Political cartoon #3

McCain targets poverty saying he is an average person, but he’s actually wealthy. For example, this cartoon shows a man nailing a banner supporting McCain to the side of a poor person’s house. This shows how McCain targets poverty for votes, even though he is wealthy. The lady on the porch on this cartoon expresses this irony by stating: “If he’s such a regular man of the people, how come he’s got all them houses and we ain’t got but two.” Therefore McCain could be making bad decisions by targeting the wrong group of people. John McCain (and other politicians) making wrong and ironic decisions, by targeting the wrong group of people.

Political cartoon #4

Candidates try to manipulate the focus of the public, and drawing attention away from the details. This cartoon depicts a McCain with makeup on, and putting different kinds of lipstick on that say different things (i.e. Lipstick distraction). This shows how John McCain is using the lipstick (representing Sarah Palin) to draw attention away from the rest of the face (representing the Republican party). This cartoon also shows the words “The Joker.” This further shows how the rest of the face is the actual “Joker,” (representing the Republican party) and the lipstick directs attention away from it. McCain tries to keep the public from seeing what he essentially stands for, and using Sarah Palin (as the distraction) so people will look at gender instead.

Political cartoon #5

Wall Street is crashing, and this forces the citizens to pay off the huge amounts of debt. For example, this cartoon depicts Wall Street (represented as a man) pushing a man, with empty pockets, titled Taxpayers off of a building. This shows how Wall Street is forcing the citizens to pay off the debt, and someone is going to have to take the hit (and it will be us). This cartoon also depicts Wall Street saying “You First…” This further shows how the stock market is making the taxpayers pay for this, and the citizens are going to “fall” before Wall Street. This country is in a horrible economic crisis, and, in the end, taxpayers are going to be the ones to pay.

Political cartoon #6

Gas has gotten better, where as more and more people have been losing jobs. For example, this cartoon depicts a man pumping gas and a sign in the background saying “gas on sale.” This shows that gas prices have dropped, and that means people can drive more and worry less. This cartoon also shows a woman leaning out of the car saying: “It’s nice the price of gas is so much cheaper…if only we had jobs to drive to!” This further shows that the gas prices have dropped, but the economy is so bad and the unemployment rate is so high lots of people are losing their jobs.

McCain's Mission statement

I plan to eliminate capital gains tax, strengthen our borders, boost the economy. Lower our dependency on foreign oil, and promote offshore drilling. I also want to stop the killing of baby's, I am for the death penalty, also for our troops remaining in Iraq until they have a stable government. I want to lower the unemployment rate, while benefiting the country in every way, in my power. I want alternative energy sources. If elected, I will help this country in every way, shape, and form.

Obama's Mission statement

My goal is to ensure the protection of wealthy, allow people to decide weather a baby lives or dies, distribute the wealth, and raise the economy and lower the unemployment rate. Thereby promoting our nation and getting us out of debt. I plan to lower the dependence of foreign oil and raise alternative fuel sources. Get our troops out of the war, is also a necessity. I plan to do everything in my power to do what I see fit, and make the correct, not necessarily the popular, decisions.

Technology in Politics

McCain's policy on technology: McCain wants to have a whole bunch of people at the white house to help use tech. as a solution to improve education, health care, homeland security and other issues. He wants people who's job is to sit and think up of ways so that technology can help things such as education. So that way more schools will hand out personal laptops, and offer more technology exeperince for a further education.

Obama's policy on tech:Obama is for providing every school in the USA with access to the enternet. There are many things that you can learn from the enternet. Obama also wants to send phone lines to rural areas who don't get phone service. That way equal distrubition of technology is given to everyone. Where as McCain just wants to improve technology to some of the people.

How everything fits

Well...as you can see I searched and did biographies on every candidate. For someones background can tell us a lot of their views and how they will run the country. I also interviewed the one person from the public on the election and various aspects of it. I made two different colleges one representing the Rep. and the other representing the demo. Visual literacy helps look at things from different perspectives. I analyzed each candidates basic platform. Therefore we wont judge people by their appearance. I created graphs and tables from swing states to predict who would win that state by who has the most consistency. I identified the main political science issues and who stood where. I also constructed various political cartoons showing the progression of the race and the economy during the race.

Obama's basic platform

Obama

#1- Abortion-Obama is Pro-Choice. He believes that the individual should have a choice to kill the baby or not. So that way if the person gets raped she won’t have to have it, or have to deal with it.

#2- Education-Obama is against the No Child left behind act. He wants to improve the pay of teachers. Also wants to get children a head start on their education.

#3- Death Penalty-Obama is more or less for the death penalty. It all depends on the case, for example, if a man is convicted for treason than he is destined to die, but for murder in depends on how many and the specifics.

#4- Environment-Wants to reduce green house gases by 80% by 2050, and is for alternative energy sources. He wants to reduce foreign oil reliance by 35% by 2025. Also wants 25% of energy to come from 2025.

#5- Health care-He wants all children to have health care. Obama also wants all companies to support their clients with health care, including small business owners. If they fail to do so, they will be fined a certain percentage according to what they are paid. He will also allow enrollees to keep their coverage when they change jobs.

#6- Immigration- He wants to make a stronger border and he also wants to make illegal immigrants legal. By giving them citizenship.

#7- Iraq War-He supports immediate troop withdraw, and for this to happen within one or two brigades a month. He wants this to be completed by the end of 2008.

#8- Economy-“ Obama supports repeal of tax cuts for upper income earners to pay for health care. Opposes repeal of the estate tax.” From site: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/bios/view.bg?articleid=1063110
Who got their information from site: http://www.barackobama.com

#9- Poverty-Obama wants to “spread the wealth.” The only people that this applies to are the upper class and the lower class. He wants to increase taxes for those who make over a certain percentage and lower it for those under a certain percentage.

#10-Stem Cell Research-Obama has always been a supporter of stem cell research. He thinks that it will further our education. He approves of government funding on Stem Cell Research, also on a wide variety of research including embryos.

McCain's basic platform

McCain

#1- Abortion- He is Pro-life. He believes that Abortion should be illegal in order to support our future, our children, because adoption is always a choice.

#2- Education-“Excellence, choice, and competition in American education. John McCain believes American education must be worthy of the promise we make to our children and ourselves. He understands that we are a nation committed to equal opportunity, and there is no equal opportunity without equal access to excellent education.” From site: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/issues/

#3- Death Penalty-For federal crimes, John McCain agrees the Death Penalty. It makes others and them stop and think before they do something so bad that they could lose their own life.

#4- Environment-He is for alternative forms of energy, such as wind turbines. He also wants to cut our reliance on foreign oil.

#5- Health Care- “John McCain is willing to address the fundamental problem: the rapidly rising cost of U.S. health care. Bringing costs under control is the only way to stop the erosion of affordable health insurance, save Medicare and Medicaid, protect private health benefits for retirees, and allow our companies to effectively compete around the world.” From site: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/issues/

#6- Immigration-McCain believes that we should further secures our borders. He thinks that we already have too many Illegal aliens in our country. And he wants to stop that.

#7- Iraq War- McCain wants us to remain in Iraq until the government can withstand by itself. But until then we need to help them. That way there will be long-term peace. The troops can only return home once Iraq can safeguard their own country.

#8- Economy- John McCain wants to take long-term steps to improve the economy as well as short-term actions. Some long-term actions are things such as offshore drilling, which he is for. Some short-term actions are cutting capital gains tax.

#9- Poverty-McCain wants to increase the number of jobs in the US thereby decreasing the unemployment rate and decreasing poverty.

#10-Stem Cell Research-He is agrees with stem cell research, but I against the creation of human embryos. He thinks that it is unethical to create things but to research it in order to learn more is good.

Interview

I interviewed my mom: Emily Beddoes
This is what she said:
Q1) What is one good and bad thing about McCain?
A1)Good: "He is basically a selfless indiv. who has given his whole life to this country"
Bad: "He is associated with president Bush, just by being in the republican party"

Q2)What is one good and bad thing regarding Obama?
A2)Good: "Hes got a Hugh number of people willing to go out and vote for him. Therefore the most people in history will have voted, because normally only ~20% vote. So we will have the biggest turn out of voters ever in history"
Bad: "I dislike his tax plan/'Death Tax'"

Q3)What are some differences between Biden and Palin?
A3)Biden: "He has more experience with foreign policy"
Palin: "She only had but a couple months to prepare"

Q4)Who are you voting for and why?
A4) "McCain, because I believe that he will make the right decisions regarding the economy and Obama will not."

Q5)What is your opinions regarding race and gender and how that is entering into the election?
A5)"I think that people should vote for the person that will most benefit the country and not on gender and race, but I'm afraid that some adults will vote on according to race but lie and say otherwise."

Interview reflection

I interviewed my Mom, Emily Beddoes regarding the election. She is an active voter every four years. I interviewed her regarding who she thought would be the best candidate and why. Also comparing one person to another. As-well-as how biased views enters the elections. She is a Republican and a Conservative. She is very opinionated. She is an example of all the voters out there.

Republican college

This college depicts many things regarding the republican party. It shows all of the presidents who where elected into office and were republicans. Their sign is an elephant. they are against the democrats. They are big on fighting for their country. Whereas the democratic is big on helping "the middle man." They have always been up in arms with the democratic party. For example they once sacked a Democrat's room for information at the Watergate hotel. This incident is known for the Watergate incident.

Democratic college

This college depicts many things. Obama and Joe Biden are in it because they are the candidates running for president and vice president this year. They are against guns. They are pro-choice, which is why i have a baby's picture cut up. They also want to take us out of the war. The Democratic party is for gay marriage and for alternative energy sources. A donkey is their symbol. And the reason there is part of Martin Luther king Jr.'s speech on the edges is because MLK is tantamount to Obama becoming president, because he will be the first African-American to be president.

pregraph responce

The state I have chosen is North Carolina. That reason is because North Carolina is a swing state. A swing state is a state that could go either way, because half is republican and the other half is democrat. It can “swing” either way. Also I live at North Carolina, so I know what things are needed most here. Later I will post a "postgraph" paragraph seeing the results and how things have changed.

McCain graph and Obama table

Obama graph and McCain table