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Here’s more “food for thought.” Recognizing that the final tallies aren’t done yet, Obama is currently 9 million votes under his tally from 08...6 hours ago, I would’ve said that’s a very good sign. What I don’t understand is, if the GOP turnout machine was really so good, and voter intensity for the GOP was so high, how the heck can Romney have 3 million LESS votes than McCain’s total from 08???

Andrew Jackson served as the 7th President of the U.S. He was born in 1767. His parents immigrated from Ireland in 1765. Given your interpretation of “Natural Born Citizen”, was he eligible to be President?

Thank you for that clarification; that’s not what I had heard. Any idea where I can find the ‘full’ transcripts of the other parts of the interviews?

thx, college_kid

This only relates to Part 1 of the original interview (yesterday). It's amazing (to me at least), that when one reads the entire transcript (versus the edited versions I've seen on television) the context it puts each of these responses in. I thought Palin did well last night; I would have thought she hit a 'home run' if I had seen the entire interview unedited in its entirety.

I have a dual purpose with this post: I am very curious to see the FULL UNEDITED transcripts of the other parts of the interview (shown today), as I'm betting it would put Palin in an even better light (and I thought she did very well today).

Thx in advance FReepers, college_kid

“I make decisions on what I think is right for the United States based upon principles. I frankly don’t give a damn about the polls. And I darn sure don’t, you know, call a group of people together in a focus group and say, well, tell me what to think.” (President Bush from today’s interview w/ Chris Wallace)

While there are several places I have disagreed w/ President Bush, history will treat him kindly. Frankly, measured against actual accomplishments & not just rhetoric, I believe Pres. Bush has accomplished more for conservatives than Pres. Reagan did - particularly on taxes & the judiciary.

Thank you President Bush.

"We weren't getting any tax cuts these next two years anyway so nothing has changed.

The prospects of a further tax cut in 2008 depends on the GOP and if they can drop the "compassionate conservative" angle. If we nominate a viable fiscal conservative then the chances for further tax cuts are really good.

BTW, its the creation of new entitlements that had a large impact on depressing the base tonight. The brainchild of those entitlements has been the GOP."

- I didn't like how the Medicare /Rx plan went down either, but I doubt it depressed the base tonight; heck, Pres. Bush has been blasted tonight for wasting his post 04 election capital on trying to do Soc. Sec. reform, which I thought was worth going after...then again, 12 term Congressman Clay Shaw lost his seat last night basically over his commitment to SocSec reform, so who knows...

I'm curious: who do you see that's a viable fiscal conservative out there?

Do you really think our chances have improved now to get more tax cuts???? As for spending, non defense discretionary spending has been pretty much flat since Pres. Bush took office...it's the entitlement spending that's gone nuts (aka soc. sec. & medicare), & it will continue to as more baby boomers hit retirement over the next couple of years. A democratic Congress doesn't exactly help spending either.

Remember earlier today when we were all reading about the 'record' turnouts from RNC Chief Mehlman? You know what - I still believe him, & that's what ticks me off the most right now.

When it's all said & done, I bet the #'s show more Rep's than Dems voted this election, and, here's the part that has me ticked, a lot of Republicans didn't vote Republican. I'll use a local example. I live in Placer County, California, arguably the most conservative county in the state (about 70-30 Republican). Most of the California Republican ticket is running very solidly Republican (around 70-30)...except Congressman Doolittle, who is basically tied w/ Cindy Sheehan pal Charlie Brown at 50/50. That is sad.

Hi isthisnickcool,

I agree with what your assessment of his actual status was, I should've made myself clearer (nobodyUknow's post 72 was better than mine). That said, as far as I know, nobody's found the SEC disclosure of his transaction. Second, as I said earlier, I think ultimately the real scandal lies w/ Arthur Andersen, & I think they're toast.

best, college_kid.

Great mathematical example, DrKnow. Follow-up question: If the DNC chief was a venture capitalist & got in pre-IPO, wouldn't the selling of his shares require SEC disclosure? (A point that has been eluded to on this forum, & thus far, nobody's been able to find his name)

My 2 cents: Arthur Andersen = Enron, Global Crossing, Waste Mgmt., & Cendant, among others. We had been led to believe that AA's problems were limited to a 'rogue' office in Houston. It seems to me AA is the biggest villain w/ all these scandals,& that the focus of all these investigations should be predominantly on them.

I think Nebraska's performance the last 2 days show who has a "horse#$%^" defense. Believe it or not, it wasn't defense that cost Oregon the Stanford game: 2 blocked punts (one returned for a TD, the other recovered inside the UO 10), a recovered on-side kick, & a freak interception cost them the game.

UO's defensive stats were inflated primarily thanks to blow out games where UO back-ups gave up a lot of yards (Ariz, Ariz. St, Cal, Utah come to mind). In their last 4 games (including @ UCLA-20pts, WSU-17pts, OSU-14pts, Colo-16pts) they did just fine, especially when their offense avgs. 40 points a game.

BTW, w/ Miami & UO as the ONLY teams in the top 30 w/ less than 2 losses, wouldn't be nice for UO-Miami game next week to end all this debate??? Perhaps UO alum (& Nike founder) Phil Knight could arrange such a 'charity' game...

regards, college_kid.

This is a pretty interesting debate, & as a pretty ticked off Duck alum, I find it necessary to pitch in my 2 cents.

First, Sideshow Bob, while I'm for giving all the schools a chance to play for the National Title, I would not grant automatic status to mid-major conference champions. In your scenario, for example, Fresno State would not be playing, Louisiana Tech (who got creamed by a 6-5 Clemson team in the Humanitarian Bowl) would.

Second, ABC (Disney) & the BCS have a guaranteed $ contract through 2006...the BCS (unfortunately) isn't going anywhere; for now I think it would be more productive to find the best way to modify the stupid formula. In this regard, I have a couple suggestions:

1. eliminate margin of victory from ALL 8 computers; this year, they eliminated it in 4 of the formulas; computers that use MofV produce distorted results when teams like Florida run up the score unnecessarily (see Orange Bowl) when other teams (who still believe in sportsmanship) don't...

2. eliminate "quality win" component; substitute instead a 1 pt. bonus for winning one's conference or one's conference championship game

3. with the computer rankings, use where the team is ranked not what the team is ranked for the number (ie, Nebraska's computer # was 7.23, the 2nd best rank...in my system, their # would be "2")

4. use SOS only as a tie-breaker; SOS is incorporated in the computer polls already, which in the system now creates collinearity (the BCS gurus didn't care too much about statistics)

5. finally don't allow the computer polls to rank conference strength (or teams for that matter) until at least 1/2 way through the season...the real reason why Nebraska stayed #2 in 1/2 of the computers after there loss to Colo. was that the formulas those computers were using were biased towards the Big 12 & pre-season rankings (especially Billingsley's, & he openly admits this)

Thus "my" BCS formula is: AP/Coaches avg. + Computer ranking + losses - conference championship points.

I apologize for the length of the post; admittedly I'm very frustrated with all the "Miami is clearly the champion" headlines I'm seeing. Miami beat a mediocore Nebraska team by 23; Colorado beat Neb. by 26; UO beat Colo. by 22. Seems to me UO would be pretty competitive in a UO-Miami game (especially in the Rose Bowl).

regards, college_kid.

You're right-- in general, conservation is good (maybe that's why about 60% of VP Cheney's recent energy report emphasized conservation). That said, your "supply/demand" argument is not appropriate for the ANWR debate. While reducing our consumption will reduce our demand, it will not reduce the cost of consumption (thanks, OPEC). We rely on OPEC for about 60-65% of our oil.

Thus, when looking @ the US economy as a whole, OPEC's pricing policies have SUBSTANTIAL influence over our economy. Incidentally, IMO, it's not a coincidence that the President's 2 'best friends' on the international scene are Vicente Fox & Vlad Putin, the 2 leaders who between them could render OPEC useless.