Posted by ( D.H. of Virginia ) on June 13, 2008 at 7:42 am

Jody I attended the Obama visit to Va. High, not because I was a fan but because I was curious. You can tell a lot more about ones character when seeing and hearing them in person than you can on some TV or Newspaper edited version of them.
To answer your question as to why he chose Southwest Va. was because of a promise he made to I believe Rick Boucher to come to Southwest Virginia the first chance he got for having to cancel an apearance earlier this year. I do recall reading sometime back during his campaign for the democratic nod he was to visit the area, might have been near Roanoke, before or during the Democratic primary.
I went to that event at Virginia High a sceptic and left with a feeling of respect for the man. He demonistrated an almost southern flavor in his delivery, he first of all acknowledged Virginia High School’s Principal Mrs. Danko for her hospitality and dedication to assist in every way to make his visit pleasent, always address the ladies before the men, a southern rule.

Posted by ( Jody Lee ) on June 13, 2008 at 11:44 am

Mike, can you specify for me what exactly appealed to you about Obama’s comments on health care?  Specifically - I’m sincerely curious - -

I agree - newscast soundbites tell you nothing about the truth of a candidate - it’s a sad fact, though, that the most Americans will not take the time and trouble to do their own research about a politician, his background, and his goals in general, much less how he intends to achieve those goals in office.  It takes and time and persistence to gather the facts and too often, too many depend on the press to do that for them.  Big mistake.

Jody Lee

Posted by ( Chris ) on June 13, 2008 at 6:39 pm

Mike,

Let me help you. There is this conservative talking point out there that reads like a cue card. It says Obama is all talk and no specifics. So if anyone asks you about his health care plan again tell them this: First his health plan is not a mandated coverage plan. What it provides is the choice for those without insurance to obtain the same type of coverage the members of congress has. Contrary to the propoganda from FIXED NEWS and Sean Shammity this coverage would not be free but rather subsidized. Everyone would pay their way as much as they can. The Obama plan will have the following features:

“Guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or pre-existing conditions.
Comprehensive benefits. The benefit package will be similar to that offered through Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the plan members of Congress have. The plan will cover all essential medical services, including preventive, maternity and mental health care.
Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
Subsidies. Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need financial assistance will receive an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan.
Simplified paperwork and reined in health costs.
Easy enrollment. The new public plan will be simple to enroll in and provide ready access to coverage.
Portability and choice. Participants in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange (see below) will be able to move from job to job without changing or jeopardizing their health care coverage.
Quality and efficiency. Participating insurance companies in the new public program will be required to report data to ensure that standards for quality, health information technology and administration are being met.”

Secondly, the bulk of coverage will still remain with private carriers. If you have a good policy right now through your job you can keep it if you want or change to the aformentioned plan. That provides what those pesky conservatives like to refer to as market competition. Now then, the plan specifies tax credits for the majority of Americans who are middle class to offset the price of premiums; if you decide to stay with your private or employer plan. I could go on and on but I’m sure you get the drift. There are plenty of specifics. And if anyone asks you how it will be paid for, let them know that the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% will be rolled back to pre Bush levels. I was purely idiotic to cut taxes during a time of war anyway and since that money hasn’t trickled down to any of the proles it only makes sense to revert back to the economic policies of the 90’s when things were pretty good.

Give anyone who asks you for specifics this link Mike ( it pretty much ends the talking point of “no specifics") http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

Posted by ( Robert W ) on June 14, 2008 at 8:28 pm

whewwwwwwwwww!!!! go jody go!!!! but you know, that we are all wrong,,,one of our fellow bloggers is always right and the rest of us are just mindless idiots.....

Posted by ( mike braswell ) on June 16, 2008 at 6:53 am

Dear:
“I’m sincerly curious”, Jody Lee.
Senator Obama’s health care plan that I liked is that, “No American will be turned away from insurance because of illness or pre-existing conditions. I have a son who was covered with my family insurance until he graduated from college with a chronic health condition. We have tried to get health coverage for him but several insurance companies have turned him down because of his health. The insurance we got for him is five times the cost of a healthy person. I am voting and supporting Senator Obama because I think my son and our family is not the only family who finds health care costly and not equally avilable for everyone. Miss Lee thank you for your sincer remarks.

Posted by ( Chris ) on June 16, 2008 at 9:04 am

Jody,

You will have to forgive me if your question was a sincere desire to engage Mike in a policy discussion about healthcare. I have found that when an individual who supports Obama talks in generalities (as Mike did) and a conservative then asks for specifics (as you did), it generally drips with condenscention. Look, I would hope you agree that you aren’t the first person of the conservative bent to ask that question to an Obama supporter. So, if you were sincerely interested in what Mike liked about Obama’s health plan and not interested in painting him as just another Obama supporter who is enamored by the rhetoric and unware of specifics then I stand corrected. I apologize ahead of time if your intention was different than all the other conservative media personalities when they ask the same question. That being said, I will admit that it is rather amusing for you to take this to a personal level by calling me paranoid and then settling on giving me directives only to end with the condenscending “down boy” which is more insulting than comedic. Such as it is, I stand by my opinion given in the first post and would challenge you to give some specifics as to why I am wrong. Leave the personal stuff to folks like Robert. You’re too smart to lower the discourse in that manner, IMO of course.

Robert,

I expect no less from a right wing conservative such as yourself who clings so tightly to the idea of resistance to change that the word troglydyte comes to mind. What is frightfully amusing is your inability to see hypocrisy. From your post above I must assume that you actually believe that when you post, you are above subjectivity. I guess in your world defending ones position is arrogance. We all know Robert is never assertive in defending the talking points given to him daily. When you post your opinion, do you not do so under the impression that you are right? When you respond to me with generalized GOP talking points are you not thereby asserting that you are right and it is me that is the mindless idiot?  Here, let me make it simple for you........Pot=Robert Kettle=Chris. So please, stop projecting your own inadequacies on to me. It may help you believe that you are above what you accuse me of doing but the rest of us aren’t fooled in the least. Your last post proves my point. Is there anything original there, anything? You have yet to take any information like that and form you own informed opinion. For example, adress the problem with subsidizing health care for those who don’t have it. Address the issue with tax credits given to help those who have and want to keep their own private insurance. Furthermore, you have the audacity to question the integrity of my sources when I linked you to AP articles, NY Times, and Time Magazine articles in antoher blog, only to turn around and give us a diatribe against Obama from a website dedicated to eliminating white supremacy? Are you for real?

Posted by ( D.H. of Virginia ) on June 17, 2008 at 8:08 am

“Children,children now calm down and eat your cereal”. Mommy serves her several children a bowl of fruit loop cereal each, then she ask just one what he likes about his froot loops. Little Johnny says he likes the many different colors. Little Sammy setting across the table from little Johnny jumps in uninvited by saying he doesn’t like fruit loops because of the picture on the box, he’s afraid of parrots. Suddenly little Sally throws a spoon full of cereal and milk at little Sammy because her favorite bird is the parrot. A very small portion of the milk and cereal Sally threw across the table at Sammy happened to land near, but not on, little Betty. Betty jumps to her feet and throws her entire bowl of cereal, milk and all at everyone at the table. Suddenly mommy has several unruley children on her hands to reel in to try to get under control and a hugh mess to clean up.
Anyone get the picture here? Jody ask a simple question to one person on what that individule like about Obama’s healt care plan, and all the other “children” jumped in uninvited to sling their cereal across the table. The topic of discussion here started out as Jody wondering why Obama choose Southwest Virginia as a place to kick off his Presidentual campaign and could it be because Va. is the home of the person he may ask to be his V.P.
Isn’t it funny how people will start throwing cereal at one another about things that wasn’t their concern in the first place?
Mommy Jody, you have a mess to clean up and by the way did you get the answer to the question as to why Obama came to Southwest Va. and whom do you thing he will choose as a running mate? “ Now, Now children be quiet and eat your cereal, I was talking to mommy”.

Posted by ( Chris ) on June 18, 2008 at 7:40 am

Robert,

Perhaps I am missing something here. You wrote this: “although i don’t consider my opinions to be 100% correct , i do believe strongly in them.and i will argue them relentlessly. for you to imply that everyone on here are just petty and ignorant because you can’t get us to agree with your opinionsis beyond comprehension.”
You made a blanket accusation about me but have yet to back that up with anything specific. Nothing, nada, zilch. IF you want to make such observations then fine, but at least show some gumption and back up your generalized assertions. I don’t think you can, I haven’t seen it yet. As for your contention we can’t believe everything we read, well that is amusing to say the least. If you can’t base your opinions on fact they are merely baseless assertions. When I give you links it is to support my argument. I have never seen you challenge the CONTENT of such information but you rather challenge the provider of such infomation. Just because a news story comes from the NY Times or even FIXED News doesn’t make the content itself illigitimate. When I give you links they are not editorial pieces but rather hard news pieces. There is a difference. I have yet to see you support one of your opinions in this manner. I look forward to any future discussions you may want to engage in, but YOU need to understand that when you support your arguments with nothing but baseless assertions and the opinions of others they deserve to be challenged. I’ll expect no less from you. BTW, I’ll be waiting for you to give me an example of your accusation towards me or is that just another baseless assertions?

DH,

Obama came to SWVA to shre up support with white working class voters. Virginia is slated to be a battleground state and the 9th disitric is likely the most Democratic friendly district within in SWVA or NE Tn. Good enough for ya daddy? Perhaps in the future you won’t have to speak over us children when addressing us. Perhaps you will find it “fatherly” to directly address those with whom you disagree and not hide behind “mommy”, unless of course “mommy” has you henpecked.

Posted by ( rawbleedorange ) on June 20, 2008 at 8:34 pm

chris,,,just what is my baseless assertion towards you?
my statements have a ton of proof behind them,,,whether i take the time to post the link is my discretion. as you like to tell everyone else,,do a lil research.
if you choose to be an OBAMABOT,,so be it,,,but don’t ever expect me to follow.i am not interested in a socialist country.

Posted by ( D.Hutch ) on June 25, 2008 at 8:42 am

Chris, let me first appoligize to you for you being offended by my remarks. I was the first blogger to respond to the question asked by Ms. Jody titled “Seriously Obama-Why in the World S.W.Va.”. In the beginning of this Blog the discussion was, why did Obama choose here to kick off his campaign? hence the title implyed. Then Mike responded next (that made two) to Ms. Jody and included a comment about a point Obama made on healthcare that he liked. Ms. Jody wanted to know what Obama said about healthcare that impressed Mike. That’s where the Train left the tracks and wrecked.
Chris, I have also felt that your comments and beliefs on the “healthcare” reference made by Mike was right-on. Your interpertation of Obama’s healthcare plan is exactly what the man said it is and nothing more. There are some people that try to make us believe that if someone wants to see to it that affordable healthcare is made available to every man, women or child, it has be a government controled program. There is a diffenence between controled and policed. You and I are on the same side of that issue.
However, since my previous comments didn’t make any sence to you let me just say this to try to clarify. The Blog Jody posted June 03, Obama’s “Moment” addressed questions pretaining to healtcare. This Blog posted June 12th was addressing a entirely different topic. I suppose you were right about my reference to “children and cereal” maybe that was a bad choice to compare responders to. Maybe I should have said that sometimes people are like a Pit Bull they just can’t let go. Meaning, they can’t get off the healthcare issue and stay focused on the current topic at hand.
I am still interested in the reason’s why people thought Obama choose S.W.Va. to kick off his Presidentual Campaign? I stated in the beginning of this particular Blog what Congressman Boucher and Obama said the reason was when they both spoke at the rally. I was curious as what others believed his reasons were reguardless wheather they attended the rally, as I did, or saw it on the live television broadcast. I guess most people didn’t care why.
Oh, and one can gain weight by drinking Diet drinks, never touch the stuff myself, bad for your health you know. Drink water, coffee or unsweetened tea as I do, it’s better for you, at least for now.