Either a mediocre sarcastic joke post or quite possibly one of the dumbest posts I've read on this site, ever.  It's a bizarre thing isn't it?  For our doctors we want the brightest surgeons.  For our sports teams we want the most skilled athletes.  For our architects we again want the smartest minds.  And yet for major political office dumber is somehow better as long as they "understand the common people"?

Going with a dumber politician that "understands the common people" is what we tried for the last eight years.  It's about time we picked somebody intelligent to run the country.

And I think it's unfair and simply quite ludicrous for you to suggest she is the only one to understand the common people.  Obama has made millions off of his books lately but the books are actually what helped him and his wife finally pay off their student loans.  They're still in touch with the "common people" as they weren't rolling in the money until very recently.

I'm not a big McCain fan so i'm not going to patronize him by pretending to point out examples of him being in touch with common people.  That said he would still be a million times better than Palin as President.

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Think of it this way.  The janitor working at the McDonalds across the street is far more in touch with the common people than any of the candidates.  Would you prefer him negotiating with foreign leaders or drawing up the economic budget?  That's what Sarah Palin is.  She's the clueless janitor from McDonalds.

You have seen her interview with Couric, have you?

Maybe he watched it like Palin watched the Tina Fey SNL skit.  With the audio off.  I could see people being impressed with Palin's performance if they didn't listen to a word she said.

your entire post is full of so many holes. Just stop acting like you have a clue.

Actually, he is pretty much spot on. Palin is not ready to be president. She was a huge win for McCain when he picked her, but is starting to drag him down now. Let's see how the debate goes.

I am not sure how much Obama understands the "common man", but he has spent a lot of his life trying to help the ultra poor. Where his views and my views differ, is he thinks the poor are poor because they are equal in character to everyone else, yet live in a system where they are held down. I feel they are ultra poor because of the individual, not the system.

To a millionaire, I am poor. I am poor to him, because I am comfortable with my lifestyle, and don't wish to work any harder then I do to improve it. It's 100% my fault that I don't make more money they I do. Why does that logic have to stop at my pay grade?

There are a lot of poor people who simply don't want to put forth the effort to not be poor. Nothing a politician can do about that.

I think this is a pretty good demonstration of why this speech was so damaging:

From the sound of it, the Republicans were already really unhappy with how the Democrats were playing politics with this bill, and the speech (essentially) poisoned the waters for everyone who even considered supporting this bill.

Yeah. Like, uh, not voting for a bill isn't playing politics because of political considerations? Holy shit!

Both the democrats and republicans stated before the vote that they had a certain number of votes. Both parties failed to reach those numbers. So it is unfair to blame one party over the other.

And the republican reaction to the speech is equally shameful. Boohoo she hurt my feelings so I'm going to change my vote. Do you really want the kind of representative that will only vote a certain way if someone kisses their ass? Grow a pair and vote what you think is right and don't change your vote because someone hurt your feelings.

I don't think her speech changed any votes.
It demonstrated her zeal for the bailout
and it demonstrated her lack of power in congress.

The republican leaders stated in a press conference right after the vote that her speech changed the votes of some of their members.