I just hope the Obama people have an ad in their back pocket essentially asking what McCain did after having one of the most egregious defamation campaigns in recent U.S. history directed against him in the 2000 presidential election (the South Carolina Republican primary, to be specific): he hired the political hacks who ran the defamation campaign against him to run a similarly-vile campaign against Obama, and he cozied up to the the then Presidential candidate who approved the defamation campaign against him, George W. Bush. Now that is a real maverick.

Here is a McCain profile entitled "Make-Believe Maverick" just published in Rolling Stone. Perhaps not the most objective piece of journalism, but it seems fairly accurate.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

Wow, great article. Thanks for the link LAGuy.

Actually I'd like to see a similar hatchet job on Obama and listen to Beachman rant about it!

McCain sounds like he coulda been one of US once upon a time! "Hey John, where you going on your military war college internship":

RIO!!!

(Message edited by Porker on October 05, 2008)

Interesting-NY Times article from Sept. 99

By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.
Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
g
''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer (and current Obama advisor) . ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

OUCH!!

Sandman-

Then Frank Raines (Obama's top housing adviser) made 90 million dollars in 6 years cooking the books for bonuses while heading Fannie Mae. The New York Times will dare not mention this now!

So how many millions did the Republican CEOs of Lehman Brothers, Countrywide, WashMu, Morgan Stanley, AIG, Wachovia, Tyco, Enron, etc make while cooking their books?

Everyone dumps on Fannie and Freddie - who are headquartered and largely based in DC and Virginia, not Wall Street. I always wonder why?

Beachman, you sound like that bitter 33% of hard-core conservative Republicans. Too bad you can't win elections with 33% of the vote, because with Palin and the new attack ads and everything else, that's what you're left with. A bunch of bitter, backwards-facing inbreds either too dense or too unaware or too embarrassed to see reality for what it is. And that reality is, be it financial markets or military policy, two of the three "pillars" of conservative strength, you've all now been proven wrong. All you have left is your god, and I don't think the invisible man in the sky is going to swing this one to McCain.

Not that we won't have a month of bitter, angry attacks on the way from every neo-con and religious nutbar in the country. If this were a different time and place, Bush and Cheney and Rice and all the rest would be sporting nice guillotine shoulder cuts by now. Or perhaps just a nice hanging in a public square. Whichever the angry mob preferred.

Your Republican leader is at 19% approval ratings. Your wannabee leader is heading south at a high rate of speed in the polls. Your wannabee number two cannot form a coherent sentence, and you're looking at a lopsided defeat in both Senate and House races. The economic system in the US and around the world is in distress, and all you stupid motherfuckers can come up with is "he took money from a guy who worked at Freddie and he knows a guy who was part of a group who set off bombs when he was still in elementary school".

What a bunch of limped-dick fucking faggots you guys have become. It's pathetic.

It's already evident that the attack strategy is backfiring. McCain has given up in Michigan and in the last 2 days has fallen significantly behind in Ohio. Even Rove says he finds the lies being told by Palin disgusting. Fortunately, the only people listening to Palin any longer are the WingNuts.

The economic problems will only get worse over the next month. It will eventually focus more attention on McCain's disastrous decisions in that regard: The Keating 5, his flipping on anti-/pro-regulation, his choice of Phil Gramm as economic adviser, etc.

On the last point, the Dems will soon start hammering the fact that McCain's economic adviser and co-campaign chair, Gramm, was the author of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), which prohibited any governmental regulation of credit default swaps. Guess what instruments are at the heart of the credit crisis?

So while Palin will yack about Obama's "relationship" with Wright and Ayers, it's McCain who's associated with the man who has seriously damaged the country, all in order to help his Wall Street buddies get filthy rich. And McCain's man is front and center in his campaign. Obama's sin? Attended the church run by one man and served on a board with the other. BFD. Neither was ever a political adviser. McCain has the Anti-Christ of the Economy running his show.

So who's shown terrible judgment?

So who's shown terrible judgment?

I can't call it, but everyone under this sun is wondering where their money is at. Because even a savings account at 1.5% is in jeopardy. Hazard to say, Paulson ain't gonna rescue your savings account. Dow at 9,000 is a correction, welcome to reality.

Catocony-


So you think the current Democratic Congress is more popular than Bush....look again.

http://www.pollingreport.com/CongJob1.htm


We are the real losers and will continue to be. The average American will make no sacrifices and doesn't care to know anything about politics. They care more about the material toys and luxuries they feel they are entitled to that Hollywood and marketing has brainwashed them into believing that luxuries and toys are rights they are entitled to ....not privileges they have to earn.

Just go to any state in America and ask the first 100 adults who the 2 Senators are from there state. You may get 5 to know who their Senators are if you are lucky.

Socialism is well on its way in our government. The Pandora's box has been open. Now the 2 most liberal states in the country, California and Massachusetts are looking for bailout money from the Feds to run their budgets. Other states will soon follow!

California was the testing ground of how Obama like tax policies will effect an economy. The rich will just leave and take their money someplace else and not invest growing jobs. Even their liberal government will not now pass a healthcare plan because they know it will bankrupt the state.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008026

Beachdick,

Did I say anything at all about Congress? No wonder Palin is so popular with you fucktards, you give answers to questions never asked and never answer those that are. Here's how it breaks down - are you more concerned about the economy, health care and war/foreign relations, or about Ayers and idiot preachers and whatnot? As usual, Republicans are praying on their knees that the sheeple don't think about important things and instead think about stupid shit like who Obama knew when he was 7 years old and out of the hundreds of millions of dollars he's raised, $33k came from t-shirt sales to some Palastinians.

You're all pathetic, the vaunted Republican electoral machine of Atwater and Rove is pretty much reduced to calling names.

Breachman apparently went to the same debating school as Palin. Palin got a D, Breachman flunked.

Wake up America!

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=308186097284712

Breachman,

Notice that the editorial writer failed to note that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actually made more and larger donations to Repubs than Dems? Or that McCain has a key advisor who was a Freddie Mac official? Or that the architect of the complete deregulation of credit swaps is McCain's economic advisor and co-campaign chair, who also happens to be one of the highest paid Wall Street lobbyists in history?

Could it be that IBD is about as balanced as Fox News? And a stalking horse for the Republican Party?

According to this piece, the older the president is, the better it is for the country. So we really should have elected Strom Thurmond instead of Bushie in 2000 according to this line of thought.

Gibberish.

Thumper, since Beachboy didn't answer your question, I'll help out.

McCain is a Maverick not because he's taken positions in opposition to Bush and the Republican Party, he's a Maverick because he's taken positions in opposition to himself!

Drilling in ANWAR? Was against it but now is for it.

Regulation of the financial sector? Was against it but now is for it.

Tax cuts for the wealthy? Was against them but now is for them.

Waterboarding of prisoners? Was against it but now is for it.

The estate tax? Was for it but now is against it.

Coastal drilling? Was against it but now is for it.

Running a clean campaign based on the issues? Was for it but now is against it?

So, Thumper, it's hard to imagine anyone being more "Mavericky" than John McCain. He has a perfect record of voting in opposition to himself.

(Message edited by Bwana_dik on October 07, 2008)

Who knew that Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" would one day run for Vice President...

I am calling the election:

Obama to win by >= 6%

Obama to win > 300 electoral votes.

Don't forget to vote!

McCain calling for socializing the housing market?

HIJOLE!!!

And cutting defense spending.

He's jumped ship? HIS OWN SAILORS are gonna be calling for his head?

So if I got a mortgage I never should have and now the house I'm in is worth 25% less, I can call the government and get 25% of my unpaid principle knocked off - permanently?

What kind of stupid fucking plan is that? He says Fannie and Freddie gave loans to people who shouldn't have ever gotten them, then says the solution is to effectively socialize all home value losses.

Or did I hear that wrong?

My ? for the debate:

McCain, did you ever observe "senior moments" from Ronald Reagan, and how would you compare your relative mental health at an even more advanced age?

McCain the Socialist! Who'd a thunk it!

Now it's official. He truly is insane. That is the stupidest form of pandering imaginable. And from a purely economic standpoint, it is a horrendous idea.

If McCain wins, I hope all the Republicans out there will enjoy knowing they will be the proud owners of 100s of billions of dollars of near worthless mortgages.

I imagine his economic advisers shit in their pants when he made this proposal.

Fox News text poll, "Who won the Debate"?

McCain 86-12 %!

Sounds scientific to me!

Obama should obviously quit!

BTW, Fred Thompson's very, very scary looking dude.

So, how exactly can McCain pay off all those mortgages if he institutes a spending freeze?

The Fox Poll was hilarious. I watched every poll on every news source. Every other poll--EVERY OTHER POLL--had Obama winning by somewhere between 5% and 15%. This was true even for the sub-polls of undecided and independent likely voters.

Fox must have polled the staff in their studio. Too fucking funny!

I suspect that most of Fox News' viewers are of the same 'imbalance' as the network, so any such poll is going to be as legit as going into a church and polling to see how many people believe in Christ. This past weekend I was in a hotel that had only Fox News for foreign news (it had the Aussie station, and I like their news, but there were rugby playoffs). I am now convinced that Obama is a terrorist, Clinton and Obama are responsible for all the economic problems, and Sarah Palin is an excellent debater. I'm trying to retract the absentee ballot I sent in last week.

Seriously, though, McCain has to attack, it's all he can do as he has nothing to offer. Expect a mega-turd to be hurled the week of the 20th, which they will do their best to keep stinking until Nov. 4th.

It was funny when the Borat movie came out: the Fox News numb-nuts weren't allowed to bash it as it was produced under the same parent company. In fact, they had to talk it up.

Bendejo,

I'm sure you're right about who makes up the Fox audience. But the polls are not supposed to be comprised of viewers. All of the other polls were of samples of likely voters.

I'm having dinner with one of the major independent pollsters tonight in NYC. I'm really anxious to hear his take on things. They have a big poll in the field today and he promised a glimpse of the findings tonight.

I think McCain really blew it with a lot of people when he refused to list a set of priorities. His "we can do it all at once" statement did not ring true with the voters who were interviewed last night. He sounded like the conservative parody of a liberal, while Obama sounded much more sensible, with his willingness to say that energy independence is the first hurdle we will need to clear. And Obama got that right, since our energy dependence drags down our economy AND is a security threat because the profits are feeding the very petro-dictators who fund the terrorists who really do want to kill us. McCain whiffed on that one.

And WTF did McCain mean when he said “We’re not rifle shots here, we’re Americans"? I think he's been spending too much time around Palin.

McCain looked like a really constipated old man last night, wobbling around the stage incoherently. Obama looked 40 years younger but in a good way. Also, what's with McCain's little cackle when he thinks he scores a zinger on Obama? It reminded me of a little shake-and-piss dog like a terrier or something that runs out from behind a chair and bites someone on the ankle, then runs back under the chair and yaps. Like the little dog thought it was a wolf and just took down an elk or something.

I have to admit.....McCain looks and talks like a dinosaur. His "My Friends" act gets old when he repeats it 6-8 times in a 90 minute debate.

Obama sticks with his script once he gets going...but starts with And...And..And.....Um,Um.


McCain smooths out once he is comfortable with a subject he knows....Obama can spin about anything with empty promises.


They are both full of shit and both pointed out that socialism is going to happen in one form or another in in the US.


McCain with buying back bad mortgages from irresponsible people and lowering their mortgage obligations to current home values.......while punishing responsible home owners who took out responsible mortgages who pay their mortgages.

Obama who has now admitted that Health Insurance is a right. I don't seem to have a copy of the constitution that says Health Insurance is a right. The Pandora's box is now open. Next to come...... Transportation, Food, Utilities Shelter, Internet Access, Etc. will soon be rights of all citizens regardless if you earn them or not.


It is kinda interesting that the Democratic Congress has rush to have hearings for AIG and Wall Street firms that needed bailing out.....but want to wait until after the election to have hearings on Fannie and Freddie. I wondered if it has anything to do with $90 million dollar Frank Raines ....Obama's top housing advisor.

"McCain looks and talks like a dinosaur."

At least we now know where Palin gets the idea that dinosaurs and people have lived together on this planet.

Wow, looks like Beachman is moving to the undecided column. If wingnuts like him are getting down on McCain, this election really will be a blowout win for the Democrats.

Beachman,

Polls of the American public put sentiment squarely on Obama's side on the "health care as a right" issue, and the margin isn't even close. As you may know, the Constitution doesn't speak of education as a "right," but virtually every American regards it as one. There are Constitutional rights and moral rights, and both education and health care fall into the latter category. Obama got that one right. If you watched the interviews with likely voters after the debate, almost every one cited that point as a big plus for Obama in their minds.

I never have been a McCain fan as I have stated I think his real subliminal motive to be President is to be of higher rank than his father and grandfather. I have said along that I think Romney was the best choice to be President but it wasn't meant to be. I have also said McCain is the lesser of 2 evils and is a known commodity. The liberal press has just not exposed Obama for who he is and wants to be and they spin for him when ever something is pointed out about Obama that is negative.

As far as Health Care being a right....if moral rights include education and health care then certainly shelter and food are more important and we should have to give equal shelter and food to everyone.

Nobody in this country is turned away from emergency health care....even illegals are entitled to it. There should be clinics and providers made available to those who need and cannot afford health care.


But Obama last night promised that he would get all Americans the same Health Care plan that both he and McCain have as Senators. How is he going to pay for that Gold Card Health Insurance for 300 million plus Americans?


That promised and the promise that his plan will give tax cuts to 95% of Americans is just a LIE!

Does anybody seriously thinks that he can keep those promises.

If he wins and if he raises or does not cut taxes for any of the 95% of Americans he has made the promise to.....will the media hound him when Bush Senior made his pledge of "read my lips."


Even though Bush Senior raised taxes because it was the right thing to do at the time with most Democrats backing him. That is why we as a country are in this mess.....even if you do the right thing for the country....both Democrats and Republicans will stab you in the back come election time and put their party first before putting America first!

No one said "equal." And don't forget that even we liberals think that rights come with responsibilities attached to them.

Emergency care is not health care. Health care is comprehensive, beginning with preventative care and ending with emergency services. Emergency care comes too late and at a ridiculously high price. The US has the highest rate of emergency care use in the developed world, and that's a piece of why health care costs are so high here.

Every other developed country has figured out a way to make health care a right, and to make it available to everyone. Are Americans too stupid to accomplish this?

I Have made up my mind. I will be voting for Obama. It feels so totally 1970's all over again. Unpopular war. The stock market crash of 1974, the 1973 Oil Crisis. The devaluation of the Dollar. It seems only logical that several years of stagflation and malaise will inevitably follow. To date the Democrats have been pretty successful at shifting the blame off onto the Republicans for the economy although both parties are culpable, but 6 months into an Obama presidency with a Democratic House and Senate the American public will begin to shift their ire for the stagflation and malaise onto the party in power. I would hate to be the party in power. So I am voting for Obama ;-)

Hey, here's a true nightmare scenario for you liberal type guys. Not saying it is what I personally support or would want but admit it, this one sounds plausible. America suffers 4 years of stagflation and malaise under Jimmy Carter v2.0, errr, ummm, I mean Obama. You can blame it all on Bush but America won't. In the mean time Republicans get all fired up seeking the next Ronald Regan to save us from Obama. And Palin who is of course beloved by the far right wing base has had 4 years to practice her game.... Think about it. How can there NOT be stagflation and malaise. How could the party in power NOT get the blame. And those far right types sure seem to like Palin......... ;-)

Be careful what you wish for ;-)

The scenario you describe is something that could play out. But you miss one piece of the puzzle in the current situation: the Republican Party has so thoroughly changed directions over the past 16 years that there's almost nothing left of the old "small government" party. The next "Ronald Reagan" (let's not forget, deficits and debt soared under Reagan, just not to the extent they did for Bushie) or whomever may not be out there. There are Republican wingnuts out there who are writing off this election and taking up Palin as their choice for the next contest. Their viewpoint is "we put a more moderate person in the driver's seat this time and he went down in flames. Let's let the social conservatives have their turn."

So, IAS, be careful what you wish for.

"So, IAS, be careful what you wish for."

"Not saying it is what I personally support or would want"

My true wish would be that there is a massive shakeup in the Republican party and after this election I think that is likely.

Actually, I think there are still very substantial number of "small government" type Republicans and independents still out there. Yes we were cut loose by the Republican party in the last few years but certainly the Democratic party has done nothing to pick up any one of us. In fact the Democratic party has surly shifted even MORE towards the large, invasive, government model in the last few years then under Clinton leadership. Every time Obama opens his mouth he promises a new program whereby the government will better look after me than I look after me.

I don't doubt there are some right-wing Republican whack-jobs out there who are hoping McCain loses in the hope this will lead to a far- right candidate winning the Presidency in 2012. However, this strikes me more as a rationalization for what is beginning to look like a sure McCain loss rather than anything with conviction. I don't really expect many Beachmans to actually vote for Obama on the theory it would open the way for a very conservative President in 2012.

Moreover, given how much Palin has helped the McCain ticket this time around, she does not seem viable in 2012 unless the coming election is much closer than it currently appears.

Obama's words last night will haunt him if he is elected.

95% of Americans will get a tax break......"if you make less than $250,000 a year your taxes won't be raised a dime."


Those are his words and according to Biden it is up to the other 5% to be patriotic and pay any increase in taxes needed in the future.



Wasn't it interesting that neither Biden or Palin's names were brought up last night.

I believe that American health care system is much worse many many other countries, including Brazil. Obama brings up correctly so, that the current system is to make more money and give less services. Every insured American that is more than 40 years has directly and tangibly felt this change. Republicans and Democrats alike. We all are paying more for medicine, services, and emergency care and getting less. It is all so broken, you got the humongous pharmaceuticals, the mega HMO's like Kaiser Permanente, and then do nothing insurance companies. Then we have the litigation lawyers on top.

I don't know how to fix it, but turning the entire thing on its ear, throwing them all out, and creating a universal system sounds radical, but the problem requires something radical in my view.

All that said, I agree with Beachman. This is not the time to try and address such as ambitious project. Getting the economy back on track is job 1, and everything else takes a back seat. Getting off our butts and creating an energy independent economy is vital to the national interest and the American way of life.

I used to think of myself as a Maverick but McCain and Palin are starting to give us a bad name.

The first step to fixing the Health Care situation is to address the personal responsibility of America being the fattest society ever to live on the face of the earth. 70 plus percent of adults are overweight and 30 plus percent are considered to be overweight. What percentage of the health problems can be attributed to the junk and poison that is put into our bodies.

And the doctors who prescribe drugs for everything instead of promoting nutrition and fitness. The average doctor gets less than 3 hours in nutritional education in their schooling.

The pharmaceutical industry controls them and most of the drugs they force upon people only gets rid of symptoms and cause many other problems to healthy cells.


The personal responsibility of keeping a healthy weight and reasonable fitness would keep Health Care cost down.....but doctors don't want people to be healthy or their profits go down.

They are greedier than the oil industry but no one holds them accountable.

Why should people who are responsible and keep their weight down and keep their fitness level reasonable be force to equally share in paying for the health care for the majority of fat people who take no responsibility for preventive health care.


There is a difference between Health Care and Medical Care.

Health Care is preventable Care and Medical Care is non-preventable.

There is a difference and until the difference is address by those who lead and demanded that he public be responsible for their own Health Care and doctors are mandated to treat first with preventive measures and drugs are the last resort Health Care cost will always be out of control.

BT,

I thought it interesting that when asked to prioritize, Obama did not list health care fist, but mentioned energy policy. Wise answer, because if we keep buying oil from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Venezuela while borrowing from China to pay for it, we're fucked and it doesn't matter what type of reform is proposed in health care, we won't be able to pay for it.

Did you notice the question about a "Manhattan Project" for energy? McCain talked around it and never gave his view. Obama embraced it, which fit with his priorities. Old John is the one who said we could do it all at once, making him sound like a "Don't-Tax-but-Spend Conservative" of the Bush variety.

I give credit to Obama for lowering his rhetoric and focusing a little more on the reality of a presidency while the economy is in recession.

My favorite line from McCain was "I will go and get Bin Laden. I know how." If he really knew how, and he kept it as his secret weapon so he could be elected president, that would be unpatriotic wouldn't it? Or perhaps he's just blowing smoke.

Obama also called him on his faux indignation related to Obama's comments on Pakistan. Calling him out on singing Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran.

Here's my doomsday scenario. It is my prediction that in the next 10 years, American economic dominance will decline greatly. China will take the flag running away, and perhaps some other nations pass us as well. This will bruise our fragile egos greatly. So what happens when the United States is falling in the world economic rankings but still holds the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

As our economic dominance wanes, will perhaps a president in 2012 and 2016 might be anxious to show how great America once was? By hitting the switch on a nuclear strike? OMG.

I'm less pessimistic about the future IF--and only if--we can use our ingenuity to develop and market new technologies to solve the energy and environmental crises. Those are the fields of greatest opportunity, as Obama noted in the debate, and the US could remain a major global leader in the economy if we as a country could commit to the challenge.

If we don't? I don't see us going out with a bang, but with a whimper. We'll go the way of Great Britain, and fade from the center, while other economies like China emerge. We'll become largely irrelevant, in the way that Great Britain already is. We can't sustain our position of leadership with an economy that is built around the financial and health sectors, neither of which "produce" anything of lasting value.

Just curious, since this thread is about Sarah Palin-

Is there anyone out there who still thinks McCain's choice was a good idea at any level? Anyone think she'd be a good VP and could manage to hold things together in the current global political and economic climate were she to inherit the presidency?

I agree with you Bwana dik..... we can't substain an economy built around the financial and health sectors, neither of which "produce" anything of lasting value.


That is the American way and our economy is a reflection of the average American household......a household of no lasting value.


Lots of tech toys that are lose their value almost immediately, upside down in car loans, mortgage out on any equity they may have had in their homes, etc. Who in America is ready to take a big step backward to eventally take a step forward.


The only way we are going to become energy independent is to develop alternative options which will only be done with massive tax breaks for companies that develop those options. There just won't be money to pay for it and Americans won't make the sacrifices necessary during the time needed to develop those options.

The litigation from the oil companies to the environmentalists will make it to costly and time consuming and the stubbornness of all concern will never allow a workable compromise to happen before our economy almost totally collapses!

>>We can't sustain our position of leadership with an economy that is built around the financial and health sectors, neither of which "produce" anything of lasting value.

Truer words were never spoken. Another cause of America's impending decline (dare I say collapse) is the entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) the government is required to pay. In the years to come those payments will consume the ENTIRE budget, and then some. What then? China won't be willing to loan money to pay for our excesses at that point, but they'll be happy to sit back and laugh as our economy collapses, putting them squarely in place as the worlds #1 economy.

Today's economic storm is going to look like a spring shower compared to the hurricane bearing down on us.

I believe that America is/was the greatest nation on earth because American businesses have been the leader of many global trends that are part of our lives today. The list is impressive and has driven American success more than any other factor.

telephone
airplane
television
car
computer
microprocessor
internet
search engine
motion picture
nuclear bomb
light bulb
radio
viagra
pornography
global brands - coca cola, mcdonalds, etc

Bwana: when McC picked Palin, I went along with the common deduction that he was trawling for the disenchanted Hillary-ites. A few weeks ago while talking with a friend the subject we're not supposed to mention came up, and I recalled this article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/opinion/26herbert.htm

written before the Palin pick.
I now think that she was chosen from the perspective "who is going to appeal to those who feel the most alienated or threatened by a educated, urban, upper-class black man?" We'll see on Nov. 5th if it paid off.

McC couldn't care less what kind of president she would be should he croak. As a DC outsider, he can be assured she will not be a Dick Cheney.
The Cheney legacy will be that all future presidents assign trusted dog-walkers to keep the VP on a short leash.