I've been canvassing in Northern Virgina every weekend for the past few months and have run into quite a few people who are purely single issue voters on abortion.  Many of these people are otherwise Democratic voters and so I have tried to persuade some of them, when I can.  Below is my response, which I have been working on for some time and have had some success with.  Please let me know what you think and help me improve on it to make it more clear.

Here's my opening statement and question:

"Hello, my name is Todd Smyth and I'm a neighborhood volunteer and we are talking to people about our Democratic candidates in Virginia, Barack Obama for President, Mark Warner for US Senate and Jim Moran for US Congress.  We are asking people if they know yet who they will be supporting in November?"

Here is the common pro-life objection:

"None of your candidates are pro-life and I'm a pro-life voter."

The following is a list of documented facts about John McCain that should be considered by voters during the 2008 presidential race.

As a child, when he got angry, John McCain would hold his breath until he blacked out. (1)

McCain's childhood nicknames were "McNasty" or "Punk." (2)

McCain attended the US Naval Academy, where he earned over 100 demerits and graduated 894th in a class of 899. (2)

After graduation, McCain began training as a naval aviator in Florida and Texas, where he became known as a partier, driving a Corvette and dating an exotic dancer named, "Marie the Flame of Florida." (2)

McCain's first marriage was in 1965, to Carol Shepp, a former model and divorcee with two children. He adopted the two kids and had one of his own with Ms. Shepp in 1966. (2)

In the past few months Hillary Clinton:

* Lied about her opposition to the war in Iraq
* Lied about ducking sniper fire in Bosnia
* Lied about her opposition to NAFTA
* Lied about negotiating peace in Ireland
* Lied about creating SCHIP
* Lied about passing FMLA
* Lied about intervention in Rwanda
* Lied about being first to call Darfur genocide
* Lied about helping Kosovo refugees in Macedonia
* Planted questions in her own town hall meetings

She was caught red handed each time and she is still running for president? Am I missing something? Why are we still talking about primary polls and delegates and not talking about how Obama will beat John McCain in November?

Cross posted at MyDD (please help)
http://www.mydd.com/...

"only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change."
-- Milton Friedman

Hillary desperately needs a "CHANGE" in delegate math and the new strategy is to create a crisis in the Democratic Party, to scare Democrats into believing we may lose the White House yet again and then make the case that Hillary is the only one with the tenacity and killer instinct to really go after John McCain.

Emancipationist, Newspaper editor/publisher, soldier, politician and friend of Abraham Lincoln, Cassius M. Clay was a wealthy plantation land owner in Kentucky who freed his own slaves long before the Civil War began and at great personal risk, took up the cause of ending slavery throughout his life.  He published an anti-slavery newspaper in Lexington, KY, called The True American; He donated land and money in 1885 to open the first interracial college in the south (Berea College) and he lobbied for and helped draft the Emancipation Proclamation during the greatest struggle for change in our nation’s history.

Heart disease, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, and strokes cost the U.S. economy $1.3 trillion dollars each year in treatment costs and lost productivity.

Chronic Disease Costs "Staggering" – CBS News

There is an old saying about problem solving: "Treat the cause not the symptoms."  For example: if people get sick from tainted drinking water, you can treat the symptoms of everyone who gets sick or you can clean up the water supply and save a great deal of pain and suffering.  A better analogy to our wounded economy would be an accident victim who has passed out from a loss of blood.  There is no point in focusing on waking them up because they will just keep passing out.  You have to stop the bleeding first so they can wake up and then focus on repairing the damage.  Our economy is passing out from a loss of blood and we can try to wake it up with stimulus packages but it won’t stop the bleeding or repair the damage.  Our broken healthcare system is a major cause of our economic problems.  Please read on and I will explain further...

I keep hearing and reading in comments and quips "What HOPE and CHANGE is Obama talking about?"  Here it is in a Houston Cronicle post:

Questions for Obama supporters - Houston Cronicle

To most avid Obama supporters, we know what he is talking about and many of us have tried to communicate it to people who seem unreceptive at best.  I'm taking one more stab at it below the fold and would ask others to contribute.

I'll admit I have lost all objectivity.  I tried to listen to Hillary on CNN, speaking in Wisconsin and could have sworn my ears were bleeding.  I simply have no idea how anyone could support her and I am sickened by her cheap attacks on Obama.  The latest one is that Obama is all words and no action and Hillary is full of solutions and experience while Obama gives no specific plans for change.  This is simply not true.

When you triage a badly wounded patient, you first look for an obstruction of the airway, respiratory failure, heart failure, massive external bleeding and shock.  In the case of our economy, the airway is ok, we have respiratory distress but not failure and the heart is still working but we have several massive gushing wounds that need to be treated in order to stabalize the patient before we begin treating the rash on our back side caused from sitting on our ass while the rest of the world passes us by in engineering graduates and new innovation. Please read on...

They can debate the details of their policies all they want but nothing will ever get passed or changed unless one of them can end the partisan gridlock.  Corporate special interests only get their way when half of us fail to participate.  They divide the rest of us and pit us against one another and that’s how they win.  If someone was able to unite enough of us, the power of corporate special interests would become irrelevant and we could begin repairing the damage caused by a corporate run government.

I wish they would focus all the debates on: How will you make change happen?

We have all seen that a president can do all kinds of bad things without the support of the American people.  But to make real positive change happen a president needs to harness the power of the people.  Which candidate can bring together the most diverse coalitions to break partisan gridlock and make real positive change happen?

Edward’s recent fire breathing is ramping up a base of support but is losing people who see him setting up an unrealistic, entrenched and divisive battle that would result in further partisan gridlock and make him a lame duck on the first day in office.  Hillary’s high negatives and reputation as divisive and polarizing is not helped by her promise to "turn up the heat."  The Republican candidates are sticking to their script of scaring people with HOT button issues like immigration, terror, and religion.

Amid this firestorm of heat Barack Obama has distinguished himself by saying "we don't need more heat, we need more light" and Obama has the background and legislative record to back it up.   Obama is the one candidate offering hope of ending the partisan gridlock by reaching across the divide to the "good government" Independents and Republicans, which is the only way to gain a governing consensus and mandate for progressive change to achieve results and move our country forward.

There is a clear majority of people in this country, Republicans, Democrats and Independents who may not agree on the size and shape of our government but do agree our government should be much better than it is, more transparent, more ethical and more fair.  This is our common ground and these are the people we need to bring together to fix the major problems we are facing.  The problem is that the "good government" Republicans and Democrats are divided and polarized by the extremes of their party and Independents are too often left with choosing the least bad option.  Private industry and corporate lobbyists benefit the most from this divided electorate and they do everything they can to stoke the fire of hot button issues to make sure we stay divided.  There's more...

There are 5 congressional districts in Iowa, 3 Democratic and 2 Republican.  The 3 Dem districts have split their endorsements 3 ways Bruce Braley > Edwards, Leonard Boswell > Clinton and now Dave Loebsack > Obama.  Obama was already holding his own in the other 2 Dem districts despite endorsements but David Loebsack's 2nd district includes key cities Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Muscatine, Burlington and Ottumwa.  This is the first time in 29 years Democrats have held the 2nd District and Loebsack upset James Leach last year with grassroots organizing.

It seems a bit unethical to me to report that within some margin of error, someone has a lead while 76% of the voters are uncommitted.  It's good to see the margin of undecideds reflected in this new Boston Globe/Univ. of NH poll but it is hard to find clear margins of undecideds in other polls. Does anyone have better numbers/links to undecided voters in various states?

POLL: 76% of NH Democratic Voters Still Undecided
http://www.pollster.com/...

We know how to fix global warming through greater efficiency, conservation and renewable energy. We know how to fix the sky rocketing cost of health care with a greater focus on prevention and cures and by restructuring the obscene profits of long-term, drug treatments.  We know how to prevent wars through greater diplomacy and we even know how to fight terrorism by going after the terrorists who actually attack us.  We know how to fix these problems and the only thing standing in our way is the big money, special interests controlling our government and maintaining the status quo of the current establishment.  If we really want to fix the problems that face us, we need to change the system.  Please follow...

Why have Wall Street, Drug companies, the defense industry, Rupert Murdoch and convicted felons like Peter Paul and Norman Hsu supported Hillary Clinton more than any other presidential candidate?  Please read on for explanation and poll.

Wake up people!  Lose the rose colored glasses and take a cold and sober look at Hillary before you make a really big mistake for all of us.

In the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill, Hillary's 26 earmarks fund the global military industrial complex while she also defends the "Surge" in Iraq and her "next" war.  Hillary has invited people to bring their brooms and vacuum cleaners to help clean up Washington while her top fund raising "Hillraiser" bundler has been arrested while trying to escape.  

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