To answer your question: Both parties are the parties of big business. Its an unfortunate truth that there isn’t really a party for the little guy.

“The little guy”. And who is that exactly? Is it the guy who is clothed and fed and EMPLOYED by big businesses? Who’s retirement savings are invested in big businesses? Whose car and computer and internet access are provided by big businesses?
Oh, I forgot, all those profits are going directly into the pockets of some mysterious “fat cats”. NOT. They are going right back into YOUR pocket and MY pocket. Oh, but the fat cats make so much more than me, boo-hoo. Let’s take all CEO salaries and redistribute them amongh the rest of us. We might get an incredible extra TEN BUCKS a year.
You’re raging against a machine that’s not there, pal.

80 percent of the world’s wealth is owned by one percent of the world’s population. I don’t think all those crusty OT prophets would approve. If you recall ZZ they actually did redistribute all the land holdings at least once and gave possession of the land to the people who actually farmed it because of the oppressive practices of the landlords…I believe that’s found in Nehemiah.

McCain’s not paying a price for being a “maverick.” He’s paying a price for having been in bed with a lousy president & supporting his ill-conceived and bungled war & other policies (witness his flip-flop on torture). Here’s the end of the article you so deftly cherry-picked:
“Bankers and investors don’t point to specific policies affecting their industry in explaining McCain’s lack of support. Grano, a McCain backer, said disappointment over what he calls the “terrible” execution of the Iraq war may account for some of McCain’s difficulties. Bush’s job performance is another oft- mentioned reason.
“There’s a great deal of dissatisfaction with the Republican Party,” said Mallory Factor, a merchant banker who co-hosts a weekly meeting of conservatives in New York City and raised more than $1 million for Bush and his party four years ago. “People are just fed up.”
And they might just remember what kind of economy we had under the Democrats, too.

“80 percent of the world’s wealth is owned by one percent of the world’s population”
First of all “the world’s” wealth has nothing to do with this election. If you think about US wealth, it is not nearly that skewed.
But even if it were, so what? The people with wealth own it because they MADE it. Wealth is not a finite resource. You make it like you make a chair or a car. You take something of little value and by WORK and ingenuity you turn it into something else that’s more valuabe, thust CREATING wealth. And there’s NOTHING WRONG with keeping it. Do you have a moral obligation to help others? Sure. But to just insist people hand over all their wealth as punishment for the crime of making it is absurd.
And no, they didn’t just inherit it all. 90% of America’s millionaires are first-generation rich.

“Here’s the end of the article you so deftly cherry-picked …”
Gosh, another “conservative” caught in flagrante dilecto doing selective (Wright) pull quotes.
WHY am I not surprised?

There is a line that for some reason got left out of the Old Testament, that went, “So many Prophets, so few stones to throw at them when we stone them.”

ZZ, I 90% agree with you, but wealth is based upon natural resources so the pie isn’t infinite. Granted the pie gets larger when someone comes up with a way to use resources more efficiently, but there’s also a certain amount of slicing the pie up differently too.

MH, on a macro / global scale, your point is perfectly valid. That’s why I think people in wealthy nations have a moral obligation to help those in resource poor / developing nations.
But I think most of the complainers around here think much smaller than that. They’re jealous because there are doctors or managers out there who work hard and land good jobs and make six figures, and it just eats them up inside because their English degree barely qualifies them to work at Starbucks. They see some great moral injustice in this, they (incredibly) start seeing themselves as “disadvantaged”, and so they cling to Obama’s empty rhetoric.

ZZ, then I think we’re pretty much in agreement.

zz: the “big thinker” who complains that there are no disadvantaged people in this country; that they should feel privileged to be hungry and homeless in the greatest nation that has ever existed in the history of the world. anyone who is hungry and homeless is so only because they’re lazy and stupid.
tell us, big thinker, why don’t educators make six figures then, considering that they are put in charge of fostering innovation in our greatest resource ever? why don’t soldiers and police officers earn their due? tell me there’s nothing wrong with this system.
sure, everyone should be a doctor. or a manager. that would work.

reincarnate,
Teachers, police officers, and soldiers all make living wages. They are not destitute. Arguing that they “should” get higher wages because of the nobility or danger of their work is illogical. There are two things that determine your wage:
1. How many other people are able to do your job
2. How many other people are willing to do your job
If the number of both is high, your wages are lower. If #1 is low, you’re a brain surgeon. If #2 is low, you’re a dynamite handler. Both pay well.
Demanding that everybody make similar wagers no matter what they do is called “communism” and it failed.
Certainly there are homeless, hungry and destitute people, and we can and do help them. But implying that their numbers are vast enough to justify national shame is just silly. If that were the case, these people would be a huge voting block that would toss out capitalism and try something else. Hasn’t happened, and won’t.
“sure, everyone should be a doctor. or a manager. that would work”
You reek of jealousy, sir. It is unbecoming.

I imagine the switch of donations from one party to another says less about payback to McCain and more about the expected winner. Corporations have agendas and seek to obtain more preferential regulatory and tax treatment. So they make campaign donations and lobby to get access to lawmakers. Since money is finite they’re always looking for likely winners.
This is mostly party neutral as they’ll woo anybody in the right spot. When there’s a bond between an industry and a party it is generally about geography rather than party

You’re absolutely right MH. That’s why corporations are big on socialized medicine. It will save them insurance costs. But they are short-sighted. Socialized medicine means significantly higher taxes, and people will have to make more money to pay for it. So they will have to pay higher wages eventually or see the quality of the workfoce erode.

“You reek of jealousy, sir. It is unbecoming.”
nice try, numbnut. i figured that you would toss that one. it’s a desperate attempt and a weak ad hominem first of all because you obviously had no idea that i make close enough to 6 figures to keep me happy, and i’m hardly jealous of any doctor or manager job.
still, thanks for unwittingly reinforcing my point. your base claim is that if someone is “disadvantaged” it’s because they’re not some sort of surgeon or manager. my point is that not everyone could be a manager or surgeon. who would all of the managers manage? all the surgeons and each other, maybe. then according to you, their numbers would drive down wages.
your concept of what drives wages is very oversimplified (as is your definition of communism) and shows a lot of ignorance in the matter. clearly you’re neither an employer nor small business owner.
“Certainly there are homeless, hungry and destitute people, and we can and do help them. But implying that their numbers are vast enough to justify national shame is just silly.”
oh? so more than 1 in 10 people and families living in poverty is acceptable to you? why is it that women still earn only 77 cents to each dollar that men earn? why is it that minorities are more likely to earn less than white men? is it because they are not capable or just don’t want to be doctors and managers?

“80 percent of the world’s wealth is owned by one percent of the world’s population. I don’t think all those crusty OT prophets would approve.”
I think of the crusty OT prophets saw the wealth that even our poor live in, they would be shocked that anyone would be complaining.

“Gosh, another “conservative” caught in flagrante dilecto doing selective (Wright) pull quotes.
WHY am I not surprised?”
Um…you’re behind the curve on the news there guy. Your own candidate said that those quotes were more representative than he realized. So that leaves you out of step with your own candidate. He distanced himself from the quotes, maybe you might want to do the same thing.

“more than 1 in 10 people and families living in poverty ”
We define “poverty” arbitrarily as a percentage of average income. The poorest single mother, living in the worst slum in America, is better off than 90% of the population of Africa.

again, you’re ignorant of the issue. the poverty line is not defined arbitrarily. i’ll leave it to you as a learning exercise to find out what factors are used, okay peanut?
“The poorest single mother, living in the worst slum in America, is better off than 90% of the population of Africa.”
sure, i’d rather be homeless and starving in america than homeless and starving in africa. wouldn’t everyone? it makes all the difference: location, location, location.
the poverty line here is higher than the poverty line in underdeveloped countries, which should be obvious to anyone with a clue. you’re not comparing apples to apples in your over-used argument so it can’t excuse the problem that we have here.
you’ve made it clear that 1 in 10 people and families living in poverty in the u.s. is perfectly acceptable to you. that’s good to know. how about answers to the rest of my questions?