Kristyne McDaniel Opinion Blog

This has been the longest election season I’ve ever experienced to date. I’ve been watching the news closely, and have participated to a modest extent.

In prior years, I’ve had either more time or more money to contribute, but even this year I’ve done at least some small things to help the campaigns of those candidates I felt were best.

Steve and I voted absentee this year, and I went online to check the status of our ballots. They were both recorded as being received in good condition a week ago. With all the reports of problems that all of us have seen, it felt good to know that our part in the voting process was taken care of as we had expected.

I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever been so anxious about an election. I can’t even say why I felt that way, because it wasn’t really about who won or lost, or about the various propositions on the ballot here in California. I think it had more to do with anxiety about how in election seasons past it appeared that errors and obvious suppression tactics were the order of the day. This year, I hope for a more solid election… one that we can all put our faith into, that we can believe.

Whatever your choice in candidateS, and whatever you believe, if you haven’t already cast your ballot please go now and VOTE!

I had been hoping for Barack Obama to do the same thing Ross Perot did when he bought up a half hour of air time to better introduce himself. I’m very pleased to see that he has now gone ahead and done it.

The whole ad was wonderfully done. Of course, I came over to his side several weeks ago so I didn’t really need any convincing. What the process over the last few weeks has actually done is that I became quite solid in my choice of Obama. Steve and I sent in our absentee ballots a week ago, and mine was cast for Barack Obama. At this point, there isn’t anything that can be tossed in to the race by the McCain supporters that could change my mind, so of course that is the time to go ahead and cast my ballot. It is surprising just how much calmer I felt about the whole political race once that was done.

During the prime time ad, I found myself extremely happy with what I was hearing. This proposed change in course feels like exactly what I want to happen. I want good government, headed by a person that believes good government will make a difference. Obama proposes exactly that.

The ad was frosting on a wonderfully tasty cake. Milk chocolate cake in this case.

I’m listening to a John McCain stump speech right now, and listened to a Barack Obama speech earlier. I’m a bit of a politics watcher, in that politics has interested me since I was about 11 years old and the fight was between Humphrey and Nixon. One of the things John McCain keeps talking about is that he won’t spend our tax money and that spending is the root of the problem.

I’m not so sure about that.

All governments spend money. Conservative or liberal, all governments spend money. For me, the issue is how is the money spent, for what purposes, and how is the spending funded?

In the last 30 years since Nixon was first elected, every Republican administration has increased the debt and every Democratic administration has slowed the increase or even reversed it. Republicans got the idea somewhere that taxes were bad and that it was OK for our government to borrow money rather than getting tax revenues.

Borrowing money to spend instead of bringing it in through taxes is insane. Every one of us mere mortals that borrows more than we make and then spends borrowed money eventually winds up bankrupt. Where did we get the idea that government could do something people could not — and get away with it?

John McCain and many other Republicans believe that the current financial crisis came from bad mortgage debt. I disagree. I believe the crisis is simply the natural result of spending money that has to be borrowed.

It does look a lot like Barack Obama is about to win the election. Steve and I voted early because we didn’t want to risk having election day pass without casting our ballot. We are bugging all of our friends to be sure to vote early if at all possible. Vote early! This is a wonderful time to be alive!

I’m nobody when it comes to the stock market. Steve and I have invested money in stocks every so often when it seemed like a good place to park money, and when we had money that needed to be parked. At present, our money is primarily in our home, and some web sites that survive on advertising revenues. The current valuation of our home may be less than the balance due on our mortgage, but we really don’t know and aren’t trying to make any decisions based on our home valuation. We just want to live in our house and weather the storm. Its actual value is almost irrelevant with respect to our desire to live in it.

That said, my review of the news gives me a hope that the stock market is at or near the point where money people will be buying again, and where the valuation of stocks will begin to stabilize. I don’t know anything about whether the fundamentals of the economy are strong or not, but I do know that the real estate, personal possessions, and companies in the United States do have an intrinsic value, and that all is unlikely to be lost.

I’m very concerned that people I know might sell off all of their stock at the lowest point and lose money they don’t have to lose. Yes, a lot of value has been lost. But if a person doesn’t need the money in the market to live on, that perhaps hanging on is a good move. I’m going to keep watching the markets and the news to see what others believe. Anyone with an opinion is surely welcome to share it with me. I’m all ears.

Now that the ‘TrooperGate’ report has been completed and made public, there is a bit of discussion going back and forth about the conclusions. I’m no expert, but as a citizen that has been reading and hearing about the report’s conclusions, I wanted to give a short opinion on the findings for you to put in the hopper and consider.

My understanding is that the Palins’ pressure on subordinates was the ‘unlawful’ act, because it violates Alaska’s ethics laws. It is my understanding that this violation of ethic’s law carries no criminal penalties, as it does not constitute a crime under Alaska law. It is characterized as a violation of trust, rather than a violation of criminal or civil law.

While the firing of Walter Monegan started this whole thing, the conclusion of the panel was that his firing was not illegal. Palin was completely within her rights to hire and fire the department heads in the executive branch for any reason or no reason at all.

This entire issue is something that has been known for a while. The part that I find most interesting was that Todd Palin was using the governor’s office to make calls to the governor’s subordinates. If Sarah were a man letting his wife use the governor’s office to make calls, most state governments would have her head on a plate by now.

Doesn’t anyone remember all the grief Bill and Hillary received over Hillary doing official business on the health care initiative in 1993? That was official business. Imagine if she had been sitting in the oval office making calls urging the firing of her brother-in-law to subordinates?

This entire story is very strange to me. Sarah is the governor of Alaska. Shouldn’t she have more respect for the position than to allow her spouse to use government offices to press a personal issue? There is a line between personal life and government that should be respected. That is the line Sarah Palin crossed when she allowed a private issue to be pressed using government power.

There is a lot of discussion right now about how defaulted homeowners should be treated, and how they do not in fact deserve better treatment than those who have been faithfully paying their mortgages. On one hand, I don’t think the govt should eat the difference in current home value from the purchase price, but then it was government and banking actions that brought it about — not just the homeowner. If we are going to spend the money to bail somebody out… the individuals are probably more deserving than the banks.

I believe that those folks who get a renegotiated loan should be done with the following catches:

1) No debt would actually be forgiven outright
2) Homeowner is required to keep the home for at least 5 years
2) ‘Forgiven’ debt is actually a ’silent 2nd’ that is repaid prior to any profits being transferred to the homeowner when the home is ultimately sold
4) Anyone should be eligible for this conversion of excess debt to a silent 2nd, not just the folks that are in default.

Whatever solution is ultimately devised, it needs to be viewed as being as close to fair and equitable as possible.

Having seen the coverage about the Palin interviews and then seeing clips of her debates in Alaska, I had a feeling that she’d take the approach she wound up taking.

As a candidate that does not have a lot of depth in national issues, there was just no way she could be well-versed on every topic that arose. This time, instead of trying to push out a half-baked answer that showed her ignorance, she went ahead and refused to give thoughtful answers, instead repeating portions of a stump speech and using a charm offensive with a grin, wrinkled nose, or wink of the eye.

Barbs were delivered with a smile. She inferred that as a mom she knew about the struggles in families, and then ignored Joe Biden’s description of himself as a widowed father with two children that hung near death. It looked cold to me. She was interested in her own story, and completely ignored his.

It will be interesting to see what the commentators say about the debate.

Tonight I heard the new theme for the James Bond movies… and I have to tell you that I truly dislike it. I love the artists that wrote and sang the song, but it just didn’t sound like something that should be affixed to a spy thriller.

With Another Way to Die, Jack White and Alicia Keys completely missed the mark. It is screamy-sounding, like people yelling at each other. I don’t see spies yelling AT ALL. They are clandestine, have courage, and would generally act below the radar to avoid detection. A song with yelling in it simply makes no sense at all.

I definitely agree that the interview with Katie Couric was a disaster. However, I’m not sure at all that it means Sarah Palin is an airhead that is not ready for prime-time.

We all have bad days, and I think Sarah suffered from too much preparation without enough time to fully integrate all of the new information into the rest of her own learnings. IOW, I think she was having some trouble using all the new stuff she learned to answer questions intelligently.

Sarah Palin has been a mayor of a small town, and then a governor of a state that just isn’t fully connected to the rest of the country’s governments. Alaska is not connected to the rest of CONUS - the name we government contractor types used for the CONtinental United States. I agree that the interview was pretty bad, but after considering it in the context of her career and the rest of the news over the last couple of weeks… I find it to be understandable and not a deal-breaker for her candidacy as Vice President.

Frankly, she’d far better as V.P. than Dubya was for president. I find her to still be an excellent choice if you happen to be a Republican. If she were to succeed McCain, she’d be so much better than Dubya that it just isn’t worth criticising her for her obvious lack of knowledge. Her record demonstrates far better judgement, and that’s important to me.

Surely, I don’t want to let her off the hook. I do hope she aquits herself well on Thursday against Joe Biden. Having two reasonable choices for president is so much better than having only one… Even though I’m a Democrat these days who is unlikely to vote for McCain, I still hope that he presents himself as a qualified and reasonable choice for President.

I enjoyed the first debate immensely. After the fits and starts during the first half hour spent discussing the still unformed financial bailout legislation being developed by the Congress, the debate swung into a wonderfully animated discussion of foreign policy.

McCain was the expert we all know him to be. However, Obama’s knowledge of the topic is both deep and wide. His intellect and cool deliberation on the major topics of our day in foreign policy came shining through the discussion. In my opinion, this was a clear McCain advantage — and yet he did not win the day!

Obama scored points with regard to talks with Iran. He scored points discussing the opinions of Kissenger, who is well known to be an advisor to McCain.

One of the things I liked least about the comments made by Barack Obama during the primaries was his insistence that he would speak with the leaders of rogue regimes without precondition. Tonight’s explanation during the debates made that position more clear, and made it most definitely sound completely reasonable.

I loved Obama’s commentary telling McCain that he was ‘wrong’ about several issues with regard to Iraq. That was one of my favorite moments. My least favorite moment was actually split over the entire debate. That was with respect to the treatment of Obama by McCain. He would not look at him. He never cracked a smile. I got the feeling that McCain was treating Obama with contempt, and that truly bothered me.

All in all, it was a pretty good debate. I do wish that the financial concerns of this week had not overshadowed the foreign policy discussions, but in reality… how could it not? Everything considered, it was a terrific debate that could be spun to be won by either side. McCain may have actually won on points, but I believe Obama won overall.