. We don't belong to you, we belong to the prophet."

After five hours on the road, we arrived in Salt Lake City and went into hiding.

Within hours, Merril was hunting me down like prey, but I didn't care. I would rather be dead than live that way another minute.

Over the next three years I fought a long legal battle for my freedom, and the custody of my children - and I eventually won.

I still struggle with my past. I know I was brainwashed, but I struggle to free myself from the doctrines I was taught.

If I'd lost the custody battle, I, too, would have been one of those women ushered on to the yellow school buses in Texas this week - and that's a fate I would never wish on anyone.

I know what they went through. I can only hope they survive like I have.

04-13-2008, 05:41 AM

from somewhere ---
QUOTEIn fact, this one:

<img src='http://logo.cafepress.com/3/11836.5215603.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

is selling like HOTCAKES right now...I'm getting so many orders for that design [on various products--mostly t-shirts, but also a lot of buttons and bumper stickers] it's ridiculous.

04-13-2008, 05:46 AM

After yesterday's Obama comments

QUOTE[BREAKING NEWS]

This just in - Water pressure is reaching a critical low across the country as thounds rush to get "Obama '08" bumper stickers of their cars......Film at eleven.Â
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04-13-2008, 05:53 AM

Obama Visits Billionaires Row

dhu · (This post was last modified: 04-13-2008, 10:24 PM by dhu.)

Going Behind Closed Doors in Christian Right Households

EXCERPT:
Born to be Bad?

Wilcox also found that evangelical Protestantism "steers fathers in a patriarchal direction when it comes to discipline. Drawing in part on their belief in original sin and on biblical passages that seem to promote a strict approach to discipline -- 'He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him' (Prov. 13:24) -- evangelical Protestant leaders ... stress the divine authority of parents and the need for parents to take a firm hand with children."

And so the fourth characteristic of a Christian Right home is that children are born evil and can become good only through a Godly mixture of love and punishment. "One does not have to teach antisocial behavior to toddlers," writes right-wing family psychologist John Rosemond in a 2006 column, syndicated in 225 newspapers. "They are by nature violent, deceitful, destructive, rebellious, and prone to sociopathic rages if they do not get their way."

I wrote to Rosemond in an email and asked him to elaborate. "In my estimation," he replied, "toddlerhood is a pathological condition that demands 'cure,' accomplished through a combination of powerful love and powerful discipline. ... The toddler mindset and the sociopathic mindset are one and the same: 'What I want, I deserve to have; the ends justify the means; and no one has a right to stand in my way.' This is a reflection of human nature."

Rosemond invoked the DSM-IV, the diagnostic bible of mental health practitioners, to justify his views and give them the veneer of scientific authority, but later in his response he made it clear that there is only one Bible that guides his parenting advice. "In every passage of Scripture that refers to the discipline (disciple-ing) of children, the central theme is leadership," he writes. "I am, first and foremost, a believer in and follower of Jesus, The Christ."

dhu · 04-14-2008, 11:52 AM

Is the Hillary Clinton campaign being deliberately sunk?
by F. William Engdahl

About the âpermanent establishmentâ

Mark Penn is exemplary of what US political insiders refer to as a person of the âpermanent establishment,â the shadowy institutions and insiders behind the curtains who really determine critical policy issues and shape the choices gullible voters then are given to âdemocratically choose among.â 

It has been referred to by strategists since the time of Edward Bernays as the âillusion of choice.â Penn is above political party, serving the interests of what some call the permanent establishment. As a case in point, he also is CEO of the influential global public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, which includes among clients the largest US mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial and Blackwater Inc. the Republican led mercenary security firm that has been accused of repeated killings of innocent Iraqi civilians. Pennâs firm was to make sure the âimageâ of such clients remained positive to the US public.

**acharya** · 04-15-2008, 06:09 AM

Restless' Independents, Not Parties, May Select U.S. President

Heidi Przybyla Mon Apr 14, 12:01 AM ET

April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama and John McCain both have a demonstrated appeal to independent voters, who may account for one-third of the vote in the general election and determine the outcome, whether the Democratic nominee is Obama or Hillary Clinton.
ADVERTISEMENT

Independents are the ``restless and anxious moderates,'' and their profile has ``broadened significantly'' over the past decade, Democratic pollster Doug Schoen said.

``They are much more concerned with how Washington works, with gridlock and the failure of the system, with education, the environment and fighting terrorism,'' said Schoen, author of the study, ``Declaring Independence.''

The presidential contenders are focused on securing their base. Republican Arizona Senator McCain, 71, is targeting conservatives, while the Democrats, Senators Clinton of New York, 60, and Obama of Illinois, 46, are chasing blue-collar voters.

Yet it is the independent voters who shaped both parties' fields and may decide who will become the next president.

``The candidate who wins the independent vote is the candidate who takes the oath of office,'' said Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, the second Democrat in a row to hold that office. ``People are just not as brand loyal.''

Diverse Group

While independents are a diverse group, they share some characteristics.

They are deeply pessimistic about the economy -- a majority believes it is in recession, according to the Pew Research Center in Washington. While a majority says the Iraq War was a mistake, independents are evenly divided over whether the U.S. should withdraw before the country is stable, according to Pew.

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times survey conducted in February found that a plurality of these voters said the Democrats would be best at handling the economy and almost two-thirds disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as president.

Independents tend to be middle-income whites who live in the suburbs, rather than the cities -- which are dominated by Democrats -- or rural areas, which lean strongly Republican.

They are most concentrated in the Northeast, in states such as Connecticut, where people who aren't registered in either major party make up 45 percent of the vote, and New Hampshire, where they account for 43 percent. They are also 58 percent of voters in New Jersey, which like New Hampshire has an open primary, and are growing in number in battleground states.

Purple States

Since 1994, they have also made big gains in the South and West, which helps explain why states such as Colorado and Virginia are increasingly categorized as purple rather than red or blue, the colors used to denote Republican and Democratic affiliation.

In New Mexico, independents surged to 18 percent in 2006 from 8 percent in 1994. They increased by 13 percentage points in Florida in that period.

``They are the growth stock in terms of registered voters,'' Rhodes Cook, a politics expert in Virginia, said.

There are also regional differences, said Evans Witt, a nonpartisan pollster at Princeton Survey Research in Washington. In the mountain West, many independents adhere to a ``libertarian lifestyle'' and have been turned off by the Republicans' rightward shift on social issues, he said. In the Midwest and the South, there are large pockets of ``Reagan Democrats'' who are anxious about the economy.

In the 2004 presidential election, independents split their vote between Democrat John Kerry and Bush. They behaved in similar fashion in 2000, when Bush ran against Vice President Al Gore.

Iraq, Economy

In the past few years, the Iraq war and concerns over health care and the economy have increasingly driven independents to vote for Democrats.

According to Pew Research, independents' favorable views of the Republican Party have declined to 40 percent in 2007 from 46 percent in 2004.

``Many moderate Republicans trickled into independent status,'' Cook said.

This shift tracks a ``moderating trend'' in the nation on social issues and the role of government, according to Pew.

``As the Republican Party turned more conservative, these pro-choice, pro-gun control people tend to feel much less comfortable with the party'' and ``part of it was a reaction to the evangelical movement,'' Witt said.

Primary Strength

Both McCain and Obama displayed strength with independents in the primary season.

McCain was the one Republican candidate with appeal to these voters, who helped resurrect his flagging candidacy in the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary. On Feb. 5, he won 53 percent of the independent vote in Connecticut, and 49 percent in California.

Obama had even wider margins among independents who chose to vote in Democratic primaries: 67 percent in Missouri on Feb. 5; 69 percent in Virginia on Feb. 12; and 64 percent in Wisconsin on Feb. 19.

``Independents find both McCain and Obama equally appealing,'' said Andy Kohut, Pew's director.

Russ Oullette, an independent activist in New Hampshire, illustrates the shift. He voted for McCain in 2000 and cast his ballot for Obama in this year's primary.

The growth of independents ``scares the heck out of a lot of people,'' he said. ``They don't know how to corral us or what to say to us.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Washington at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net .

Shambhu · 04-16-2008, 04:41 AM

Factor this in into Chris Matthews' BO-love:

CM is going to run against Arlen Specter for PA Senator in 2010 (NPR)

04-18-2008, 05:08 AM

dhu · 04-18-2008, 08:47 AM

So why are the masses of american conservatives/survivalists/militia lunatics being misled about Soros' prowestern orientation?

dhu · (This post was last modified: 04-19-2008, 10:57 AM by dhu.)

This is the origin of western/christian pedophila. Rascal children are not supremely principled beings and must be punished. At any rate they are not fully developed. There is no scope for learning, experience, action, or contingency.

QUOTESulekha Christian:

Krishna already told lies several times so how can you trust such person ever.Â for example if your one of the family member is telling lies and you would know it by their talks and later if that person will tell you something it would always look fishy because you know that person is a liar.Â How can you trust that person?Â A person who is a liar by nature his words don't have much value because he can cheat you at the end.Â If he is saying he is the creator but it may not be true because he has already told many lies.

But you can trust one God who never speaks lie and whose words never changes. God of Bible never speaks lie hence you can trust Him fully.

Num 23:19Â "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Heb 13:8Â Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Mat 5:17Â "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
Mat 5:18Â "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

God's unchanging words never changes and it totally trustworthy.Â God of Bible is not a liar like any others so you can fully trust Him and you can know for sure that what He is saying is definitely going to come to pass.

QUOTEContrast this stance with that of the West: a moral individual (an ideal priest or, say, Jesus Christ) is inimitable in principle. That is, a moral individual is actually a message, which does not say âbe like meâ, but one which proclaims âhopeâ for the humankind, brings âglad tidingsâ so to speak. And the âhopeâ is that the presence of such an inimitable, exceptional individual will âsaveâ humankind. If one is ârighteousâ, it is not only because that is the way to oneâs âsalvationâ, but more importantly, because the salvation of humankind depends upon the ârighteousâ being present amongst them. One is âmoralâ so that other âsinnersâ may be delivered from their âsinsâ. Such figures cannot influence daily life positively, but do so negatively viz., as examples of what we ordinary mortals, cannot be. They are, literally, the embodiments of âoughtâ and, as such, outside the âisâ (Not every human being can be an ideal priest or even, as the examples tell us, ought to be one.)

In Asia, such an âoughtâ is no moral example at all. A moral action must be capable of emulation in daily life and only as such can someone be an âexampleâ. Moral actions are actions that a son, a father, a friend, a teacher, a wife, etc., can perform as a son, a father, a friend, a teacher, a wife, etc. Either moral actions are realizable in this world, and in circumstances

Capt M Kumar · (This post was last modified: 04-19-2008, 11:15 AM by Capt M Kumar.)

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /> And when in doubt, u may go to:
http://www.factcheck.org/
and clear the doubts.

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