Candidates use facts selectively and at times misleadingly in print and TV ads. Just before the Iowa caucus, Barack Obama's campaign ran an ad quoting the Washington Post as declaring that Obama's health plan would save families $2,500. The ad asserted that "experts" say his plan is "the best" and "guarantees coverage for all Americans."
FactCheck pointed out that the Post was citing an Obama campaign statement about saving families money and did not analyze it independently. The "experts" were the editorial writers at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. The guarantee of "coverage for all Americans" was asserted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and, like the ad, omitted mention that while the Clinton and Edwards health plans require coverage for all Americans, the Obama plan allows individuals to buy into coverage if they want to. (www.factcheck.org)
This examples demonstrate, among other things, that a factual statement can be accurate--if cherry-picked--but may come from a tree of sour cherries.
Presidential candidates must answer many questions daily. Usually, and even in debates, they don't have enough time to discuss them in detail--assuming they could if they had the time. One result is a swift recitation of unsupported opinions from "talking points"--that is, a collection of brief statements of views on many issues they know they will be asked about. Because some of these issues are complicated, candidates often make fuzzy utterances.
In developing your own opinion about a candidate's remark, consider its factuality. Several websites offer help. FactCheck Org describes itself as "a nonpartisan, nonprofit 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases." The website is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
Other, similar efforts include a project of the St. Petersburg Times and the Congressional Quarterly (www.politifact.com) and a Washington Post blog (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/). All three sites are updated regularly.
Consider also the candidates' opinions. How clearly does a candidate state his or her opinion? Is the opinion supported with facts-at least on the candidate's websites, if not in brief public remarks? Does the candidate present facts selectively, omitting those that are inconvenient?
Assignment:
Select a presidential campaign issue of particular interest to you, investigate how, in terms of factual and opinion statements, one candidate discusses this issue, and susenctly post your findings. I suggest you use one of the resources for young voters on my web site. Young Voters (http://teacherweb.com/NY/Cunningham/Frederick/links2.stm)
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Obama's Military Defense Plan
According to http://www.barackobama.com/issues/defense/. If elected president, Obama plans to reform the military. He will invest in and create a 21st century military instead of a 20th century military which we have now, formed back during the cold war. This is needed since this 20th century military isn't efficient enough to combat the problems of the 21st century on the battlefield. He wants to invest in building up special operation forces, civil affairs, foreign language training, cultural awareness and gathering more efficient military intelligence. He also plans to better equip and train soldiers to lower the mortality rate.While strengthening the military, he plans to expand the size of the army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000 to help the soldiers retain and re-equip between deployments. His administrations will create a military board to reform the service contracts, lessening the strain on families and soldiers so they know what to expect. Along with that, he will assist soldiers obtain jobs in civilian roles. Finally, he plans to renew alliances like NATO and with other nations to strengthen mutual security.Obama will strengthen the military's projects at sea,support a national missile defense program,and expand the air force's mobility. Thus enabling the military to better defend the U.S.
Obama's Plan for ending the War in Iraq
Obama's plan is to end the war. H e said that he is going to end this war because he think its the right thing to do for our national security and it was make us safer.I think it is a good idea because me as a U.S citizen of course want to be safe. Since this event had started more tan 1,000 troops had died.
For the purpose of this, milarities of the United States worked harder and there was an enormous sacrifice by our troops and military families.
More than 1.75 million servicemen and women have served in Iraq and more than 620,000 troops have completed multiple deployments taxing both them and their families.
According to Goggle.com Barack Obama believes we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. As soon as he becomes president he says that he is going to give a new mission which is to end the war.He will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces.
Barack Obama believe that the U.S should apply pressure on the Barack Obama believes that the U.S. must apply pressure on the Iraqi government to work toward real political agreegents.Obama will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi.
Obama also believes that any security accord must be subject to Congressional approval.It is unacceptable that the Iraqi government will present the agreement to the Iraqi for approval, but Bush administration will not do the same with the U.S. Congress.
John McCain’s plan for War in Iraq was that he wanted to have a bigger military, economic, and political pledge to Iraq. He promised to increase troop levels. Unfortunately for John McCain, many people, including a lot of Republicans disagree with his plans. After five years of the Iraq war, $500 billion was spent, 4,000 people died and 30,000 were injured, McCain wants to continue the war. According to a Rasmussen Report poll, 59% of Americans want the U.S. troops to be brought home within one year while only 35% want the U.S. troops to be in Iraq until the war is over. In my opinion, John McCain should end the Iraq war and bring the U.S. troops home. The War in Iraq started because of the dreadful event on September 11, 2008. President Bush said that it was the Islamic terrorists who are dedicated to the destruction of the United States and its way of life. McCain should think about the Iraq War and reject the Bush Administration’s current project.
Palin's Daughter Will Not Be An Issue
With the announcement of Sarah Palin's daughter, an unmarried, 17 year-old girl, getting pregnant is now not an issue, the evangelicals clamed. They forgave her daughter and think that she has made the right decision to keep her child. They say they need to take the "Juno" option, because these things happen.
The fact is that the evangelicals have very conservative views and tend to vote for the republican party. If this happened to a family of a Democratic candidate, fewer evangelicals would be so forgiving. That's most likely the reason they forgave Palin's daughter.
Barack Obama says that when he is commander in chief, he wants to set a goal to end this war. He says that politics compels it. He said that it really doesn’t matter about the burden on our troops’ backs. As heavy it is though. What he wants to do is create a 21st century military, unlike the 20th century military that was reformed in the war going on today. Obama discusses this as a problem with how many people have died and how many went into service for our country. He was against the war from the beginning in 2002. Obama wants to end the war by setting the new objective for the secretary of defense to end the war and start to remove brigades 1 or 2 at a time every month. He also says that he wants to supply 2 billion dollars or more to help Iraq expand refugee services and help the Iraq citizens find sanctuary in their country.
From http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/
Obama's Economy Plan
Referring to the website: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/
These days the prices of everything is going up Obama wants to fix that. Now the college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care cost has risen four times faster than the past six years. Also the the personal savings rate is now still the lowest since the Great Depression.
Barack Obama said that he's going to give each family about like $1000 per year for emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. He also said that he was going to provide a tax cut for working families by that he means he's going to create a new "Making Work Pay" that helps about 10 million Americans. Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors who make less than $50,000 a year. About 27 million American seniors will not need to file an income tax return. Therefore Barack Obama has good plans for the U.S. if he is elected president.
Barack Obama’s education plan wants to give all children the chance to learn. It wants to give children an early head start on an education life. It wants to solve all the educational problems going on right now. He describes his plan in great depth.
Barack wants to fund his “Zero to Five” plan which is just giving young children who are of the ages zero to five a chance to have a head start on learning. He wants to quadruple the Early Head Start program (EHS) & the Head Start program funding. He also wants to improve the quality for both programs. He also wants to improve the state tests that we take each year. Instead of punishing schools that need improvement he wants to support and help them .He will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession. There is a lot more to say but not enough room to name all.
Barack Obama’s education plan is a very intelligent one but it leaves people wondering where he is getting the money for this funding?
Barack Obama's Plan to end the war in Iraq
Obama believes we must be careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Barak Obama said that if he gets elected as president, he will immediately give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq, ending the war. More than 1,000 American troops have died and for that reason Obama is fully committed to end this war. Obama was against ths war from the beginning and he had the courage to speak against the war. Barack Obama said that ending this war is the right thing to do for national security and will make the lives of U.S citizens safer.
Barack Obama's plans for the Economy.
The problem of the Economy is while the wages remain flat, the cost of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has increased by 35% over the past five years. Obama's plan is to enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy to help the family pay the rise of bills. This relief is a down payment on his long-term plans to help the middle class families with $1,000 cash per year in the permanent tax relief. Obama's second plan is to help one million Americans from losing their job. If I was a working man, I would not want to lose my job. Obama will provide $50 million to Jumpstart the Economy.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/
One of John McCain issues is health care. John McCain has a problem with health care. John’s problem is that health care is to expensive. 47 million people in the U.S. have poor or no health care. People in the U.S. cant’ get health care because it ‘s to expensive, and people can’t afford it
John McCain thinks he can improve health care by making it more affordable. John McCain believe that he can make more of competition makes the prices less expensive for the people in the U.S. Another idea of John
McCain is to give money back to the people, an individual gets $ 2,500 and families gets $ 5,000. So people can pay for their own health care. John wants to make medicine price cheaper. He also wants to add more clinics for old and poor people.
My opinion is that John McCain is going to make health care more affordable. So people in the U.S. can pay for their own health care.
Obama's Economic Views
According to http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/
Barack Obama believes that America’s free market has been the engine of America’s prosperity. He also believes the more Americans proper, the more America prospers. The problem at hand is salaries remain the same while necessities are rising in price. Obama plans to, prevent people from losing their jobs as well as, provide a $50 billion jump start, and trade with foreign countries which will in theory create more jobs. Furthermore Obama plans to create tax relief for working families as well as, eliminate Income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 a year.
Consequently I believe his plan will work. For the simple reason if things are in a person’s budget more people might be compelled to buy a product. With a little more cash in a families or, seniors pocket they could save to buy something they normally could not. (This goes without saying but if you have a job you can defiantly spend money on something.)
If Obama is elected president he said that they were going to lower the cost of health care. 46 million americans including 8million children, lack health insurance with no sign of this trend slowing down.not onlythat, but the fact that health care costs are skyrocketing. Obama's plan is to make a new national healthinsurence plan for all americns. The plan has the following features,guaranteed elegibility,copayments,comprehensive maternity and medcal health care. It also has simplifyed paper work.This a very good plan.Vote for obama.
If Oba ma is elcted president he said that they were going to lower health care costs.46million americans, inclouding 8 million children, lack health insurace.Not only that but the prices have skyrocketed. Obamas plan is to make a plan for all americans, with no rejections. It also includes comprehensive benefits, for example it will cover all essential medical services, including preventive maternity and medical health care. The plan has co-pays and deductibles. It will also have simplifieed paper work and reine health costs. Obama should be elcted president.
The issue I chose for discussion was abortion. Barack Obama said as a U.S. Senator in 2004 that he supports a woman's right to choose abortion, and in April 2007, that he trusts women to make their own decisions on partial birth abortion. Partial-birth abortion is banned in 24 states, but prochoice advocates are trying to overturn state laws by making it a federal law. In April 2008, Barack Obama said that he believes that it is ok for states to restrict late-term partial abortion. He is undecided on whether life begins at conception, but believes common ground can be found between prolife and prochoice.
Barack Obama believes that teenagers should be taught about abstinence and also about contraception. In March of 2005 he voted "yes" for $100 million to reduce teen pregnacies with education and contraceptives, and in Feb. 2007 he voted to ensure access to and funding for contraception. My personal view on abortion is to use it only in extreme cases like rape and incest. Other then that I think that unwanted children should be given up for adoption. I agree with Barack Obama that teens should be taught about abstinence and contraception.
Obama's campaigne issue on energy.
According to www.cnn/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.energy.html, Obama says he would invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy. Experts say that 25% of electricity used in the U.S is from clean sustainable energy sources by 2005. He wants to make gas prices lower. On August 4th 2008, in a speach he said that he would give $1,000 to each working family on energy rebate. He said the U.S should sell 70 million barrels of oil from the reserve of less expensive oil. Obama says he will find safer ways to use nuclear waste. He would make $4 billion in loans to give to car manufacturers to build more fuel efficient cars.
Palin's Daughter Will Not Be An Issue
With the announcement of Sarah Palin's daughter, an unmarried, 17 year-old girl, getting pregnant is now not an issue, the evangelicals clamed. They forgave her daughter and think that she has made the right decision to keep her child. They say they need to take the "Juno" option, because these things happen.
The fact is that the evangelicals have very conservative views and tend to vote for the republican party. If this happened to a family of a Democratic candidate, fewer evangelicals would be so forgiving. That's most likely the reason they forgave Palin's daughter.
My source was:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/09/01/evangelicals-say-palins-daughter-wont-be-an-issue.html
John McCain's Plan for the military
According to http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/
John McCain believes that the U.S. should support the government of Iraq and help it become self governing. He thinks that bringing the troops back before that happened is not such a good idea. He would be mistaken to do so before a trained Iraqi security is formed. Failing to do so could cause a much bigger and greater war.
When Iraqi forces can protect their own land the can the American troops come home.
Barack Obama’s education plan wants to give all children the chance to learn. It wants to give children an early head start on an education life. It wants to solve all the educational problems going on right now. He describes his plan in great depth.
Barack wants to fund his “Zero to Five” plan which is just giving young children who are of the ages zero to five a chance to have a head start on learning. He wants to quadruple the Early Head Start program (EHS) & the Head Start program funding. He also wants to improve the quality for both programs. He also wants to improve the state tests that we take each year. Instead of punishing schools that need improvement he wants to support and help them .He will recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession. There is a lot more to say but not enough room to name all.
Barack Obama’s education plan is a very intelligent, but it leaves people wondering where is he getting the money for this funding?
My source was: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/
According to newsday.com/news/local/politics/ny-usobam0901,0,6741131.story
Barack Obama plans to raise volunteers for hurricane relief. Many people have suffered and been left stranded by hurricane Gustov. Obama has been in touch with Louisiana officials and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and said he is monitoring the situation, but he stressed the importance for the residents to leave the area. "There is enormous urgency in making sure that people take the evacuation seriously." Obama said as he talked to Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu. They are doing everything they can to make an effective evacuation, but they needed the people's cooperation too. "That is the message that I am going to be sending throughout the day," Obama replied.Obama said he was ready to mobilize an army of volunteers to assist with hurricane relief in the Gulf States and could go there. His aides said, if it becomes clear that his presence won't drain much-needed local and state resources.He said more help may be on it's way, once it becomes clear what assistance is needed."We don't want to solicit a bunch of canned goods that can't get there, or bottles of water and then learn that they already have water," he said. "So we are going to wait over the next 48 hours to find out what would be the most useful."Obama said he believed he could get "tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary.
Obama's Ending The War in Iraq
According to http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/ Barack Obama plans to end the war in Iraq. I think it is a good idea because me as a U.S citzen wanzt to be safe as possible. Since this war had started more than 1,000 American troops have died.Barack Obama believes we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.Barack Obama says that the U.S. must apply pressure on the Iraqi government to work toward real political accommodation.He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries.he also thinks it is not fair that for the Iraq government to be discussing the issue and the U.S government ill not do the same in the U.S congress.
Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter,pregnant
The source is http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-palin2-2008sep02,0,3666723.story
Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter is not an issue. Palin's private life about her daughter should not reflect to her political job. It does not mean that teenagers get pregnant. It just happens. If it had effecte McCain's campaign, why is she still partners with him?People should still vote for McCain even if his partner's daughter is unmarried and pregnant. Voters should take it seriously and not pay attention to the pregnant 17-year-old like it's a big deal.
Obama's plans on immigration
According to:http://www.barackobama.com/issues/immigration/, Obama states that America will be a place where families that where seprated by immigration would be reunited. I think that is a very good idea because people most important thing in life is probably their family. People hate to be seperated from their families and Obama is going to reunite them. Obama also states that skillfull foreign-born workers should come to America for work. I also think that is a very good idea because America needs skillfull workers to be successfull in economics. It shouldn't matter where you are from. If you have skills, come to America for a good career.
According to
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/09/08/obama_has_a_plan_to_manage_our.php
If obama is our president,he plans to manage our oil reserve. This will cause to lower oil prices for consumers. This increases energy security, and leave taxpayers about $1 billion.
According to
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/08/31/obama_in_toledo_rebuild_cities.php
Obama plans too rebulid city in Toledo with over billions of dollars.He wants them too get on there feet.
According to
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/09/13/in_dover_obama_makes_pledge_ag.php
Obama makes a pledge against tax hikes. His first visit was new hampshire. Then he pledged that under his plan, no one making less then $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.
I'm not happy with any candidate because all they talk about is all the changes that they'll make but never give any ways in which they will make them happen. What I'm concerned about is will they make the cost of college tuition more affordable for every young American. Stop mud slinging at your opponent and get to the changes. Enough with the change slogan. You're not doing anything or saying how you will achieve your goals.
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