For about two years the leftist media wouldn't report on the well-known and easily available hate DVD's of Barack Obama's SELF-STATED "mentor," Jeremiah Wright from of Black Liberation Theology. Equally covered-up was the well-known and long-standing ties between Barack Obama and his terrorist pal, William Ayers. Likewise, Obama's quid pro quo with mobster, the Syrian-born and now convicted thug, "Tony" Rezko.
On the other hand, it took only hours before the leftist media was digging up "dirt" on the good Sarah Palin, dirt like an obscure home video in which she was seen praying for the troops (to the Democrats this is a sign of evil).
Now, within twelve hours the debate in which Barack Obama was humiliated by mention of "Joe the plumber," the goons in the leftist media are out to destroy this hardworking American. They've already gone through his tax records, rifled through his professional records and more, all to discredit a working American.
You may think this is a good thing because it helps your side win, but remember, this is what these thugs will do to YOU if you ever dare to disagree with them. A famous poem from after the Holocaust goes something like "When they came for the Jews I didn't speak up because I wasnt' a Jew...when they finally came for me, there was no one left to stand up."
They've come for the hockey mom, they've come for the plumber...when are YOU going to stand up to the leftist thugs?
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Lol...are you whining because it was so easy to discover what a total fraud this shirking American is?
Another one of those astute McCain vetting processes.
First, They Came For the Black Guy.
Haaretz: U.S. rabbis: McCain attacks on Obama creeping toward 'hate speech' 10/17
Amazing how this blogger doesn't seem worried about what decent Jews think of McCain's vicious divisiveness.
It's because all he cares about is having a neocon who will allow the most rabid Zionists wag the US dog, not matter how badly that hurts this nation.
The night Mr. McCain's hopes died
Article Comments (1) MARCUS GEE
From Friday's Globe and Mail
October 16, 2008 at 10:00 PM EDT
This was his last chance. Trailing badly in the polls as he entered the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday night, John McCain had to do something — anything! — to trip up Barack Obama's stately march to the White House. So he came out swinging, attacking Mr. Obama over everything from his "class warfare" tax program to his "pro-abortion" policy to his tenuous association with a 1960s radical.
It was a game effort from the feisty and capable Arizona senator, but, to borrow from the ring again, he didn't land a glove. Not only did Mr. Obama parry every blow, but he did it with an aplomb that made the older, more experienced man look like a rookie. When the history of the 2008 campaign is written, it will be remembered as the death of Mr. McCain's presidential hopes.
Perhaps it's unfair that it ended this way. With his decades of service in the government and the military, Mr. McCain should not be judged solely on how he performs in a 90-minute exchange on television. A president, his defenders will say, needs more than eloquence — a word that Mr. McCain spat out with disdain on Wednesday, deriding his rival's gift of the gab.
But for all their flaws, debates give a pretty good measure of the man. We learned a lot, over the three, about where these two stand on the issues, whether they have mastered the facts and how well they think on their feet. Just as important, we learned a lot about their very distinct temperaments. Over the span of the debates, Mr. Obama came across as cool, reasoned, unflappable, thoroughly in command of the issues and of himself. Mr. McCain looked annoyed, hot under the collar, almost fit to burst.
In Wednesday's debate, the best and testiest of the three, a split screen allowed viewers to watch one man as the other spoke. Mr. Obama listened carefully to Mr. McCain, occasionally breaking into a broad "give me a break" smile when his rival accused him of something. Hit again with the lowest blow of the McCain campaign — the suggestion that he "palled around with terrorists" — Mr. Obama patiently explained his relationship with Bill Ayers, a Chicago education professor and former Weather Underground militant who was involved in a series of "despicable" bombings 40 years ago, "when I was eight years old."
He looked, well, presidential, by far the more mature and confident of the two despite his lesser experience. Mr. McCain, by contrast, rolled his eyes in exasperation, bobbed impatiently in his chair, scribbled on a notepad or burst out laughing from sheer frustration. As one blogger put it, he looked like a jumpy schoolboy on a time out.
If Mr. McCain's odd, belligerent behaviour were confined to the debating floor, you might dismiss it as a mere flaw in the way he presents himself, no more than an irritating tick. It's much more than that. Look at the way he's acted during the financial crisis, suspending his campaign to deal with it as if he were already president, proclaiming the economy "strong," then in "total crisis," threatening to fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and unleashing a torrent of populist invective over Wall Street greed. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, has been calm and measured.
The contrast in temperament emerged again when Russia clashed with Georgia this summer. Mr. McCain compared it to the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, summoning the spectre of the Cold War. He had looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes, he later said, and saw "a K, a G and a B." A nice line, but was it quite the thing for a man who might have to negotiate with Moscow to say? Mr. Obama was far more careful in what he said about the events.
Which man would you want in the White House?
Readers Write: 12 Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin
By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted October 16, 2008.
AlterNet readers respond to the latest evidence of just how bad Sarah Palin is for an office that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency. Tools
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Over the weekend, a perfectly good PR opportunity was ruined for Sarah Palin when the audience at a Philadelphia hockey game booed the Alaska governor during the ceremonial dropping of the puck.
Philly hockey fans have not been the only ones to loudly express their disapproval of Palin in recent weeks. The VP candidate's spiraling drop in popularity is reflected in polls, in the press and among prominent conservatives -- by everyone, that is, but the die-hard fans who still eat up Palin's forced folksiness at campaign events.
Palin's drastic loss of support has been driven in large part by the endless revelations about her competence and character that have emerged since her nomination -- revelations that can't be glossed over with frantic winks and "you betchas."
Last week, AlterNet compiled yet another list of stomach-turning new facts about Palin, ranging from her attempts to undermine trust in Obama with racially tinged rhetoric to her shady history as governor of Alaska.
AlterNet's readers had a lot to say about the latest evidence of just how bad Sarah Palin is for an office that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency. We've compiled some of the best reader comments below.
Many of our commenters were especially incensed by Palin's recent character assaults on Barack Obama. Several readers attacked the unfathomably skewed logic used by both Palin and McCain in their attempts to paint Obama as dangerous:
Bgroat makes the point that by McCain and Palin's standards, McCain would be considered a "terrorist":
... the fact that McCain has worked with Obama for the past four years puts him in the same boat. In other words, they can't paint Obama as a terrorist using their logic without simultaneously painting McCain as one, as McCain, through working in the Senate with Obama, has done exactly the same thing they accuse Obama of doing (associating with former member of the Weather Underground Bill Ayers).
Waimea Witch agrees, pointing out that if we judge politicians by their "associates," we should be deeply concerned that every Washington senator is on the verge of lobbing bombs at federal buildings:
... Senator Robert Byrd is an ex-KKK member, so, does that make every member of the Senate a domestic terrorist by association?
Purple Girl invokes yet another fine illustration of the maxim about stones and glass houses, pointing out that unlike Barack Obama, Sarah Palin actually shares the ideologies of many domestic terrorists:
Sarah has some Ideologies which are akin to some rather notorious Domestic Terrorists -- McVeigh (hated U.S. Govt too), Charlie Manson (End Of Dayer, with Death Valley as the "Refuge"), and of course the "Pro Lifers" who thought nothing of Bombing Planned Parenthood Clinics, assassinating MD and Blowing a Pipe bomb Off in the middle of the Atlanta Olympics. Strike 3 Sarah, YOU ARE A BONAFIDE SOCIOPATH. Terrorist Doctrines spew out your mouth, and have been unearthed from your Recent History.
Jest2007 highlights another worrisome aspect of Palin's history: her connection to the Alaskan Independence Party, a radical organization that calls for Alaska's succession from the United States:
Maybe this would be a good time to examine Palin's association with the AIP. The AIP's creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler. The central purpose of the AIP is to drive Alaska's secession from the United States. In 1992 Vogler renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, "I won't be buried under their damned flag ... when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.
dayahka optimistically argues that all the recent revelations about Palin are essentially irrelevant, since soon enough the Alaska governor will disappear from the national spotlight:
Palin will shortly return to Alaska and will probably be recalled, impeached, censured, and/or jailed. But what of the reckless fool who put this scum on the national scene?
But Truthteller is less optimistic, writing that despite Palin's recent embarrassments, she could still help the Republican ticket pull in a last-minute win:
I've been saying for a long time that I believe the fix is in and McCain is going to "win" another stolen election. I just couldn't see how they could get it close enough to steal before the Palin selection. Now, I can. All the arguments are in place to explain away the theft like they were four years ago -- religious voters make last-minute turnout surge, they don't like talking to exit pollers, or lie to them to fuck with the results.
Tom Degan agrees, pointing out that there's nothing new about Republicans appealing to their base with incompetent candidates:
Twenty years ago, Poppy Bush nominated a man who had all the substance of a department store mannequin -- and yet the GOP won that election! The Democrats have every reason to be cautious. Given the American people's absolute genius for doing the wrong thing in the voting booth, anything can happen between now and Election Day -- and probably will.
Lreal also argues that while Palin's methods are detestable, they may turn out to be effective:
The history books of the future will show that the Republicans from 1980 to present and probably at least 10 years into the future is a party of dangerous demagoguery. Sarah Palin, and the acceptance by the majority of people in her own party shows that a demagogue mentality can get you far within this sector of the population no matter your true and obvious intellect. This also shows that if you can magnify this demagogue quality, then it can replace intelligence as a matter of accepted quality; and any opponent with a bit of intelligence is a liberal elite, no matter how much more humble they are than the subject.
Spritgirl writes that McCain and Palin are resorting to the usual Republican tactics: using Rovian character assaults to get bad candidates into office:
... the McShame/Failin ticket should not be rewarded for their efforts! These tactics of appealing thru peoples fears are straight out of the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove book, they are despicable and dangerous! Since they cannot run on the issues, they should both just sit down and shut up!!! These are extremely desperate attempts by two very unqualified individuals to get into the Oval Office! Their theory of divide (the body politic) and conquer appeals to those sheeple that want to be led around, and hopefully they will lead themselves and their sheeple off a cliff!
Whether or not the McCain campaign's tactics will be successful in swaying voters, McCain's desperate gambit to include and keep Palin on the ticket -- despite the unending stream of revelations throwing her character into question -- has added a terrifying component to the election.
Wow...talk about THUGS.
`Joe the Plumber,' Obama Tax-Plan Critic, Owes Taxes (Update2)
By Ryan J. Donmoyer
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- ``Joe the plumber,'' the Toledo, Ohio, man whose complaints about Barack Obama's tax plan were highlighted by John McCain in the final presidential debate, owes the state of Ohio almost $1,200 in back income taxes.
According to records on file with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, the state filed a tax lien against Samuel J. Wurzelbacher for $1,182.98 on Jan. 26, 2007, that is still active.
Wurzelbacher was thrust into the national spotlight this week when he told Obama he worried that the Illinois senator's proposals to roll back Bush administration tax breaks for Americans earning more than $250,000 would prevent him from buying a plumbing business that would earn between $250,000 and $280,000 a year.
McCain, an Arizona Republican senator, pointed to the exchange during the debate last night when he turned to the camera and said, ``I will not stand for a tax increase on small- business income.'' Directly criticizing Obama, he added, ``what you want to do to `Joe the plumber' and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business.''
Today, at a rally in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, McCain said ``the real winner last night was `Joe the plumber.'''
On Oct. 12, as Obama was campaigning door-to-door in suburban Toledo, Wurzelbacher confronted the Democratic presidential nominee about his tax plan.
`American Dream'
``Do you believe in the American dream?'' Wurzelbacher asked before asking about the tax increase. ``I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream.''
Wurzelbacher's home telephone number is unlisted, and efforts to reach him by calling his neighbors and family were unsuccessful. Attempts to reach Wurzelbacher at the plumbing company where he works were also unsuccessful. The address on the lien and other records for him matched the address published by the Toledo Blade, which also noted the lien.
Wurzelbacher told ABC's ``Good Morning America'' program today that high earners shouldn't be ``penalized for being successful.''
The state of Ohio places a lien on real property after several steps to try to collect a tax debt, according to John Kohlstrand, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Taxation who said he couldn't discuss any specific case.
Delinquency Notice
If a delinquency notice goes unheeded, the Department of Taxation issues a billing notice, Kohlstrand said. If that is ignored, a more formal assessment notice is sent. Failing to appeal an assessment or losing an appeal puts the debt into the hands of the state attorney general for collection. The attorney general typically sends a collection notice and simultaneously files a lien.
``The taxpayers may not necessarily know about the lien,'' Kohlstrand said, although they would receive other notices.
In Wurzelbacher's case, the lien indicated that the notice was sent to a previous address in Toledo.
Ray Ann Estep, section chief for revenue-recovery services for the Ohio attorney general, said Wurzelbacher's lien was filed six months after the Department of Taxation certified the debt for collection.
``Unfortunately, sometimes people don't resolve their debts as quickly as we would like them to,'' she said.
Obama's Plan
In addition to tax credits and a proposal that would allow Wurzelbacher to avoid paying capital-gains taxes if he ever sold the business he wants to acquire for a profit, Obama has proposed allowing the top two tax rates of 33 percent and 35 percent to revert to what they were during the Clinton administration, or 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively.
In 2007, the 33 percent bracket applied to taxable income exceeding $195,851.
Under Obama's proposal, Wurzelbacher would face about $900 more in taxes if he netted $280,000 of income from his new business and had to pay an extra 3 percentage points on the amount over $195,851, said Gerald Prante, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a Washington research group that is examining both candidates' plans.
``His average tax burden, the final bill he pays to the IRS isn't going to go up much if he's just making $280,000 a year,'' Prante said. He would face higher marginal tax costs to expand the business beyond that, he said.
Not Taxable Income
It's far more likely that the $280,000 Wurzelbacher told Obama he'd earn would be in the form of gross receipts and not taxable income, said Steven Bankler, a certified public accountant in San Antonio, who counts plumbers and other trade professionals as his clients.
According to an analysis by Dun & Bradstreet on Wurzelbacher's employer, A. W. Newell Corp., the plumbing and heating contractor has annual sales of $510,000.
If Wurzelbacher bought the company, by the time he took proper business deductions, Bankler said, he'd be left with between $150,000 and $200,000 in taxable income and wouldn't be affected by Obama's proposed increase in the top rates.
Wurzelbacher might eventually have to pay more employment taxes under Obama's plan to impose a rate of between 2 percent and 4 percent on wages over $250,000, Bankler said, but Obama has said that change wouldn't take effect for a decade.
Wurzelbacher doesn't have a plumber's license and isn't registered as a plumber in Ohio, the Toledo Blade reported on its Web site today. His employer has a state plumbing license, the newspaper said.
Before living in Ohio, Wurzelbacher was a resident of Mesa, Arizona, in McCain's home state, according to property records.
McCain Tax Jab Overlooks His Own Proposal
October 16, 2008 10:16 PM
ABC News' Teddy Davis, Rigel Anderson, and Hope Ditto Report:
John McCain is stepping up his assault on Barack Obama's tax plan.
The Arizona senator released a web video Thursday degrading his opponent's refundable tax credits as "welfare" and "government handouts."
Watch it: LINK
A day earlier, it was adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin who was making the case against Obama.
"The most interesting place now where people have caught onto Barack Obama is in the area of a 'tax cut' for 95 percent of the American people, despite the fact that just under 50 percent literally pay no income tax," said Holtz-Eakin on a conference call with reporters.
"Now how can this be done?" he continued. "Well, Barack Obama has labeled mailing checks to individuals a tax cut."
McCain's top policy adviser then enumerated the following litany of refundable tax credits favored by Obama: (1) a "make-work-pay" credit of up to $500, (2) a universal mortgage credit of 10% of mortgage interest, (3) three different extensions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, (4) a refundable child care credit, (5) a saver's credit, (6) a Hope Credit, and (7) a 100% match of college expenses up to $4,000.
"This array of credits amounts to sending checks to individuals," said Holtz-Eakin, "In 2009, there would be checks sent to 57 million households in the US."
While Holtz-Eakin is correct in suggesting that refundable credits are a cornerstone of Obama's plan, the McCain campaign is overlooking that the center-piece of its own health care plan is . . . you guessed it . . . a refundable tax credit.
In fact, Holtz-Eakin himself has pointed to the refundable nature of McCain's health-care tax credit as the key reason why McCain's health care plan would cover more of the uninsured than proposals offered by President Bush.
While the benefits of a refundable tax credit extend even to those who have no federal income tax liability, they do pay other taxes: payroll, state, local.
"Given that McCain has offered a refundable credit for health insurance, it's hard for him to argue that Obama providing similar credits constitutes welfare," said Roberton Williams, a principal research associate at the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. "You have to have done something to get it. You have to have worked, or paid mortgage interest, or paid college tuition, or put money into a retirement account before you can claim the refundable credit."
"The only way you can reach people at the bottom end of the income distribution through the tax system is through a refundable credit," he added.
So... Joe the Plumber has a house! If he doesn't buy the business and loses his job then he can probably take care of the lien in a year or two with those checks that people like him will get (you know the folks not paying taxes). Do we know if Joe got the same deal as Chris Dodd? Have the pictures of Joes kids been posted yet? Will I (we) know more about Joe than Mr Obama before the election? Will there be another unoriginal cut and paste comment made on this post? Stay tuned! :-D
I'm with you, Shea...how dare they expose a phony?
Joe the non-plumber is a victim of a cynical GOP which tried to use him as a campaign prop without any consideration for checking his authenticity or for his personal life. It exposed him to the inevitable scrutiny that is necessary for such figures. To blame the media for doing their job on this is more of the whining dodging that this pathetic party is known for.
Wanna see a Herculean attempt at overcoming a serious inferiority complex? Read this. You can hear the veins popping.
John said...
"Karin" has no real degree, no real money, zero real accomplishments, is monolingual, never deviates from liberal orthodoxy (as set by the liberal popes), has zero free thinking creativity and just parrots party lines, and is aestheticaly challenged with no taste or discernment.
She is envious, resentful, and malicious to degree that has triggered neuroses, and contributes nothing to political discourse--or life, for that matter--but hate, divisiveness, and other qualities which give human beings a bad name and are at the black heart of terrorism, murder, and war.
She thinks "class" is what she sees on the red carpet during the Oscars (despite the fact that the glittering Yves St. Laurens she gapes at are borrowed by the royals she ogles over, who themselves can barely read and are the true trailer park trash she accuses the conservatives of being, have had more knives used on their faces than a fish at Benihanas, and more plastic injected than the factory molds at Mattel toys).
She has been spoonfed shit daily since she's been a little girl and is now running around vomiting it up, or running in here to squat and defecate, because she's full of it and can't get enough of it out of her system to just stfu and get a life.
She's just a sniveling orcling who never even makes it onto the battlefields, but lives in the caves of Moria beating a little tin drum in the dark and clapping her hands together with widespread fingers like a retarded little child and squeaking "Yayyyy!" when the truly elite elitist balrog appears.
She hates hatefulness, will not tolerate alleged intolerance, and feels fit to judge judgmentalism.
In short, she suffers from the mental illness called "liberalism."
I think I drove the poor guy nuts(ier)
"It exposed him to the inevitable scrutiny that is necessary for such figures. To blame the media for doing their job on this is more of the whining dodging that this pathetic party is known for."
Would "such figures" include the Democratic candidate? Seems like asking questions, any questions, is considered A) An Attack, B)Racist or C) Both.
FYI: Joe "the guy who spoke his mind" isn't running for anything and if I had to guess is only registered to vote once, in the county where he actually lives.
Los Angeles Times
Thinking conservatives: MIAs of the GOP
Paranoid, rage-driven, xenophobic nuts are taking over the Republican Party.
Rosa Brooks
October 16, 2008
Liberals haven't had so much fun in decades.
Aside from the dwindling size of our 401(k)s, life is treating us well. True, we're heading into a major recession. But that's OK: That just presents us with new opportunities to Do Good. And while we wait for President Obama to bring us New Deal 2.0, we'll also get a few giggles out of watching the Bush administration preside over the nationalization of the nation's financial sector. (Tip: Practice saying "social democracy." Also, practice saying "Told ya so!" with compassion.)
Maybe most fun of all, we're getting to watch a steady procession of rats leaving the sinking GOP ship.
One by one, the nation's more reputable conservatives have been edging away from the Republican presidential ticket. It started with John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Thinking conservatives -- as of a couple of months ago, there were still a few left -- were distinctly underwhelmed. In the New York Times, David Brooks chastised McCain for "throw[ing] away standards of experience and prudence" by picking Palin. In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer said Palin was "not ready" for prime time. David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, complained that Palin had "thoroughly -- and probably irretrievably -- proven that she is not up to the job." In the National Review, conservative columnist Kathleen Parker said Palin was "clearly out of her league" and urged her to "bow out."
For liberals initially alarmed by McCain's brief post-convention poll bounce, this was fun. And as conservative disdain spread to the whole GOP ticket, the fun got even funner.
In the Washington Post, George Will slammed McCain for his "fact-free slander," "substitution of vehemence for coherence" and "boiling moralism." On MSNBC, former Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan admitted that she's not sure who she'll be voting for this November: "Ahh. Umm. I'm thinking it through."
Then -- more fun -- some conservatives began to actually endorse Barack Obama. Wick Allison, a former publisher of the National Review, wrote that today's brand of conservatism "has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse. ... Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history."
Christopher Hitchens, who has spent the last five years deriding the Democratic position on Iraq as that of "the surrender faction," endorsed Obama too, concluding "the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and ... both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated."
Whee! Incredibly, the fun continued. Christopher Buckley, National Review columnist and son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, also endorsed Obama: "Obama has in him ... the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. ... And so, for the first time ... I'll be pulling the Democratic lever in November." For his pains, Buckley received hundreds of vituperative e-mails from former admirers on the right. Effectively, he said Tuesday, he's been "fatwaed by the conservative movement." He resigned from the National Review.
But enjoyable as it's been to watch conservatives flee from the GOP, something about all this leaves me feeling a little down. Because as the more respectable, literate conservatives distance themselves from the GOP, increasingly, the only ones left on the right are paranoid, rage-driven, xenophobic nuts. Bitter? You betcha! Twisted too!
Even for a liberal, it's painful to watch. Once, the GOP proudly claimed to be the "party of ideas." They weren't generally good ideas, it's true -- but they were ideas eloquently defended by men and women who believed it was their duty to study history, philosophy, science, economics and international relations and to do the intellectual heavy lifting needed to try to persuade smart people with different views to come around to their way of thinking. That was the GOP nurtured by conservative intellectuals such as William Buckley. Buckley was many things liberals didn't admire, but he wasn't ignorant, savage or stupid by choice.
But today, as the last few sober grown-ups leave the party, the visible face of the GOP increasingly looks like that of the people who shout "kill him!" when Obama's name comes up, who speak of black men they don't like as "uppity" or as "boys," who think you can't trust a Muslim or an Arab, who think talking about "Barack Hussein Osama" is witty and (I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin and John McCain) who claim Obama "pals around with terrorists."
This isn't really that funny anymore.
Would "such figures" include the Democratic candidate?
Duh...yes.
Seems like asking questions, any questions, is considered A) An Attack, B)Racist or C) Both.
Paranoia is problematical, but the right Dr. could help you.
Furthermore, the bastard still won't authenticate his ass crack for the people.
Liberals haven't had so much fun in decades.
Aside from the dwindling size of our 401(k)s, life is treating us well. True, we're heading into a major recession. But that's OK: That just presents us with new opportunities to Do Good. And while we wait for President Obama to bring us New Deal 2.0, we'll also get a few giggles out of watching the Bush administration preside over the nationalization of the nation's financial sector. (Tip: Practice saying "social democracy." Also, practice saying "Told ya so!" with compassion.)
...and the failures of W's "compassionate conservativism" has likewise gone down in flames like the liberal whore to whom said compassion was economically wed.
Sarah Palin is MOST CERTAINLY the future. The free American Enterprise Express is about to leave the station. All Aboard!
It used to be that paranoid people worried about men from the government investigating and keeping track of people, ruining them if they got out of line. It turns out that it was the Lefty media all along who posed the REAL threat to civil society.
Last update - 23:28 16/10/2008
U.S. rabbis: McCain attacks on Obama creeping toward 'hate speech'
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Tags: israel news, Jewish world
A group of liberal American rabbis have denounced Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign as leaning toward "hate speech" in its treatment of Democratic rival Barack Obama.
"The manner in which Senator McCain, Governor [Sarah] Palin and their supporters refer to Senator Obama is creeping toward hate speech," Rabbis for Obama said in a statement on Thursday.
"As leaders of the Jewish community we are well aware of the dangers of using inflammatory political language to marginalize individuals and groups. Increasingly those speaking on behalf of the McCain campaignhave been demonizing Senator Obama as not being like us."
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According to the rabbis, the McCain campaign has deliberately stressed Obama's middle name - Hussein - as if to insinuate the candidate's Muslim background, a contentious rumor circulating since the start of the campaign.
"They [the McCain campaign] recently used a uniformed sheriff to warm up the crowd at a rallyby emphasize the senator's middle name," the rabbis wrote. "At another event Senator McCain seemed shocked when one of his supporters stated that Senator Obama was an 'Arab.' That false belief is the fruit of the McCain campaign's emphasizing Senator Obama's middle name."
The rabbis also accused Vice Presidential candidate Palin of asserting that "Senator Obama pals around with terrorists," a claim that denounced as "false" and "built on three distortions and a lie."
"In twenty-first century America, no word is more emotionally loaded than 'terrorist,'" they wrote. "Republican operatives who managed to convince American to believe the lie that the government of Iraq was connected to Osama bin Laden, think they can now convince Americans of another big lie, that 1960s campus radical William Ayers is connected to contemporary terrorists and that he is a close, influential friend of Senator Obama."
The liberal group also lashed out at their opponents in the Republican Jewish Coalition, which it said "falsely labels Senator Obama as
'reckless on Israel.'
"They [Republican Jews] know that in the Jewish community this is the moral equivalent of crying fire in a crowded theater," the liberal rabbis said, adding: "The RJC approach harkens back to the classic Republican red baiting tactics of Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon from the early fifties."
"We have put our credibility as rabbis who love Israel on the line to publicly endorse Senator Obama for President because of the smears and lies coming from the other side," wrote the rabbis.
"Never before in the history of the United States has a group of rabbis come together on this scale to work on behalf on a candidate for president."
An annual survey published last month by the American Jewish Committee on Thursday revealed that American Jewish voters Obama over McCain for U.S. president by a margin of 57-30 percent.
The surprising figure to emerge from the survey was the unexpectedly large number of undecided voters, at 13 percent.
Though the percentage of Jews in the U.S. is merely 2 percent, 4 percent of the votes in the presidential elections are generally cast by American Jews. In certain states, such as Florida, the Jewish vote is considered crucial.
In addition, more than 40 percent of American Jews contribute to presidential campaigns, comprising one fifth of all campaign contributions.
Voters Slam McCain Mailer, Robocalls Linking Obama to Terrorists
Automated phone calls and mailers linking Barack Obama to terrorists are a despicable ploy, say "outraged citizens" in e-mail campaign to reporters.
FOXNews.com
Friday, October 17, 2008
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Numerous "outraged citizens" have peppered the e-mail boxes of reporters with complaints about a mailer and robocalls sponsored by John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee, denouncing them as a new low in politics and an ugly, possibly racist attempt to frighten voters about Barack Obama in the closing days of the campaign.
The automated phone calls in Virginia, Nevada and possibly elsewhere and a separate direct-mail piece imply Obama will be soft on terrorists abroad and play up his links to 1960s radical William Ayers.
The mailer shows pictures of North Korean President Kim Jong Il, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and carries the headline "America must face the threat of terror head on."
The mailer calls on Republicans to vote early by absentee ballot and says that, ""Democrats who want to control Washington have pledged to meet, without preconditions, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea ... Our foreign policy must not be appeasement."
Click here to see images of the mailers.
In the robocalls, a narrator says, "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country."
In response, Obama spokesman Bill Burton called the effort "dishonorable and dishonest."
"John McCain's campaign has admitted that the economy is a losing issue for them, so he's chosen to launch dishonorable and dishonest attacks like this. John McCain can't defend the fact that he's voted with George Bush's disastrous policies 90 percent of the time and will continue the same Bush-McCain economic policies American families can't afford."
However, the repetitive nature of the e-mail complaints sent to reporters suggests a coordinated campaign by Obama sympathizers to highlight the McCain mailer and robocalls
One e-mail sent to reporters reads: "Absolutely reprehensible that ANYONE would think something like this is acceptable. I do hope I will be hearing about this on the news this evening.
"After attempting to place himself above the fray at last night's debate, McCain is shamelessly launching a different kind of negative campaign. This one takes the form of robocalls to households, informing them of the Obama-Ayers link."
For its part, the official Obama response has been less than aggressive in refuting the mail and phone calls. This fits with the Obama strategy of not drawing further attention to the Ayers issue until it develops some solid polling or focus group information that the topic is moving voters away from Obama. So far, senior Obama advisers say they see no such trend and predict the Ayers-terrorist tactic will backfire.
"For about two years the leftist media wouldn't report on the well-known and easily available hate DVD's of Barack Obama's SELF-STATED "mentor," Jeremiah Wright from of Black Liberation Theology. Equally covered-up was the well-known and long-standing ties between Barack Obama and his terrorist pal, William Ayers."
Uh, no, that stuff was always there, just no one thought it relevant. But if they were "suppressing it" how do we know about it?
And So what if Wright has a little black liberation theology in him?
And Ayers did his time, and has kept his nose clean. Something the average, hardworking American you seem to so deeply cherish seems to understand, and you don't.
"Likewise, Obama's quid pro quo with mobster, the Syrian-born and now convicted thug, "Tony" Rezko."
That's a lie.
"On the other hand, it took only hours before the leftist media was digging up "dirt" on the good Sarah Palin, dirt like an obscure home video in which she was seen praying for the troops (to the Democrats this is a sign of evil)."
Oh, fuck off. What I never get about right wingers like you is your obsession with determining everyone on "your" side must be intrinsically good, and versey vicey on the other side. Sarah Palin is "good" because she's a Republican, not because of anything she's done in her life. Yet those skeletons in her closet were her own, and McCain's pick of her drew attention to it.
And Mr. Sayet, as a father yourself, aren't you just a little worried about a judgment of a woman who, after giving birth to a special needs child, would then accept the Vice Presidency, the second most powerful job in the land? After all, wouldn't a good person decline such a job because Trig needs more attention than she might be able to provide if she had such a high profile, demanding job?
Oh, right, you think I think she should have just aborted the baby.
"Now, within twelve hours the debate in which Barack Obama was humiliated by mention of "Joe the plumber," the goons in the leftist media are out to destroy this hardworking American. They've already gone through his tax records, rifled through his professional records and more, all to discredit a working American."
Again, whose fault is that? He didn't want McCain to mention him at all.
"They've come for the hockey mom, they've come for the plumber...when are YOU going to stand up to the leftist thugs? "
When are YOU going to get over yourself?
Obama Matches Kerry's Support With Whites, Pointing to Victory
By Hans Nichols
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama is running even with or ahead of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in support by white voters. If those numbers hold, with a changing electorate, pollsters say Obama will win on Nov. 4.
Obama trails Republican John McCain among white voters by 13 percentage points, the same margin by which Kerry trailed President George W. Bush in mid-October 2004, according to the latest Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll.
``If Obama matches Kerry's numbers with white voters, he's in, comfortably,'' said Dick Bennett, a pollster with Manchester, New Hampshire-based American Research Group.
Obama, the first black major-party presidential nominee, is benefiting from an electorate that looks different than it did four years ago. Blacks and Hispanics will represent bigger shares of the voters who cast ballots next month, and Obama is getting more support from those groups than Kerry did in 2004. First-time voters favor Obama by 24 percentage points in the new Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll.
The Democrat's strength with young and minority voters illustrates why McCain must keep, and probably increase, Bush's 57 percent share of 2004's white vote.
``Kerry saw his numbers fading with whites in the last three weeks'' before the 2004 balloting, Bennett said. ``This time, the momentum is with Obama and he's actually attracting more white working-class voters.''
`Bradley Effect'
As surveys show a boost in Obama's support, pollsters are watching for signs that results may be skewed by hidden racism, in a phenomenon called the Bradley effect. That theory proposes that some white voters who won't support a black candidate lie about their voting intentions to conceal racial bias. The theory is named for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black Democrat who lost a 1982 race for California governor even though pre-election polls had showed him ahead.
Overall, Obama leads McCain 50 percent to 41 percent among likely voters in the Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times survey. The Illinois senator has pulled ahead in the past month as voters overwhelmingly turn their attention to the slowing U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 22 percent since the beginning of September, enduring record-setting daily swings along the way, and Congress passed a $700 billion financial-rescue package aimed at easing a global credit crunch. Poll respondents favor Obama as the best candidate to confront the economic chaos.
``If John Kerry had the current economy that we have today, he would be finishing his first term,'' said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.
Leading in Polls
In building his current lead, Obama is ``getting nearly universal support among African Americans and doing relatively better among independent whites than Kerry did four years ago,'' Ayres said. Recent surveys by Gallup Inc. and George Washington University's Battleground poll show Obama has cut the Republicans' double-digit 2004 advantage with white voters by at least half.
The national trends are also shaping the race in highly contested states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Obama lags behind McCain among white voters in Ohio by 10 percentage points, according to a poll released Oct. 13 by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. The Republican margin four years ago was 12 points.
In Pennsylvania, McCain has an 8 point edge with white voters, about the same as Bush's lead in 2004, a Marist College poll shows.
Hispanic Voters
At the same time, Obama leads McCain among black voters by 91 percentage points in the Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times survey. He enjoys a 40 point advantage with Hispanics, which is ``dramatically higher than Kerry's'' backing in that group, said Susan Pinkus, the Los Angeles Times polling director.
With increasing Latino support, Obama is ahead in surveys of voters in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado -- three states with significant Hispanic populations that Bush carried in 2004.
``It's part of the Californi-cation of American politics,'' said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Washington-based think tank formerly called New Democrat Network. ``The electoral map gets increasingly difficult for Republicans if they keep losing Hispanic votes
...Then They Came For the Hockey Mom's Husband.
Todd Palin's Past Political Associations A Likely Security Clearance Disqualifier. And That May be True for Sarah Palin Too When the Truth Will Out.
Political scientists give Obama 80%chance of victoryNick Juliano and
Muriel Kane
Published: Thursday October 16, 2008
Models predicted Bush win in '04
Even before the current economic turmoil steered more voters towards Barack Obama, political scientists were predicting the Democratic candidate would win the presidency.
Election forecasts completed this year give Obama an 80 percent chance of victory. Just one of nine forecast models being published this month predicts John McCain will win, and that model relies heavily on poll results inflated by the substantial bounce that running mate Sarah Palin briefly provided the Republican ticket.
Between January and September, political scientists began comparing statistics including economic data, the candidate's poll numbers, President Bush's approval ratings and other figures to create statistical models aimed at forecasting the 2008 election results. Nine models are being published this month in the journal of the American Political Science Association.
Of the nine models, six predict an Obama victory, with three of those predicting a landslide. Another two are too close to call. The models also weigh the probability of their predicted outcomes; the median result predicts an 80 percent chance Obama will win.
The same journal published similar models before the 2004 election. Six of seven forecasts predicted President Bush would win (the seventh predicted Bush would receive 49.9 percent of the vote).
Statistician Nate Silver, who blogs at FiveThirtyEight.com, predicts a 95 percent chance Obama will win, and the political exchange market Intrade puts Obama's chances above 85 percent.
The earliest of the predictions to be published in the political science journal, from January 2008, was based on the degree of support for each of the candidates in early primaries, and showed a too-close-to-call result, with of 50.1% of the popular vote goting to Obama and 49.9% to McCain.
Five predictions from last summer basically treated the election as a referendum on both President Bush and the state of the economy. Four of those showed Obama winning comfortably with anything between 52.2% and 58.2% of the popular vote.
The fifth came up with a raw figure of 56.57% for Obama but then lowered it to a virtual tie to reflect the impact of race on voters' preferences.
Two other predictions from July and August, which used more complex statistical models based on federal and state factors, also predicted an Obama victory with 52% or 53% of the vote.
The only prediction of a McCain victory came in September and combined second-quarter economic figures with the Gallup Poll numbers from Labor Day -- which was the scheduled first day of the Republican National Convention and just three days after McCain's attention-getting announcement of Sarah Palin as his running-mate. It showed McCain gaining 52.7% of the popular vote.
A lass Deplorable wheezed:
"Sarah Palin is MOST CERTAINLY the future. The free American Enterprise Express is about to leave the station. All Aboard!"
hahahaha...do they actively work at making fools of themselves?
Palin's despised more every day, and the "free marketeers" are themselves socializing the system in a panic.
The lefty media...lol...I guess that includes Noonan, Will, Buckley, Frum, Schaeffer, Mc's own brother and all the others who've expressed dismay and worse over Palin, and over their hate campaign.
whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine whine whine...and them niggahs brung down the conomy
Are Jewish Rabbis part of the leftist media?
Haaretz: U.S. rabbis: McCain attacks on Obama creeping toward 'hate speech' 10/17
Local GOP Group's Mailing Shows Obama's Face, Watermelon, Ribs, Fried Chicken on Food Stamps
October 17, 2008 8:17 AM
The Press-Enterprise in California reports that a recent newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated, in California, envisions a President Barack Obama putting his face on food stamps, surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken.
"Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills," reads the newsletter. "If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"
The president of the GOP group, Diane Fedele, says it "was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further. I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."
"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."
The story also says "Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race."
'em is leftis Rabbi-its, Dmitri, you nose at makesem evil...they needs a solution of some kind for em ones.
McCain May Stumble With Focus on `Joe the Plumber' (Update1)
By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Kristin Jensen
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain's bid to shore up his poll numbers by highlighting ``Joe the plumber'' may backfire.
Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, the Toledo plumber who criticized the tax proposals of Democratic nominee Barack Obama, owes back taxes, isn't licensed or registered in Ohio and would fare only slightly better under McCain's tax agenda than under Obama's even if his income soared.
McCain this week thrust Wurzelbacher into the national spotlight as a symbol of overtaxed small-business owners after Obama opened clear leads in many states. Analysts said Wurzelbacher's circumstances have muddled McCain's effort to profit politically from the tax issue, making it unlikely ``Joe the plumber'' will have any more long-term benefit for his campaign than did the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
``Joe the plumber will have the same trajectory as Sarah Palin, but it will be tracked in hours rather than weeks,'' said Thomas Mann, a scholar at Washington's Brookings Institution.
During the last presidential debate, Oct. 15, McCain said that what Obama would ``do to `Joe the plumber' and millions more like him is have their taxes increased and not be able to realize the American dream of owning their own business.''
The problem for McCain, tax analysts said, is that the underlying premise that Wurzelbacher would face higher taxes under Obama is neither true nor typical of how the vast majority of small businesses would fare.
Buy a Business
Wurzelbacher told Obama Oct. 12 as the Illinois senator canvassed his neighborhood that he was about to buy a business that earns as much as $280,000 a year.
``Do you believe in the American dream?'' Wurzelbacher asked Obama, citing the Democrat's proposed tax rate increase for Americans earning more than $250,000. ``I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream.''
Wurzelbacher hasn't paid the taxes he already owes, according to the state of Ohio, which placed a tax lien against him for $1,182.98 on Jan. 26, 2007, that is still active. A second judgment against him was filed in March 2007 by St. Charles Mercy Hospital for $1,261, records show.
The company McCain said the plumber wants to buy has annual sales of $510,000, according to an analysis by Dun & Bradstreet. That makes it unlikely that Wurzelbacher's purchase would give him a taxable income of more than $200,000 -- leaving him unaffected by Obama's proposal to roll back tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000, said Steven Bankler, a certified public accountant in San Antonio, who counts plumbers and other trade professionals as his clients.
Few Businesses Affected
Few such small businesses have enough income to be affected by Obama's tax changes, Bankler said.
One other problem in making Wurzelbacher a symbol of the overtaxed: he would pay just $773 more in taxes under Obama's plan than McCain's if he did earn an adjusted gross income of $280,000, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a Washington research group that is critical of high taxes.
Earning that much would make Wurzelbacher very unusual among small businesses. According to the Internal Revenue Service, most small businesses organize in ways that allow their owners to pay taxes at personal rates rather than as corporations, which impose a second layer of taxes. Almost 95 percent of 21.5 million owners of small businesses who file as sole proprietors had receipts under $100,000 in 2007.
Another 4 million businesses organize as so-called subchapter S corporations, according to IRS data; less than 5 percent of them earn more than $200,000.
`No Joe Six-Pack'
If Wurzelbacher managed to earn $280,000, ``he's not an average Joe Six-Pack,'' said Gerald Prante, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation.
``Rather than a game-changing blow for the McCain campaign, `Joe the plumber' is turning into a bad case of blowback,'' said Rogan Kersh, a public service professor at New York University.
Still, McCain is making an appeal to the white working class, a demographic ``disproportionately represented in many swing states,'' said Karlyn Bowman, an analyst at Washington's American Enterprise Institute. ``That's Joe's group.''
The tax lien was filed in January 2007, six months after the state certified a delinquency for the taxes, said Ray Ann Estep, section chief for revenue-recovery services for the Ohio attorney general.
``Unfortunately, sometimes people don't resolve their debts as quickly as we would like them to,'' she said.
No License
Wurzelbacher doesn't have a plumber's license and isn't registered as a plumber in Ohio, the Toledo Blade reported on its Web site yesterday. His employer has a state plumbing license, the newspaper said.
Before living in Ohio, Wurzelbacher was a resident of Mesa, Arizona, in McCain's home state, according to property records.
McCain gave Wurzelbacher an apology yesterday for throwing him into the spotlight.
``Joe, if you're watching, I'm sorry,'' McCain said on CBS Corp.'s ``Late Show'' hosted by David Letterman. ``But from what I've read, and I have not talked to him, but from what I've read, he's taken it pretty well.''
McCain losing favor with voters, poll says
Email|Link|Comments (14) Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor October 17, 2008 10:18 AM
A new national poll out this morning shows the challenge facing John McCain in the waning days of the presidential campaign.
To try to make up ground, the self-described underdog has attacked Democratic rival Barack Obama -- but that tack appears to be backfiring with voters, according to the Associated Press-Yahoo News poll.
McCain has lost favor in how he is viewed over the last month, while perceptions of Obama have improved or remained steady.
Some key findings:
-- McCain is viewed favorably by 52 percent of likely voters, but viewed unfavorably by 47 percent. That gap was 21 percentage points in his favor in mid-September.
-- Obama is seen favorably by 57 percent, and the gap with his unfavorable number grew from 5 percentage points to 15.
-- 46 percent consider McCain hot-tempered, compared to 13 percent who say so about Obama.
-- Obama is viewed as more trustworthy to deal with the economy, by far the most important issue for voters, by 54 percent to 44 percent, to handle the financial crisis by 53 percent to 46 percent, and to understand how it affects people by 56 percent to 41 percent.
The AP-Yahoo News poll was conducted Oct. 3-13 and has an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
McCain-Palin on defense in must-win red statesStory Highlights
Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin stumping in states that traditionally back Republicans
Sen. Obama challenging Republicans in Virginia, North Carolina
McCain forced to shore up GOP support instead of focusing on battleground states
Next Article in Politics »
Read VIDEO
By Alexander Mooney
CNN
(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain and his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin are on a mad dash to blunt Sen. Barack Obama's surging momentum and hold the states that have traditionally voted for Republicans.
Sen. John McCain and wife Cindy campaign in Thorndale, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.
As Obama seeks to expand his electoral playing field in hopes of racking up a decisive win, McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin headed south to states President Bush carried handily in 2004 and ones that haven't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades.
McCain is set to spend part of Friday crisscrossing Florida, a state that has a history of flirting with both parties during presidential campaigns, but one that has usually ended up in the Republican column come Election Day.
He then heads to North Carolina, a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in decades, but one where recent polls suggest the race is a dead heat. Watch how McCain and Obama are slugging it out over the home stretch »
Palin, who campaigned in North Carolina on Thursday afternoon, heads to Indiana on Friday, another state that hasn't voted for a Democrat since the 1964 presidential election and hasn't gotten much attention from presidential candidates this close to Election Day.
The visits come at a time when the McCain campaign had hoped to have shored up its support in traditionally red states, but instead is focusing its dwindling resources on the conventional battlegrounds that usually decide presidential elections.
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ElectionCenter 2008: Electoral Map
ElectionCenter 2008: Election Tracker
A string of new surveys showing Obama making significant gains in onetime Republican strongholds has left the Arizona senator with little choice but to defend states that are still relatively friendly to the Republican brand. Watch Obama warn his supports not to get 'cocky' »
"Bill Clinton was the last Democrat to win the White House. He never saw a map that looked anything like this, especially this close to Election Day," CNN chief national correspondent John King said.
According to CNN's latest analysis of the electoral map, only six states are up for grabs (Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida) and they were all won by President Bush in 2004. That means even if McCain were to go 6-for-6 in the current tossup states, he would still fall short of the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.
So as McCain fights to hold on to states President Bush won in 2004, he needs to peel off states that currently appear to clearly be in Obama's column.
But with limited time and resources, a state-by-state offensive appears no longer possible for the Republican presidential candidate.
"He has to change the big fundamental, he can no longer do this state by state," King said.
But while McCain has largely been absent from several of these traditionally red states all summer, the Obama campaign has aggressively built ground organizations in many of these states, outspent its GOP rival considerably on staff and television commercials, and worked to register tens of thousands of new voters.
McCain has particularly been badly outcampaigned in North Carolina and Virginia, a key reason Republicans are scrambling to defend those territories. Watch how Obama has grabbed a lead in Virginia »
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the Democratic ticket has made nine visits to Virginia and seven stops in North Carolina since June. That compares to just one visit in Virginia and two in North Carolina on the Republican side.
And Obama continues to focus on the states once unfriendly to Democratic candidates, planning stops in Virginia on Friday and North Carolina on Saturday.
It appears Obama's strategy is not just to win, but to win decisively, CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said.
"It does seem to me his goal should be two things, to run up the score so he gets a convincing victory, not just a small victory, but a major convincing victory. And try to define what he needs to do as president so he can say the day after the election, I have a mandate," Gergen said.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation/Time magazine poll out of North Carolina showed the race tied there, while a new CNN poll of polls in Virginia shows Obama with a slight lead. President Bush won both states handily in 2004.
But it's not only the nation's flagging economy that is helping tilt them toward Obama. In addition to the Illinois senator's considerable money advantage, each state has undergone significant demographic shifts over the last two decades that have made Democrats steadily more competitive.
"The North Carolina and Virginia of today are far more diverse than they were 20 or even 10 years ago," CNN senior political researcher Alan Silverleib said. "The states' changing economy has attracted thousands of new voters willing to pull the lever for a Democratic nominee." Watch how North Carolina has become a battleground »
Then there's the unknown variable of an anticipated increase in turnout in the African-American community. In 2006, that voting bloc made up 26 percent of North Carolina's electorate and 21 percent of the Virginia electorate. Obama will likely win a higher percentage of the black vote this cycle in both states than John Kerry's 87 percent, and unprecedented turnout is expected.
Add to that the trouble McCain faces out west as he loses his grip on Colorado and Nevada, two other states with changing demographics that are helping the Democratic ticket. Each has seen an influx in Hispanic voters in recent years, a voting bloc that had been friendly to President Bush but is overwhelmingly supporting Obama this year.
"Increasingly Republicans are trying to figure out where to spend money and resources, and they are frustrated trying to find a blue state they have a good chance to turn red," King said.
These GOP freaks are ALL sick...this must be about number 400 for this year alone. He's going to stay home a while to spend more time with his family values:
MiamiHerald
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Douglas J. Chumbley resigned Thursday after he was accused of exposing his genitalia in a Starbucks bathroom stall at the University of Miami.
Chumbley, 51, is facing a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure.
Chumbley is not admitting to the charge but resigned to ''avoid the stress on his family from the spectacle of a drawn-out trial,'' Black said.
Chumbley, saying he was ill, had not been to court this week.
Chumbley, a Palmetto Bay Republican, is married with two children.
Then-Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Chumbley -- a longtime civil attorney and one-time English teacher at Miami's Christopher Columbus High -- to the bench in 2006. He was assigned to the juvenile division.
McCain's still hasn't gotten the hang of this "vetting" thing
Fri Oct 17, 2008
Politico:
John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted.
A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president.
Yeah, kind of a big "whoops", huh?
McCain likes to say that he isn’t George W. Bush – and in this case of bungled public relations, it is clear he is not. The famously-disciplined Bush campaign operation would likely have found the perfect anonymous citizen to illustrate a policy proposal, rather than spontaneously wrap itself around an unknown entity with so many asterisks.
Ouch.
While the arc of Wurzelbacher’s breakneck trip through the news cycle – from private citizen to insta-celebrity to political target – offers a curious insight into the political media culture, it also appears to offer a glimpse into the McCain campaign’s on-the-fly decisionmaking style.
A McCain source said Thursday that the campaign read about Wurzelbacher on the Drudge Report, while another campaign aide confirmed that he was not vetted.
Ahh, that explains it all -- mix Drudge's carelessness with the facts with McCain's refusal to think before he acts and you have quite the explosive mix. It didn't take much shaking to have it explode in McCain's face
McCain/Palin throwing Joe the Plumber under the Straight Talk Express?
Last night, Sarah Palin said she didn’t want to talk about Wurzelbacher. "I begged our speechwriters, ‘Don’t make me say Joe the Plumber, please, in any speeches," she said. After failing to properly vet Wurzelbacher’s situation, the McCain campaign is apparently now throwing him overboard and moving on.
Ouch, that's gotta hurt.
And why the sudden U-Turn from the Straight Joe-All Joe-Nothin' But the Joe Express?
Could it be this CBS Report?
So today, Joe, who said he makes much less than $250,000, reluctantly admitted Obama would lower his taxes.
"I would, if you believe him, I would be receiving his tax cuts," Wurzelbacher said.
Oops.
Like far too many Republicans, it seems that Joe has a habit of lying about as much as the rest of us breathe.
The facts - as even the reluctant to bother actually doing reporting Corporate Media have revealed - are that: Joe The Plumber only makes $40,000 a year, doesn't have a valid plumbers license in the state of Ohio, has only been a "plumber" for 6 years - not 15, has never finished his plumber courses, has never apprenticed as a plumber, can't afford to buy his bosses business - which only generates $100,000 a year in income Profit, not $250,000 - is a registered republican who owes over a $1,000 in back taxes, and under any version of Obama's plan would get a tax cut that would be larger than McCain's.
His (first) Name isn't even Joe - It's SAM!
Speaking directly to Barack Obama, SAM said:
``Do you believe in the American dream?'' Wurzelbacher asked Obama, citing the Democrat's proposed tax rate increase for Americans earning more than $250,000. ``I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream.''
Even if Sammy Joe's claim of nearly "fulfilling the American dream" had been true, instead of a ridiculous wingnut bag of lies...
Bloomberg reports that "one other problem in making Wurzelbacher a symbol of the overtaxed" is that — even if he did earn an adjusted gross income of $280,000 — "he would pay just $773 more in taxes under Obama’s plan than McCain’s." That amount would hardly deal a crippling blow to his potential small business.
Oh ouch. What a burden to bear.
Can't you just feel the crushing chains of the evil Socialism clinking into place?
Unlicensed tax cheat, Republican, SAM the faux plumber is now reported to be related to the son-in-law of the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the bank you may have heard of, Lincoln Savings and Loan, owned by a fellow named Charles KEATING. But if so it's OK, I guess, because he's not related to Bill Ayers.
Barack Obama for president
He is the competent, confident leader who represents the aspirations of the United States.
11:01 AM PDT, October 17, 2008
It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That's where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.
We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.
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McCain Camp Dumps Dowd
After she wrote scathing satire of Sarah Palin. Read the story here.
www.Newser.com
The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.
Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama's early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama's character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.
These are qualities American leadership has sorely lacked for close to a decade. The U.S. Constitution, more than two centuries old, now offers the world one of its more mature and certainly most stable governments, but our political culture is still struggling to shake off a brash and unseemly adolescence. In George W. Bush, the executive branch turned its back on an adult role in the nation and the world and retreated into self-absorbed unilateralism.
John McCain distinguished himself through much of the Bush presidency by speaking out against reckless and self-defeating policies. He earned The Times' respect, and our endorsement in the California Republican primary, for his denunciation of torture, his readiness to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his willingness to buck his party on issues such as immigration reform. But the man known for his sense of honor and consistency has since announced that he wouldn't vote for his own immigration bill, and he redefined "torture" in such a disingenuous way as to nearly embrace what he once abhorred.
Indeed, the presidential campaign has rendered McCain nearly unrecognizable. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was, as a short-term political tactic, brilliant. It was also irresponsible, as Palin is the most unqualified vice presidential nominee of a major party in living memory. The decision calls into question just what kind of thinking -- if that's the appropriate word -- would drive the White House in a McCain presidency. Fortunately, the public has shown more discernment, and the early enthusiasm for Palin has given way to national ridicule of her candidacy and McCain's judgment.
Obama's selection also was telling. He might have scored a steeper bump in the polls by making a more dramatic choice than the capable and experienced Joe Biden. But for all the excitement of his own candidacy, Obama has offered more competence than drama.
He is no lone rider. He is a consensus builder, a leader. As a constitutional scholar, he has articulated a respect for the rule of law and the limited power of the executive that make him the best hope of restoring balance and process to the Justice Department. He is a Democrat, leaning further left than right, and that should be reflected in his nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a good thing; the court operates best when it is ideologically balanced. With its present alignment at seven justices named by Republicans and two by Democrats, it is due for a tug from the left.
We are not sanguine about Obama's economic policies. He speaks with populist sweep about taxing oil companies to give middle-class families rebates that of course they would welcome, but would be far too small to stimulate the economy. His ideas on taxation do not stray far from those put forward by Democrats over the last several decades. His response to the most recent, and drastic, fallout of the sub- prime mortgage meltdown has been appropriately cautious; this is uncharted territory, and Obama is not a master of economic theory or practice.
And that's fine. Obama inspires confidence not so much in his grasp of Wall Street finance, but in his acknowledgment of and comfort with his lack of expertise. He will not be one to forge far-reaching economic policy without sounding out the best thinkers and practitioners, and he has many at his disposal. He has won the backing of some on Wall Street not because he's one of them, but because they recognize his talent for extracting from a broad range of proposals a coherent and workable program.
On paper, McCain presents the type of economic program The Times has repeatedly backed: One that would ease the tax burden on business and other high earners most likely to invest in the economy and hire new workers. But he has been disturbingly unfocused in his response to the current financial situation, rushing to "suspend" his campaign and take action (although just what action never became clear). Having little to contribute, he instead chose to exploit the crisis.
We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama's critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.
Colin Powell may endorse Obama
By MIKE ALLEN
politico.com
Friday, October 17, 2008
Retired Gen. Colin Powell, once considered a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now may endorse his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), according to Republican sources. But an air of mystery surrounds Powell’s planned live appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and no one is sure what he will say.
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Colin Powell may endorse Obama
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Powell’s unassailable national security credentials could sway voters who are vacillating about whether Obama is ready to be commander in chief, and his endorsement of the Illinois senator would make a national security emphasis by McCain in the election’s closing days extremely difficult.
Powell, 71, a professional soldier for 35 years, has advised the last three Republican presidents.
The general’s camp is being coy about what he might or might not say on Sunday. But some McCain advisers suspect, without being sure, that Powell will endorse Obama.
“It’s going to make a lot of news, and certainly be personally embarrassing for McCain,” a McCain official said. “It comes at a time when we need momentum, and it would create momentum against us.”
Powell, a four-star Army general, was national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan; chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when George H.W. Bush was president; and President George W. Bush’s first secretary of State,
Powell has consulted with both Obama and McCain, and the general’s camp has indicated in the past that he would not endorse.
On “Meet the Press” in June 2007, Powell said: “I’ve met with Sen. Obama twice. I’ve been around this town a long time, and I know everybody who is running for office, and I make myself available to talk about foreign policy matters and military matters with whoever wishes to chat with me.”
Asked by moderator Tim Russert if he would come back into government, Powell said: “I would not rule it out. I’m not at all interested in political life, if you mean elected political life. That is unchanged. But I always keep my, my eyes open and my ears open to requests for service.”
Asked about an endorsement, he said: “It’s too early.”
NBC’s ‘Andrea Mitchell broke the news of Powell’s surprise “Meet the Press” appearance on the “Today” show Friday.
“In what promises to be a dramatic moment Sunday, Colin Powell — a lion of the Republican establishment, whom McCain and Obama both have courted for months — will finally speak out on a variety of issues, appearing exclusively on ‘Meet the Press,’” Mitchell said. “Of course, years ago, he was talked about as the possible first … African-American nominee of a major party.”
Who thrust poor Plumber Joe into the spotlight? It wasn't ObamaComments (1) John McCain today kept on Joe the Plumber, showing he still hopes to gain some traction from the man a day after the world's news media exposed him as an unlicensed labourer who doesn't pay his taxes and would in fact likely benefit under Obama's tax plan.
In Arlington, Virginia today, McCain said Obama had "attacked" Joe Wurzelbacher, and implied Wurzelbacher was suffering media and political scrutiny merely because he asked Obama a tough question. But it's McCain who transformed Wurzelbacher from an anonymous Toledo worker into a campaign gimmick.
McCain said:
We had a good debate this week. You may have noticed -- there was a lot of talk about Senator Obama's tax increases and Joe the Plumber. Last weekend, Senator Obama showed up in Joe's driveway to ask for his vote, and Joe asked Senator Obama a tough question. I'm glad he did; I think Senator Obama could use a few more tough questions.
The response from Senator Obama and his campaign yesterday was to attack Joe. People are digging through his personal life and he has TV crews camped out in front of his house. He didn't ask for Senator Obama to come to his house. He wasn't recruited or prompted by our campaign. He just asked a question. And Americans ought to be able to ask Senator Obama tough questions without being smeared and targeted with political attacks.
McCain's complaint stretches the truth to the point of factual inaccuracy. After all, it was the McCain campaign who turned Wurzelbacher into campaign mascot in Wednesday's debate, though they did not "recruit or prompt" his question for Obama. Had McCain not used Wurzelbacher to criticise Obama's tax plan, the news media would never have taken the first interest in him. Obama meets hundreds of Americans every day.
Does McCain think Americans cannot remember a debate two nights ago?
Meanwhile, initial polling from Gallup shows Joe the Plumber hasn't helped McCain turn the election around. The latest tracking poll has Obama ahead 50% to 43% percent, and "shows little significant change as a result of the debate at this point."
Supreme Court throws out Ohio Republicans' election lawsuit
The state party's suit could have made it easier to challenge newly registered voters.
By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:04 AM PDT, October 17, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court today threw out a lawsuit brought by the Ohio Republican Party that could have made it easier to challenge tens of thousands of newly registered voters.
The high court, in a brief opinion, said the federal law that called for computer checks of new voters did not authorize private lawsuits to enforce it.
The ruling is a victory for Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat. She said she feared "chaos" on election day if the GOP were permitted last-minute challenges to new voters based on data on file with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Ohio, always a closely contested state, has seen more than 600,000 new registered voters this year. Brunner said she feared that as many as 200,000 of them could be challenged and forced to file provisional ballots if there were a mismatch between the information on their voter registration cards and the data on file with the DMV.
One example came to light this week. Joseph Wurzelbacher, or "Joe the Plumber," became a celebrated figure in the third debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. But several Ohio newspapers said his name is misspelled as "Worzelbacher" in the state's records. That mismatch could have led to his being challenged at the polls if he had been a newly registered voter.
The state GOP sued Brunner last month and asserted that her office had not complied with the federal Help America Voter Act. It says the state election chief must set up a computerized system that allows for checking new voters with the state DMV records. County officials want to see, for example, if the address of the new voter matches the address on file with the state.
Brunner said Ohio had complied with that requirement. But the GOP lawsuit said her office should print out a list of "mismatches" for all 88 counties in Ohio.
In response, Brunner said it would be troublesome to reprogram the state's computers at this late stage. However, a federal judge ordered her to make the change, and the U.S. court of appeals in Cincinnati upheld that order in a 10-6 vote.
All the judges in the majority except one were Republican appointees. All the dissenters were nominated by Democrats.
It was unclear what would have been done with the list of "mismatches." The appeals court judges said it would not have knocked voters off the rolls, but would simply have allowed officials to check further to make sure the voters were who they said they were.
Democrats and liberal activists said they feared a move to block new voters from casting ballots.
Earlier this week, Brunner filed an emergency appeal in the Supreme Court, asking the justices to block the GOP suit. "The Help American Vote Act was enacted to protect the voting rights of all Americans, not to deny eligible voters their basic right to vote," she said.
In today's order, the court said it was not deciding who was right on the question of whether the federal law required a county-by-county list of mismatches. But the justices agreed with Brunner that the federal measure did not give the GOP a right to sue.
What a load of bullshit as usual.
U.S. VOTES
Neil Macdonald
Obama 'Muslim' rumour: Ugly, false and out in the open
Is the discredited smear campaign backfiring on Republicans?
Last Updated: Thursday, October 16
Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain takes back the microphone from Gayle Quinnell who said she read that Senator Barack Obama 'was an Arab,' during a town hall meeting in Lakeville, Minn., on Oct. 10. (Jim Mone/Associated Press)
The "moment in Minnesota" appeared last Friday like the white, infected head of a pimple - impossible to miss, hard not to stare at, and embarrassing, at least to John McCain, who wants to present an unblemished face to the voting public.
Wearing her bright red McCain-Palin T-shirt, Gayle Quinnell rose from the crowd at a rally in Lakeville, Minn. to give her candidate a little of his signature straight talk.
"I don't trust Obama," she announced, as McCain nodded enthusiastically. Then she continued: "I have read about him. He's an Arab."
And there it was. Centre stage, on camera, about as public as you can get. The political pus that's been building for nearly two years under the surface of this presidential campaign, oozing forth in broad daylight.
McCain, a politician who's been around long enough to recognize a "moment" when he sees one, cauterized quickly.
"No. Nope. No, ma'am. No, ma'am," said the candidate, grabbing back the mike. "He's a decent family man citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with . . ."
But, setting aside the internal implication of McCain's reply - that Obama can't be an Arab if he's a decent citizen and family man - and its impact on the sensibilities of this country's 3.5 million Arab-American citizens, McCain cannot have been too surprised by what he faced on that stage. Because his campaign has helped create it.
'Radical'
Gayle Quennell is in fact the collective voice of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans whose nativist fears Republicans have been stoking for months. The Americans who have been passing on smear-mails for years.
"Beware," said the first one I saw, back in January of 2007. "Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim."
It went on to reveal that Obama's African father was a "radical Muslim." and that Obama himself had studied at an extremist school in Jakarta. Other messages declare Obama refused to be sworn into the Senate on a Bible. Or that he refuses to recite the pledge of allegiance.
The e-mails are patently false, and have been widely debunked. But whisper campaigns are as persistent as the flu.
Widespread
Clearly - witness Ms. Quennell in Minnesota - the message has had an effect. Any reporter who's covered this campaign has seen it.
I heard it in May, as parishioners gathered outside a Baptist church in North Carolina. And I've heard it in the highly-educated, genteel suburbs of Washington.
A colleague says he's encountered the same thing in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Missouri: "It's usually 'I know he says he isn't, but I think he's a Muslim.' You hear it everywhere."
The whisper campaign seems particularly directed at Jewish voters, playing on their fears that Obama might not be pro-Israel enough, or that he is somehow in league with Muslims, read Arabs, read terrorists.
But Jewish readers of the New York Times might have been surprised this week by an article that identified where a lot of this stuff originated: Andy Martin, a conspiracy theorist who once set for himself the goal of "exterminating Jew power." Martin is apparently fond of filing lawsuits, some of which use even more pungent anti-Semitic rhetoric. He once filed a brief calling a judge a "crooked, slimy Jew."
Martin evidently isn't too keen on Muslims, either, and he was one of the first out of the gate questioning Obama's heritage.
The Times investigation traced the origin of the smear-mail campaign to Martin's self-published writings. And by the time the presidential race got under way, the e-mails had laid a foundation for organized conservative attacks.
Speakers at Republican events began referring to "Barack Hussein Obama," with heavy emphasis on their opponent's middle name.
At a McCain rally in Iowa, Rev. Arnold Conrad told the crowd: "There are millions of people around this world praying to their God - whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that [Obama] wins, for a variety of reasons." Those people, declared the churchman, would think their God bigger than the Christian God if that were to happen.
McCain's campaign approach
Early on, McCain himself demurred. He chastised a conservative talk-show host for warming up one of his crowds with the "Barack Hussein Obama" line, and distanced himself from Rev. Conrad: "I will not tolerate anything in this campaign that denigrates either Sen. Obama or Sen. [Hillary] Clinton," said McCain.
But this fall, as Obama's campaign gathered force, McCain evidently decided to tolerate some mud after all.
Speakers introducing him at rallies again started using the "Barack Hussein Obama" line, now with the Republican candidate standing nearby smiling.
And McCain's surrogates, led by his running mate Sarah Palin, began sharpening a more specific story line.
They seized upon Obama's past association with William Ayers, who, along with other members of the radical Weathermen group, bombed various government targets, including the Pentagon, in the early 1970s.
Ayers long ago turned himself in and became a university professor and community organizer. In those capacities, he met Obama during the mid-90s. The two served together on a civic project founded by the Annenberg Foundation, and Ayers's work won him the Chicago Citizen of the Year Award in 1997.
To Palin, though, what Obama did in the mid-90s was to forge a close and enduring tie with a "domestic terrorist." In fact, she has told rally after rally, Obama is even now "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." No explanation of how a "domestic terrorist" became "terrorists." And not even any lip service to Obama's repudiation of Ayers's past bad acts.
The Republican chairman in Virginia, Jeffrey M. Fredrick, goes further. He compares Obama to Osama Bin Laden. "Both have friends who bombed the Pentagon," he says. "That is scary."
And so on. Obama as a terrorist, Obama as a Muslim, Obama as someone fundamentally different, someone mysterious to Americans, who doesn't share American values. Obama, who seems to want to lose in Iraq.
Resolute despite contradiction
By last week, the crowds at McCain rallies were turning ugly. Mention of Obama's name invoked cries of "terrorist!" or "bomb him!" or "traitor!" or "off with his head!"
And little wonder, given this country's not-so-distant history, that the Secret Service contingent surrounding Obama is now laying on security measures rivaling those of the president himself.
McCain has begun trying to tamp down the hostility, telling supporters at rallies that they have "no reason to be scared" of Obama.
But Gayle Quennell, for one, remains resolute. Obama, she told reporters after her moment on stage last week with McCain, is "a Muslim and a terrorist . . .all the people agree with what I said."
And Fox News Channel, of course, remains hot on the case.
A few days ago, Fox host Sean Hannity broadcast a segment titled: "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism." In it, introduced by Hannity as an "author and journalist," was none other than Andy Martin, originator of the anti-Obama e-mails.
Martin helpfully explained to Hannity that Obama spent his early years "in training for a radical overthrow of the government."
Effective?
All of this, however, may now have actually turned against McCain.
The New York Times published a new poll this week suggesting Obama now enjoys as much as a 14-point lead over McCain in the polls. And some of that, said the paper, is directly because of the character attacks.
Joe the Plumber a Drain for McCain?
Posted by: Jane Sasseen on October 16
Boy, plumbers haven’t made such a splash around the political scene since the Watergate days.
Joe the Plumber became America’s latest instant celebrity after John McCain repeatedly refered to him in the final presidential debate on Wednesday night. McCain seized on his story after video footage surfaced from earlier in the week of Joe Wurzelbacher — that’s Joe the Plumber’s real name — quizzing Barack Obama over his tax plans. Wurzelbacher, a single father from outside of Toledo, wanted to know if his taxes would go up under Obama if he bought a plumbing business that he said would bring him annual income over $250,000.
McCain repeatedly cited Joe’s story as he tried to convince voters that average working Americans would fare better under his economic program than they would under those of his rival. Joe quickly became a media sensation, generating more media buzz around the Arizona Senator’s campaign than it has seen since the days after he named Sarah Palin. Joe was interviewed by Katie Couric on CBS, gave a series of impromtu press conferences and garnered headlines all across the country. And by mid-afternoon on Thursday, McCain’s campaign released an ad on You Tube featuring Obama’s encounter with Joe.
All of which begs a rather obvious question: did leaning so heavily on Joe actually help McCain?
Certainly, not all of the media attention was the kind the campaign may have welcomed. The internet quickly filled up with stories pointing out a few problems with Joe's story: according to the New York Times, he's not a licensed plumber and he may owe back taxes. Bloomberg weighed in with more details on his potential tax issues, while Newsweek pointed out that he would probably do better under Obama's tax plans than under McCain's. Meanwhile, conservative strategist Martin Eisenstadt pointed out that Wurzelbacher may have links to Charles Keating, the savings and loan executive at the heart of the Keating 5 political scandal that ensnared McCain in the late 1980s.
Perhaps more important, according to two pollsters who conducted focus groups of undecided voters during the debate, undecided voters don't seem to have thought much of McCain's use of Joe. Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner quizzed 50 such voters in Denver during the final face-off between the candidates. Their response to McCain's Joe the Plumber riffs? The room filled with "a lot of snickering," he says. "They didn't view it as authentic."
That's one reason, says Greenberg, that his group of voters emerged from the debate with a more favorable view of Obama on taxes. At the beginning of the debate, 42% of the undecideds thought Obama had a better position on taxes than McCain, while 20% favored McCain's position. Ninety minutes later, Obama was ahead 52% to 20%. "Taxes are a central issue; in order to change the race, McCain had to erode Obama on taxes," says Greenberg. According to his focus group, that didn't happen.
Now, some might dismiss those views as predictable, coming from Greenberg: he's a prominent Democratic pollster who works with uber-Dem strategist James Carville. Together, the pair are behind Democracy Corps, a progressive polling and strategy group. A full report on the Denver focus group is available here, on their site.
But Frank Luntz, a well-known Republican pollster who was conducting a focus group with 23 undecided voters in Miami Wednesday night, found much the same reaction.
Luntz says McCain's use of Joe to make his case to average Americans seemed a good idea at first, but it became gimmicky and lost its effectiveness as the night wore on. "It worked initially to help humanize the argument McCain was making. But the idea was beaten to death; people didn't like it because they heard it too much," he adds. By the final time McCain highlighted Joe in the debate, Luntz adds, "one of the guys in the room was shouting 'enough already.'"
The reaction to Joe appears to be one of many reasons why the undecided voters in both groups, like many other polls, gave the third debate to Obama.
Among Greenberg's Denver voters, 8% leaned slightly towards McCain at the beginning, while 4% slightly favored Obama; 88% were undecided. By the end of the debate, 20% prefered McCain, while 42% said they were in Obama's camp.
As for Luntz's group of 23 voters in Miami, 4 were leaning towards McCain at the start, 3 were leaning towards Obama, and 16 were undecided. As the night drew to a close, 4 people had shifted to Obama, while McCain didn't pick up anyone.
Ken Gude guardian.co.uk, Friday October 17 2008 20.30
We know election day is approaching when Republicans start screaming about voter fraud, but the McCain campaign has reached a new low and the death rattle of the Republican party has entered its last violent spasm. At this week's debate John McCain accused the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now (Acorn) of "one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy". His running mate, Sarah Palin, warned that they were trying to "steal this election". These kinds of allegations are absurd and obviously false and the McCain campaign knows it. It is McCain himself that is damaging to our democracy because it calls into question the legitimacy of our election process in a deceitful way.
Voter fraud and voter registration fraud are two different things and they are being deliberately conflated for political purposes. Voter fraud is simply bogus. Study after study, and major nationwide enforcement efforts by the department of justice and other enforcement agencies in the states have never, ever produced any evidence of anything more than a handful of cases, and I mean two or three, of actual voter fraud. The failure of many US attorneys to actually find cases of voter fraud to prosecute was the motivation for Karl Rove to push a scheme to fire nine of them and the resulting scandal ultimately led to attorney general Alberto Gonzalez's resignation.
Voter registration fraud is real, but the kinds of allegations about Acorn are actually frauds perpetrated on Acorn and not the political process. Organisations that engage in voter registration drives are required by law to submit every registration form that they receive, no matter how obviously fraudulent the information. That law is in place as an extremely important protection for the process so that organisations are not able to go on a mass registration drive and then throw out all the Republican registrants or Democratic registrants before they submit the forms to the state government. They have a responsibility to flag those forms that they believe are fraudulent or invalid, but they cannot disqualify them on their own. For example, Acorn goes and registers 100,000 people in Ohio out of which they identify 5,000 registration forms that are clearly phony that they flag, but they have to turn them in anyway. Then Republicans go around spreading malicious stories about Acorn turning in thousands of fraudulent registrations, but they know Acorn is required by law to turn them in and they know that those registrants will never be added to the voter rolls.
Acorn is uniquely susceptible to these kinds of problems because it engages in the questionable practice of paying its organisers by the number of people they register. I can understand why they do this – to give unemployed or low-income people a paying job – but it opens them up to fraud perpetrated on them by paying for sham registrations. They believe that the multi-layered system of first flagging questionable registration forms and then having the voting agencies provide further checks is adequate protection against actual fraudulent registrants ending up on the voter rolls and the benefits of helping these people earn a living outweigh these risks.
The reason why voter registration fraud does not lead to actual voter fraud is that voter fraud is hard and voter registration fraud is usually very transparent. The charges flying around right now – people registering as Mickey Mouse, or a guy filling out 73 registration forms – are simply not credible as voter fraud. It would require us to believe that an election board would place Mickey Mouse on the rolls and poll workers would then allow someone to vote who is claiming to be Mickey Mouse, or to allow the same person to vote numerous times. That is just ridiculous and impossible to imagine occurring in the real world.
For systemic voter fraud to occur, the organisers of such an effort would need hundreds if not thousands of people to participate in a massive conspiracy to show up at the polls claiming to be someone else (a felony) who had been fraudulently registered and placed on the rolls, they will often now need to have a government issue photo ID with that other person's information (another felony), then actually vote for the chosen candidate in a secret ballot, and then keep this massive clandestine conspiracy hidden in the face of numerous investigations designed to uncover that very situation. It's even harder for systemic mail-in voting fraud because the ballots can only be mailed to each voter's registered address meaning that hundreds of households would need to be part of this conspiracy that adds mail fraud to its list of felonies. It's more likely that Mickey Mouse would be allowed to vote than systemic voter fraud to occur undetected.
Republican officials know this. They know that this election cycle has seen an unprecedented surge in new voter registrations and that those registrations have been disproportionally Democratic. They are raising the spectre of imaginary voter fraud to further their efforts to disqualify a large number of those registrations through cumbersome requirements that elections boards cannot complete by November 4 to fix a problem that does not exist. It is a deliberate effort to delegitimise both their probable defeat and, combined with despicable efforts to portray Obama as a supporter of terrorism, an Obama presidency. Should Obama win, a large percentage of the country will think that he is a terrorist supporter who conspired to steal the election, that will present a real governing problem for Obama. The reason they will believe that outrageous suggestion is that the Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates have told them it is true. This from the man who claims to put country first.
John McCain is a gambler. So he took a gamble and went on the David Letterman show last night. It should be the final straw that pulls the support out from under him.
The gamble was a huge failure-- a massive error in judgment. It is clear that McCain failed to assess he depth or risk of the gamble-- just how much he could be hurt, how bad he would look in so many ways.
McCain responding to Letterman
Watching McCain sit under Letterman's masterful manipulations, it was uncomfortable. He was, as the huffingtonpost described, grovelling, totally out of control, weak, helpless, foolish and in the hands and total control of Letterman, like a snivelling little child caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
Letterman was brilliant, doing the job that far too many "news" anchors have failed to do, asking tough questions.
McCain was like a helpless puppy, overwhelmed and adrift at sea, unable to get a grip on the conversation. The thought of him facing a leader of another nation, or of a cabinet of grownups with serious responsibiities-- seemed very remote. Perhaps it makes his faith in Sarah Palin somewhat believable. He was so out of his depth, dealing with a smart talk-show host, that perhaps he really does see Palin as competent to do the job of president, based on his own woefully inadequate abilities.
Observing McCain, helpless, dominated by Letterman, helps one to understand how he allowed his campaign to be taken over by Rovian operatives so the McCain persona which so many Americans had grown to love and appreciate, was obliterated and replaced by a waffling, erratic, meanspirited political hack. The reason is simple. McCain is not strong enough to stand up to a strong person. His pathetic act on the Letterman show should be obvious to any voter who has ever had an open mind. McCain demonstrated once and for all that even Sarah Palin is more presidential than he is.
October 17, 2008, 4:34 PM
Palin: “I Know Obama Loves America”
Posted by Scott Conroy| 8
(CBS)From CBS News' Scott Conroy:
(MUNCIE, IND.) - Just two weeks ago, she accused him of palling around with a terrorist, but Sarah Palin left no doubt at an impromptu press conference on Friday that she believes the Democratic nominee is acting in what he thinks is in the best interest of the country he loves.
“I know Obama loves America,” Palin said on the short flight from Cincinnati to Indianapolis when asked by CBS News whether she thinks the Democratic nominee loves his country as much as she does.
“I’m sure that is why he’s running for president. It’s because he wants to do what he believes is in the best interest of this great nation. I believe that our ticket can do a better job for America as we reduce taxes and reign in government and allow our private sector and our families to prosper, to grow, and to keep more of what they earn and produce so that they can reinvest according to our own priorities. I think that that is best to get the economy back on track. It’s a better agenda for America. But I don’t question at all Barack Obama’s love for this great country.”
Though she continues to hammer Obama on a daily basis on issues ranging from alleged voter registration fraud to taxes, Palin has stopped mentioning Obama’s relationship to 1960s radical William Ayers on the stump. The Alaska governor told reporters that it’s now up for the public to decide whether that relationship is relevant.
“Well, I think that American voters are understanding that association—that it’s OK to talk about fact,” she said. “Of course, Barack Obama had been bringing it up, even in challenging John McCain on that, saying if you want to talk about it, talk about it, too, so McCain did that, and the association is out there. It’s up now to the people of America to decide whether that association is important enough to them to research and find out more about a person’s judgment and truthfulness.”
Asked why it was appropriate to question Obama’s judgment over his association with Ayers, while John McCain has declared off limits the Illinois senator’s relationship with his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, Palin said that the decision to bring up Wright was “up to John McCain to decide.” CBS News pointed out that Obama had sat in Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years (the senator’s relationship with Ayers has been shown to be something far less than a close friendship).
"That's true,” Palin said. “He sat in the pews for 20 years and heard Reverend Wright say some things that most people would find a bit concerning. But again that is John McCain's call."
Evan,
It is absolutely amazing to me how these liberals will write countless paragraphs saying nothing.. I mean they make absolutely no sense whatsoever. All they do is spew hate and venom. On the flip side it is the worshipping of Obama, the anointed one, that gets them so turned on. They sound and act like mindless robots, they really do!
I did my last blog article on your Heritage lecture by the way.. it was fun to do. Thanks for the inspiration.
Cheers,
Bob
Lol...this backward guy actually wrote an article on Sayet, and it wasn't a case history of pathological psychology.
And, I mussay, I find it juuuuuuust ahb so looot lee amazing how many of these poor people pretend to find it amazing.
Do they all have the same tiny brain?
"Joe the non-plumber is a victim of a cynical GOP which tried to use him as a campaign prop without any consideration for checking his authenticity or for his personal life."
That's an inverting projection.
Substitute "Barack Obama" (a cynical gimmick) for "Joe the Plumber" and "Democratic Party" for GOP.
So's this:
"It exposed him (i.e. Obama, originally) to the inevitable scrutiny that is necessary for such figures. To blame the media for doing their job on this is more of the whining dodging that this pathetic party (the Democratic Party, actually) is known for."
That's not isolated. Try that with everything--yes, everything--they spew and you'll realize it's far more--if not only-- applicable to themselves.
It can be a bit tricky to identify--or remember-- origins when the inverting projections boomerang and ricochet about (like when a hypocrite calls someone a hypocrite, a wordgame worthy of the Sophist Protagoras), but just remember to quietly see if their own accusations historically or empirically apply to their own candidates (or themselves, for that matter) before falling for the defensive deflections used offensively to put you on the defense and miring you in them.
Mixed in the projecting and inverting psychological basket-case are vestigial elements such as these which echo their aboriginal, defensive complaints before they went on their angry, table-turning offensives (though the offensives themselves are comprised of psychological defense mechanisms):
"Joe the non-plumber is a victim of a cynical GOP..."
Actually, they believed--each time he took a hit in the polls--that Obama himself (the real phony) is "a victim of a cynical GOP."
And hear they confess their understanding that any investigation and/or criticism of Obama (by dwindling news outfits like Fox that dare question The One), who is a public figure and presidential candidate--are legitimate:
"It exposed him (i.e. Obama, originally) to the inevitable scrutiny that is necessary for such figures. To blame the media for doing their job on this is more of the whining dodging that this pathetic party (the Democratic Party, actually) is known for."
And now their rationalizing (a psychological defense mecjanism) of why it's okay to apply the same standard to a blue-collared, private citizen:
"It exposed him (i.e. Joe the Plumber) to the inevitable scrutiny that is necessary for such figures."
M-hm. It was "necessary" to assassinate his character and destroy his credibility.
"To blame the media for doing their job on this is more of the whining dodging that this pathetic party is known for."
But that's exactly what they do--blame, whine, and dodge-- every time a media story comes out (often by Foxnews, which is hated precisely because it's doing its job) that makes their candidates look bad.
These fork-tongued lefties would be pathetic if there wasn't a clear & present danger that they can attain real political again.
("real political power")
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