Clarissa,
that is soooo cool! I would LOVE to see her at a rally. I went to the Obama rally in Phoenix before Super Tuesday and it was like a rock concert. I like both of them, I think they are both very smart and really want to change things. I hope they will get a chance to do that!
With Hillary I am just worried that she may not be able to get done what she wants to do. There is a lot of resistance about her Universal Health Care plan and Republicans (at least the extreme right) are using the fact that she is married to Bill Clinton to portrait her as a divisive figure.
Me personally, I think she is much smarter than BC, a lot less arrogant and she seems to be genuinely concerned about people, it just doesn't always come across in the media coverage. But I think she wants to do too much, too soon.
That being said, I just keep shaking my head about the resistance to "socialized" health care. I come from a country where EVERY person gets health care, and it works well, no one goes bankrupt over medical bills and everyone gets the treatment they need (no, there are no waiting periods for treatments - you just choose your health insurance carrier, no one can be turned down).
But then again, the cost for drugs are less than 1/2 of what you pay here - WHY? Because they CAN charge it here, in the "free" market, drug companies and insurance companies make billions of dollars in profit and instead of using the money to pay for the people that are insured, most of the money is going to millions of $$ for their CEOs, incentives for the employees to turn down valid claims and advertising/commercials to the general public and to their share holders.
In other words, in Germany and other European countries, the SAME drug companies can charge less money and they STILL run a profit, not as high as in the US but a pretty good profit. Back then, investing in the pharmaceutical industry was always a sure-fire investment in Germany. Go figure!
When I compare the taxes that I paid back in Germany, percentage-wise it was only slightly higher than what I pay here (including health insurance, social security and additional taxes), but then again tax $$ weren't used for a totally senseless war either. We had to pay additional taxes when the wall came down though which added another 3+% of the gross income.
I am sooooo sick and tired of the partisan bickering that has been going on in the US for sooo many years, I just want someone who will be able to get people involved to to take charge of their country, reach across party lines and actually get things done. Maybe not the whole enchilada but get it started. It will be a long road!!
I have to say, I really don't care if someone is Republican or Democrat, I don't go down party lines. I think there are good and bad ones on every side of the aisle. For me, back in 2000 I would have voted for John McCain over Al Gore in a heart beat. McCain is the senator from my home state, I have met him personally on many functions and I always liked him, especially his "Maverick" attitude, however, what I have heard from him over the past few months, he scares the wazoo out of me - say 100 years in Iraq, more wars, thanks but no thanks!!!
I am sooooo tired of the politics of fear. Al Queada, Islamic jihadists, etc, be afraid, be very afraid! BUT we will keep you safe, we have kept you safe. Give me a break!!! We can't even keep illegal immegrants out of the country, hundreds/thousands are coming in every month without us knowing, but yeah, we'll keep Al Queada out.
As far as I am concerned that SOB Bin Laden is still walking freely in Pakistan and sending out videos at his will, making a mokery of us. And then we have John McCain attacking Obama because Obama says, IF secret service information confirms Bin Laden is in that area, we should bomb that remote area of Pakistan, even without Pakistani government approval. HELLO, what am I missing here, are we out to take out Bin Laden, or not???? As far as I recall, he and his network were responsible for 9/11!!!???
Getting off my soapbox now, I don't want to tell anyone who to vote for. And I totally got off track, just wanted to tell Clarissa that I think it was great to go to a political rally.
