While most of this election has been focused on Tabloids, the real issues have to creep in somewhere. That is where you will find the real difference between John McCain and Barack Obama. After all this election is not really about how many houses they have, who their pastor was twenty years ago, or how well they’ve hid their tax returns. Its about real issues such as the war in Iraq, taxes and the economy, and national security. And that is precisely where people should focus when truly looking at the two candidates. Besides national security, where McCain is the clear favorite on, the two candidates differ in three major area as Outlined by CNN: the war, health-care and energy policy.

Obama wants out of the war as soon as possible and plans for a quick timetable for withdraw. Although I favor this idea as I was against invading Iraq in the first place, I fear that his approach may be a little too rash. Yes, we do need to withdraw but we are in so deep right now. We need to stay there long enough so that the Iraqis can stand on their own feet. It should be a gradual withdraw spread out over many years. Despite what reports most people have heard, I highly doubt that we will be able to leave Iraq by 2011.

McCain on the other hand wants a much slower timetable on withdraw, and although not quite 100 years, it is slow for my tastes. I favor a complete withdraw somewhere in the 5-8 yr time-frame, not 3 years and not 100 years so neither of these candidates really satisfy me here. We can’t just leave and let the Iraqi government collapse yet we can’t stay there forever.

On healthcare is one point I really don’t agree with Obama on. Obama wants to subsidize health care by increasing taxes on the wealthy. This is one policy I don’t agree with and its not because I’m wealthy(if your interested, at $20,000/yr, I make well below the median income, mainly because I’m self-employed right now), but because I generally don’t believe in stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Yes, the rich should subsidize society to some degree but I believe they are already do their share, if not more than their share already. The rich may make the majority of the nation’s money, but they also pay the majority of th nation’s taxes. Poor people complain all the time about how the rich aren’t paying enough taxes, but what I don’t get is how they can complain when most of them aren’t playing any taxes at all or are even getting a rebate from the government for being poor. I don’t believe you can complain about something when you aren’t contributing anything to help the problem.

The last point is energy and I’m divided on this one. Obama favors cap-and-spend plans to lower carbon emissions and while McCain has different ideas, he even says that cap-and-spend has its benefits and will probably implement them to some degree. McCain will push for offshore drilling which will only slightly increase our supply of oil. But drilling may put more pressure and scare the middle-east into increasing their production and thereby lowering energy prices worldwide. Both candidates should push for alternative energy sources because in the long run, we will need them. On this point I prefer a combination of the two candidates strategies.

So overall, the real thing that is pushing me in McCain’s favor is the tax policy. While I also favor McCain on foreign policy, it isn’t quite as big of a tug. If Obama would change his mind about taxing one part of society more heavily than they are being taxed now to subsidize another part of society, I may consider supporting him. But that probably isn’t likely to happen.

Despite Hillary’s speech today which many claimed to have re-united the democratic party, there are still doubts as to whether she truly supports Barack Obama deep down. If one Takes a closer look at what she said, they’ll notice that she mentioned herself more than him. So while it may sway a few voters who were ardently supporting her before to vote for Obama, it did even more to remind everyone that she is still a very big character in politics both today and in the future, say possibly 2012.

Barack’s sinking poll numbers and his inexperience in foreign policy(as demonstrated by the conflict between Georgia and Russia) may play well into Hillary Clinton’s plans. On the surface, she has to support Barack Obama because it would be political suicide to not support him within the democratic party. But inside, Clinton might already be planning for 2012. She kept the party divided just long enough for John McCain to pull even with Barack Obama and a good number of supporters are just bitter enough to jump ship to McCain to make sure that Obama does not win the election. By making a speech that seemingly tries to convince her followers that Barack Obama is the man but at the same time making herself stand out more than him in the speech plays the role that she might have been planning ever since she lost the nomination. With her seemingly iron support for Barack Obama and attempts to unite the democratic party, she is gaining political capital and gaining many allies back whom gave her the cold shoulder during the primary season. But, by taking center stage during her own speech, she stays larger than life as a looming figure in the background ready to pounce when the chance strikes — just like a seasoned politician should be.

I’m not sure how many people noticed this during her speech but it should not be passed off as a coincidence. Hillary’s got more brains in her head and tricks up her sleeve than most people in politics — and thats saying a lot.

A Poll from CNN states that Obama does indeed trail McCain on national security. However, this time the margin is only by about 10 points. While that may sound like a lot to many people, I do believe it is down from a few months ago where the margin for McCain was nearly two to 1. But then again, I saw another poll about a month ago where Obama was leading McCain. So either people change their opinions really fast or one of the pollsters is really biased in who they ask.

Of course there could be other explanations too. The war between Russia and Georgia seems to have tipped the scales once again in McCain’s favor. However, since the general sentiment is that John McCain is better than Barack Obama on matters of national security, tonight’s theme at the DNC will be “securing America’s future”. I will be tuning in and hoping to hear some actual plans from Obama about how to secure our nation instead of the same old feel-good motivation speeches you always hear from him that contain no actual substance.
However, I don’t think his speech today will change the minds of many people about who is more qualified to handle national security issues. Barack’s policy of general appeasement is well known to most people and many people simply don’t like it. Personally, I prefer McCain’s tougher response on matters of national interest. Sure, it may be a little gun-ho for my taste but I prefer that over giving the enemy whatever they want in order to make them happy.

Russia has announced that it will support the Independence of Ossetia from Georgia. This sets an interesting stage in world affairs and one that may lead to confrontation between Russia and the west, although serious actions by either side are highly unlikely due to the possible consequences. This, of course, is seen as highly provocative to the west and especially the United States. Russia is basically trying to turned a well-timed and very opportunistic invasion into permanent political gains for herself.

It will be interesting to see how the United States responds to this matter. For those of you who don’t know, Ossetia was originally given to Georgia by Stalin. The people there want independence and welcome Russian Backing. So now is the United States going to intervene to uphold the dead dictator’s will? Will we actually oppose independence for a country even though we are always touting independence to the rest of the world? I’m not sure what actions the United States would be willing to take. I’d say any kind of military action would be out of the question as our troops are already spread thin enough as it is. Bringing diplomatic pressure on Russia wouldn’t do too much good as Russia is still an important trading partner to many European nations. Any sort of motion to honor the cease-fire agreement will just be ignored. The USA is in a hard position and Russia may be doing this in part of test the United States as to just tough it really is. It’ll be interesting to see how events unfold here.

Four men who were going to assassinate presidential nominee Barack Obama have been arrested by the police, thereby foiling their plan to prevent him from being elected as president of the United States. There was no denial from these guys when asked if their intention was to shoot Obama. The answer was a straight-forward “yes”. Any chance these guys would have had in court are officially shot. I say they’ll be doing quite a few years behind bars for this. However, this does bring up a concern that some people have had for a long time about Barack Obama. Being the first viable black candidate and likely the first black president, we all knew there were going to be people that were highly against this and the risk of assassination would be higher than for a usual president.

However, not many took this into serious consideration as most people thought there would not be anyone stupid or crazy enough to try to pull that off. This may just prove them wrong. This proves that there are actually people who are white-trashy enough to attempt to stop Obama’s campaign by murder. Not just one person, but four. With this incident, you have to wonder how many more people are like them that would risk murder to stop a black man from becoming president. It is certainly a warning signal to both increase security and a red flag for electing Obama as the once often written-off assassination risk becomes very real. Some that were sitting on the fence may become convinced that Obama is too risky a choice to elect.

However, the opposite works also and thats why these guys are retards for trying to assassinate Obama. A public figure’s approval rating is often the highest right after a botched assassination attempt(and sadly even higher if the attempt is successful) so these guys are taking quite a risk because they could in fact help Obama win the election by their screwed-up assassination attempt. People may have more sympathy and it may convince some once-stubborn supporters of Clinton to actually soften up. I doubt this is going to happen much or will this really effect the outcome of the election but the fact that someone is willing to try to assassinate Obama has to raise a few eyebrows.

The problem is that these people are not few and far between, there are about 2 million of them that feel this way and if those 2 million show up at the polls for McCain on election day, Obama is sort of screwed. So far the convention has done nothing to get these people to rally under Barack Obama and I doubt anyone sort of divine revelation will unite the democratic party.

In a desperate and pathetic bid to restore party unity, the democratic party has voted to restore all delegate seating rights to Michigan and Florida delegates — delegates that were likely to heavily favor Hillary Clinton. I’m sure those Clinton supporters really appreciate this move now, since its far too late to actually matter anymore. I can’t think of a worse move for the DNC to make. This does nothing but stir up trouble as it draws anger from all sides. Clinton supporters, Michigan voters, and Florida voters will look at this as a slap in the face since they got their voting rights back — but only after it was too late to matter. Obama supporters will be angry because since Michigan and Florida cheated by moving their primaries up, they have incurred insufficient punishment. This move will not be the uniting piece that the Democrats are hoping for. It will probably divide the party even more.

Whats more is that re-instating all the Michigan and Florida delegates will bring the pledged delegate race very tight — perhaps tight enough that the Hillary Clinton supporters can really stir up some trouble. They have already planned to bring up Hillary’s case at the democratic convention and even organize a march. This decision will just add fuel to the fire. If they can manage to sway a few super-delegates, the democratic convention may well be in trouble. I don’t think Barack Obama will get a poll bump after the convention. Because of the way things are panning out, I would not be surprised if his numbers dipped after this convention. Once again, the DNC has messed up and may have doomed the democrats’ chances at the white house in 2008.