Week 2 - Election Post

The state issue I find the most important is immigration, especially in the Herndon area. One of the major problems is how long it takes for people to apply to be a legal immigrant. People are unwilling to wait the years it takes to enter the country through the system. There are about twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States and it is unreasonable to believe that we can simply expose them and send them back to their countries. Obama plans to revise our immigration system so that families can stay together and immigrate to the U.S. legally. He also wants to create a plan to help aliens come out of hiding and become citizens, but perhaps his point that I find most important is working with Mexico to promote economic development to decrease illegal immigration to the United States.

I watched the debate last Friday, between Senators Obama and McCain, and I was a little disappointed at how it started. The economy was included on the list of national issues, so I had been excited to see where they stood. It took a while for the debate to even get going. For a while both candidates seemed to avoid actually debating any particular point. Throughout the debate they seemed to not answer questions directly, but instead twist it to talk about what they wanted to say. The biggest national issue is the economy and the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Many people are worried about the economy, so it was important for the presidential candidates to give their opinions on the bailout plan. Obama said the bailout plan included "some core principles that I set forth," such as strong oversight, taxpayers sharing in any dividends, and "reciprocity" through relief to homeowners, and limits on CEO compensation. Obama continued to suggest that he would support a measure that included those four provisions. McCain opened with stressing the importance of Democrats and Republicans working together in Washington DC. I found this a strange point to be making in a debate because it was a sort of cop-out. He did not focus on what he had done to help the plan, but instead on what was everyone was doing together. Later, when asked if he was going to vote for the bailout he said "sure" then moved on to another point. Obama and Mcain were then asked to explain what they would do as president to lead the country out of the financial crisis. McCain said he would cut government spending by eliminating earmarks on federal bills. He added that Obama "has asked for $932 million of earmark pork-barrel spending." This is an example of where he isn't really answering the question, but twisting the question to make his opponent look bad. Obama responded well by saying that earmarks did need to be cut, but only the unessecary ones. He also added that, "earmarks [only] account for $18 billion in lastyear's budget" and McCain is proposing "$300 billion in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country." I think Obama did a better job of responding to accusations than McCain did, but that is probably because Obama's accusations have a stronger base. I believe our economy needs to be fixed before any of the other issues can be addressed because we do not have the money or stability to deal with other crises right now.

I think that today electronic media plays a huge role in the November election. It is the easiest and fastest way to hear about news in our country, and, for many people, it is the only way they hear about the issues. Why would someone read an article about the war in Iraq if they could just listen about it on the radio on the way to work? Also campaign ads come on during normal television programs, so even people that do not usually pay attention to politics are exposed to Obama and McCain.