Idol Chatter

It may be just me who thinks that Obama is sounding a bit weak in his McCain-Bush comparisons - but then again, maybe not.  Newsweek online just did a comparison of many of McCain’s proposals that have no relation to anything Bush has proposed.  Some of these ideas include:

— McCain wants to use half of the $700 billion financial rescue package that Bush signed into law to buy up troubled mortgages at full face value and then negotiate easier loan terms.

— McCain has called for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox because he has “betrayed the public’s trust.” Bush appointed Cox in 2005 and has stood by him.

— McCain has proposed sweeping changes to the health care system, replacing existing income tax breaks for worker’s health coverage with refundable tax credits of up to $5,000. Bush had proposed replacing income tax breaks with a standard deduction for health insurance, but it was not as large a proposal as McCain’s and it died in Congress.

— McCain differs with Bush in several ways over energy policy, points that his campaign argues would have a big impact on the economy. Among them: McCain supports a mandatory cap-and-trade approach to cutting greenhouse gases, which allows industries to either reduce their pollution or to purchase credits from companies exceeding pollution targets.

— McCain wants to eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits.

On the flip side, Obama want disparately to avoid any ties to the concept that he’s part of the ‘Tax and Spend’ Democratic Liberal group.  But his voting record is with the Democratic majority 96% of the time as reported by the Washington Post - Is he really his own man?  Of course that’s when he does vote.  Again according to the Washington Post, Senator Obama only has only exercised his vote a little over half the time:

Barack Obama has missed 303 votes (46.3%) during the current Congress.

While Obama shows a clear lead in the polls this last week before the vote, one wonders who it is that the US public is really voting into office.

With the blow up of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe expenditures reportedly totaling around $150K, Campbell Brown of CNN’s No Bias, No Bull put the issue up for pubic debate - do women have to work harder than men?  Are they judged more harshly - especially when it comes to how they look?

We could probably go round and round on this issue.  But perhaps the more interesting subject is how put together do you need to be to step into the political limelight at the level Sarah Palin has?

Sarah’s background is not one the oozes money.  Pictures released of her old wardrobe pre VP run showed a women doing her best with a limited clothing budget but you wouldn’t cite her as having great fashion taste.  Others running for office come from a situation of greater incomes (didn’t Obama make several million last year?) and frankly years to build up the stylish wardrobes they sport.

Looking at all the candidates and their wives (since Sarah is the only women I’ll throw the wives in too) you can see that they all dress extremely well.  I mean come on, if anyone doesn’t think Obama is spending a ton on his wardrobe, not to mention his wife Michelle’s understated high style selections (how often have you seen her look drab or wear the same outfit twice?).  And McCain has a solid wardrobe that probably costs more than it looks and his wife Cindy (who has a fortune) is often sporting top designer wear with lovely if pricely jewelry.

Perhaps the real issue is whether we’d really take anyone who shops at Target seriously.  The unfortunate truth may just be that we are more influenced by the proverbial ‘book cover’ than we want to admit.