
Speechwars.com, says there are three words uttered yesterday that made their presidential inaugural address debut (h/t Marc Ambinder). See what they were after the jump.

Speechwars.com, says there are three words uttered yesterday that made their presidential inaugural address debut (h/t Marc Ambinder). See what they were after the jump.
Posted in: Barack Obama • Changing of the Guard • Prior Presidential Paths • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »
Above: listen to FDR’s speech following the attack on Pearl Harbor, 67 years ago today.
Beth Dempsey of the Schlager Group outlines 5 things you may not realize about this momentous speech:
Posted in: Foreign Policy • Prior Presidential Paths • Stump Speeches | 1 Comment »
Read more about Clinton’s (predictably late) appearance here.
On the other side of the fence, the NRA is setting its sights on Martin’s defeat.
Don’t forget - you can early-vote in Georgia for the runoff right now.
Posted in: Local Politics • Stump Speeches • The Senate | Post a Comment »
Posted in: Barack Obama • John McCain • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »


CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Barack Obama says that his grandmother has died.
The Democratic presidential candidate announced the news in a joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. He said his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had died peacefully after a battle with cancer.
He said: “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances.”
The candidate learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances.
Late last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with the 86-year-old Dunham, who helped raise him.
Read Obama’s family’s statement here.
Yes, she did already vote absentee for her grandson.
Read more on Obama’s grandmother in this Vote08 post.
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The Storm Track 9 weather team tells me that the only weather events that might possibly effect voters is some rain that’ll hit eastern NC & eastern VA.
I’m told the rain will be light.. with a year that’s seen turnout busting all records, I hazard a guess that weather won’t play into the final outcome.
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Above: Obama in Columbus, Ohio today.
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Above: Biden in Lee’s Summit, Missouri today
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Above: McCain in Moon Township, PA (I’m still looking for his Blountville, TN appearance on the YouTubes)
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Above: Sarah Palin in Jefferson City, Missouri
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Posted in: Barack Obama • Joe Biden • John McCain • Sarah Palin • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »



Amazing on a day when his beloved Tennessee Vols are in the news.. Calvin says he’s got a better idea for McCain’s strategy in winning NC & VA than stopping in Blountville:
A campaign stop in the Tri-Cities was bad strategy for McCain, trying to woo SW Virginia and Western NC voters.. True, two of the three TV stations with strong VHF signals (WCYB-TV, Channel 5 and WJHL-TV, Channel 11), do indeed blanket all of SW Virginia and part of Western North Carolina.
But SW Virginia voters work and shop in Tri-Cities, Tennessee. As a result, they are usually politically aligned with their neighbors in Upper East Tennessee.. SW Virginia voters are mostly Republican, voting the same way upper East Tennessee has voted for generations, and this includes absentee voting, early voting, and Election Day-of voting.
A Republican visit by a presidential candidate and covered heavily on Tri-Cities TV, only reinforces the way SW Virginia voters are going to vote anyway.
AND, Tri-Cities stations only get marginally viewership from Western North Carolina counties, and even then, mostly along the TN-NC border, because the mountains cut the signals off.
A much better media consideration for McCain would have been, a stop in Asheville, North Carolina, and then one in Roanoke, Virginia.. The 3 main reasons being:
1) Only two years ago, Western North Carolina elected Democrat Heath Shuler to Congress, and Tri-Cities station signals simply don’t reach that far down into that state. 2) The Roanoke TV market. A McCain visit in Roanoke would have had more of an impact on Central Virginia voters that all watch WSLS-TV, WDBJ-TV and WSET-TV from Roanoke-Lynchburg, and would have given McCain double-coverage, because Tri-Cities TV stations, mindful of their SW Virginia audience, would cover it extensively for their SW Virginia viewers anyway.
3) WLOS-TV, Asheville. With a transmitter signal coming from atop one of the highest points in the Eastern United States, and blanketing ALL of Western North Carolina, a McCain visit would have saturated the western third of the state, including that Democratic pocket that elected Heath Shuler, and also have been covered extensively by the rest of the North Carolina media.
Thanks, Calvin! .

Mon/2:07pm
Click here for a full rundown of election times in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama & North Carolina.
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Mon/1:49pm
Think Progress has discovered three instances of misspelled words in McCain’s ads that have aired in the last month.
Come on, guys! Do you really have to get them out that fast?
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Mon/1:23pm
The Politico’s Jonathan Martin speculates what the 2008 campaign would look like if McCain & surrogates used Rev. Wright as an issue more:
“Conversations with a number of veteran GOP consultants indicate that using Wright may have helped McCain with one set of voters — but would have hurt with others and not ultimately proved decisive in a contest subsumed by larger external forces such as the economic crisis and the unpopularity of President Bush and the Republican Party.”

McCain deserves credit for not ‘going there.’
As Liddy Dole is about to find out, attacking someone’s faith only ends up hurting the attacker in the end.
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Mon/1:18pm
He’s stopping in Blountville - you can be assured I’ll be looking for clips to post later today.
But why Blountville? He’s got the Volunteer State wrapped up.
Marc Ambinder says:
So why is Sen. McCain campaigning in Blountville, TN?
It has nothing to do with Blountville.
It has everything to do with the parts of rural North Carolina and rural Virginia that share its media market.
NewsChannel9 anchor & expert in all things ‘upper-east Tennessee’ Calvin Sneed says:
“I already knew that.. One-third of the audience that WCYB-TV and WJHL-TV reach are in Southwest Virginia up to Roanoake, and Western North Carolina, within a 70 mile circumference of Asheville. Too bad Kentucky is not a swing state. Those two stations also blanket Eastern-Southeastern Kentucky. I also knew two weeks ago, he’d be coming to Tri-Cities before the end of the campaign.”
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Mon/1:12PM
As if Georgia’s not enough (scroll down), check out North Carolina’s polls, which have tightened as of today.
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Mon/11:48am
Nate Silver looks at several computer models. His top projection is above.
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Mon/10:47am

Look at these numbers from Pew, which shows internet usage has TRIPLED this year, while TV & newspaper usage remains static.
Truly amazing.
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Mon/10:40am
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Mon/10:34am
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com (one of the true internet stars of Campaign 2008) says the states to keep an eye on will be:
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Mon/10:30 am
Marc Ambinder speculates & has some things to watch in the Grand Canyon State tomorrow night.
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Mon/10:16am
The election director in Polk County, TN just e-mailed NewsChannel9:
Please have Channel 9 broadcast Polk, Meigs, and McMinn County Polling Hours on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, to BEGIN AT 9:00 A.M. AND CLOSE AT 8:00 P.M. Your viewers hear Hamilton County hours and assume ours is the same. Your help will be greatly appreciated.
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Mon/10:12am
“The cellphone polls have Obama ahead by an average of 9.4 points; the landline-only polls, 5.1 points.”
- Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.com
Mon/10:03am
Above: Obama in Cincinnati yesterday.
I’m keeping an eye out for clips of the candidates today, so check back later.
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Mon/10:01am
Above: a midnight rally in Miami, last night.
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Mon/9:54am
Above: NBC’s Chuck Todd maps out McCain’s path to victory.
From Chuck & others at MSNBC’s First Read blog:
*** Obama has a clear lead: With just a day left until Election Day, Obama holds an eight-point lead over McCain among likely voters, 51%-43%, according to the final national NBC/WSJ poll before the election. That’s down slightly from Obama’s 53%-to-42% advantage from almost two weeks ago. Still, to put his current lead into perspective, the last NBC/WSJ survey before the 2004 presidential election showed Bush with a slim one-point edge over Kerry, 48%-47%. Bush went on to win that election, 51%-48%. Looking inside the crosstabs, Obama’s advantage is largely based on his overwhelming success with African Americans (winning them 90%-3%), Latinos (68%-27%), and 18 to 34 year olds (59%-38%). It’s about as solid of a three-legged support stool as any candidate could ask for. Obama also wins independents (48%-38%), blue-collar voters (51%-44%), suburban voters (49%-44%), and Catholics (49%-46%). McCain, meanwhile, has the advantage among evangelicals (78%-19%), those 65 and older (53%-40%), white men (54%-42%), and white women (48%-47%). One more thing: 30% say they’ve already voted, and those voters break by an identical 51%-43% margin. One thing that might keep the McCain folks somewhat hopeful about our numbers: We have Democrats with a +10 advantage on party ID; McCain’s team believes the electorate won’t produce that margin tomorrow.
*** Liking McCain but loving Obama: The poll also shows that McCain and Obama are pretty well liked by voters. McCain has a 47%-39% fav/unfav rating, while Obama’s is larger at 56%-35%. But what’s striking is the intensity gap — almost twice as many respondents (44%) rate Obama “very positive” than they do for McCain (24%). In short, McCain’s supporters like him, but Obama’s LOVE him. Think about that 44% number for a minute: Obama’s overall ballot number is 51%, meaning that 86% of Obama’s supporters have a VERY positive view of him. Not since Reagan in 1980 has a base of supporters loved its nominee so much. Also, for the second-straight NBC/WSJ poll, Palin has a net-negative fav/unfav (39%-48%), while Biden has a net-positive one (50%-30%). In fact, if you add up Obama’s and Biden’s favorable scores, you get 106; for McCain-Palin, it’s 86.
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Mon/9:45am
Georgia has become THE state to watch.
It’s quite possible (& I chose it as such in the pool) that it could be the state with the closest margin of victory for either candidate.
The Senate race, I believe, is still Saxby Chambliss’ to lose.. but that prediction gets upended, I think, with an Obama upset.
What do you think?
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Mon/9:39am
From the AP: “UNDATED (AP) - As if today’s fever-pitch campaigning weren’t enough, the presidential candidates will break tradition and stump on Election Day. John McCain goes to Colorado and New Mexico. Barack Obama swings through Indiana before returning to Chicago. McCain rallied Latino voters just after midnight in Miami. Later this morning, he takes his message to Tampa, then to Tennessee, where he’ll be able to hit the Virginia media market. Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona also will see McCain. Running mate Sarah Palin is trying to woo conservatives in Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. Obama’s route is geographically less demanding. He rallies this morning in Jacksonville, Fla., and later goes to Virginia and North Carolina. His running mate, Joe Biden, is going to Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.”
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Mon/9:32am
Click here for a post I added featuring questions for an election night pool that I’m taking part in.
Feel free to register your predictions in the comments section!
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Mon/8:43am
Courtesy of the Huffington Post
This all gets tossed out the window if lines are long.. which may be why we may not know results of the states on that map until well after the polls are supposed to close..
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Mon/8:42am
Above: Joe the Plumber on the Fox News Channel over the weekend.
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Mon/8:38am
Above: two Canadian comedians fool Palin into thinking she’s talking to the President of France.
Mon/8:35am
Above: South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, saying the polls demonstrate Barack Obama is “the virtual incumbent,” & thus can’t win in this environment that’s hungry for change.
Mon/8:28am
This ad is effective, but made slightly less so by the misspelling on the screen, 0:56 seconds in:

Mon/8:20am
(Warning: blasphemous language)
Why is Pennsylvania such a battleground? Voters don’t vote early there.
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Mon/8:13am
“Lifelong Republicans turning to Obama has been one of the themes I’ve picked up in this campaign, ever since, back in January, I ran into Bryant Jones, an Idaho-raised Republican who’d volunteered for Obama in South Carolina.For Jones, it was disenchantment with “my-way-or-the-highway politics and the same old faces.””
“My-way-or-the-highway” politics. That’s a major reason President Bush was such a failure (read more of my thoughts on that here, in yesterday’s post). & I hope that both Democrats and Republicans heed the lesson in this: no matter who is president - but particularly if a President Obama finds himself with a Democratic majority in Congress - we can’t afford to discount a person’s idea because they aren’t a member of the right party. Obama will fall, & fall hard if he tries this. This is the singular reason President Bush did such a bad job - all recent presidents from all recent parties recognized they’d never succeed by paying attention to the needs of just one constituency. UPDATE: Mon/10:23am: More Obamacans explain themselves here & here. .

Mon/8:09am
The conservative New York Times columnist (who bears quite a bit of responsibility for bringing Sarah Palin to the world, not to mention the Iraq war) writes liberals should think the world has ended if John McCain wins, for reasons including:
“It would be a victory for an underdog. Liberals are supposed to like underdogs. McCain is a lonely guy standing up against an unprecedentedly well-financed, superorganized, ExxonMobil-like Obama juggernaut. A McCain upset victory would be a classic liberal happy ending.”
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Mon/8:02am
Of course she’s caught fire among members of the Republican base. But she’s certainly not winning over independents or moderate Republicans (scroll down for a new poll for more on that).
Peter Beinart suggests it may be that her appearance came at the end of the ‘Culture War:”
“Why has America turned on Sarah Palin? Obviously, her wobbly television interviews haven’t helped. Nor have the drip, drip of scandals from Alaska, which have tarnished her reformist image. But Palin’s problems run deeper, and they say something fundamental about the political age being born. Palin’s brand is culture war, and in America today culture war no longer sells. The struggle that began in the 1960s — which put questions of racial, sexual and religious identity at the forefront of American politics — may be ending. Palin is the end of the line.” .

Mon/7:57am
Great summary of what went right for Obama & wrong for McCain from E.J. Dionne:
ON McCAIN:
“In state after state during the primaries, McCain drew heavily on the votes of independents, moderates and Republicans who were unhappy with Bush. But instead of carrying on as the un-Bush who defied conservative orthodoxy, McCain embraced the right for fear of losing it. He chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, which finally earned him cries of approval from the GOP base but sent moderate voters scurrying Obama’s way.”"
ON OBAMA:
“He saw an opening for a young African American senator with brief Washington experience, realizing that the very unlikeliness of his candidacy would enhance its attractiveness.
He did more than give Americans a chance to ease the burdens of race. He invited them to embrace his very newness and thereby move past the 1960s, the ’80s, the ’90s and the Bush era all at once. “It’s time to turn the page,” Obama would say, and there were many pages Americans wanted to turn.
His post-everything candidacy, wrapped in a powerful rhetoric of hope, was immensely attractive to the young. They became the happy warriors of campaign manager David Plouffe’s meticulously organized national machine. It worked its magic in neighborhoods never before blessed with even a precinct captain.”

Pretty much the race, in a nutshell.
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Mon/7:53am
Respondents’ reactions to Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee, are also closely linked to how much they factor age into their preferences: Sixty percent of those who said age is an important consideration said Palin lowers the odds that they will vote for the GOP ticket. Overall, nearly half of all respondents said they are less likely to vote for McCain because she is on the ticket, a sharp increase from previous polls.
By contrast, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a net positive for Obama, even as nearly six in 10 respondents said the senator from Delaware does not influence their views one way or the other.
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Mon/7:50am
The new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll puts Obama well out in front over Republican John McCain and finds that Obama has firmly reestablished his advantage on handling the economy, beaten back a challenge on taxes and has an edge in terms of perceptions about which candidate would better deal with an unexpected major crisis.
The McCain campaign, meanwhile, has countered with improved outreach into the tossup states, neutralizing what had been a big advantage for the Democrat 10 days ago. More than a third of all voters in the six states The Post calls “up for grabs” — Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, Missouri and Indiana — said they have heard from the McCain campaign in the past week. That is up sharply from the third week of October and on par with the number who have been contacted by Obama’s campaign.
Obama and McCain roughly split the vote in the six states combined — 51 percent back Obama, and 47 percent support McCain. Overall in the tracking poll, Obama holds an 11-point advantage, at the top end of the seven-to-11-point range he has held since the final presidential debate in mid-October.”
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Mon/7:39am:
Watch McCain’s funny Saturday Night Live appearance here. Check this Vote08 post to see a clip of an earlier SNL McCain appearance (he sings Streisand!).
UPDATE/Mon-10:09am
James Fallows says this SNL appearance shows that McCain has accepted defeat.
Posted in: Ads • Barack Obama • Humor • Joe Biden • John McCain • Local Politics • Polls • Sarah Palin • Stump Speeches • The Ballot Box • Voters | Post a Comment »


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Early voting’s been extended, too; read more about it here.
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Above: Columbus, Ohio, last night.
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Above: a home-video from Latrobe, last night.
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Above: Joe Biden in Delaware, at his alma-mater
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The Tennessee Senate race (between Alexander & Tuke) has nowhere near the excitement as Georgia’s or North Carolina’s on Tuesday night.
But you should pay close attention to the degree of GOP losses in the Senate.

The more losses there are, the more freshman Tennessee Senator Bob Corker has to gain on the Senate hierarchical ladder. He has the potential to climb a few ‘bonus’ rungs if experienced GOPers like Alaska’s Ted Stevens or NC’s Elizabeth Dole or KY’s Mitch McConnell find defeat.
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Senator Saxby Chambliss, (R) Georgia, yesterday:
“There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early,” he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. “It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening,” he said.
Careful with that “our side,” Senator.
Check the latest polls in the GA Senate race here.
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Read Rick Davis’ memo here, with Marc Ambinder’s observations in italics.
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Charles Blow recaps.
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Several pollsters weigh in here.
Keep in mind the impact of any “late surprise” is diminished by early voting.
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Above: Dick Cheney stumps for McCain in Wyoming.
Posted in: Barack Obama • Endorsements • Joe Biden • John McCain • Local Politics • Polls • Strategy • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »


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Above: 109 year old Texas resident Amanda Jones, daughter of a slave, who just cast her vote for Barack Obama for President.
Regardless of whom you hope will win the White House, this truly is an amazing achievement for our country.
[scroll down to see Biden, McCain & Palin]
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Dick Morris thinks the answer is yes.
Nate Silver thinks the answer is no.
This article takes a look at last-week undecided trends from past elections.
..that would be Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Scroll down to see McCain in Ohio.
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[Scroll down to see Sarah Palin & John McCain.]
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The Politico weighs the pros & cons of Biden’s contributions to the campaign trail.
Also: the Obama campaign tries to clarify Biden’s “mark my words” comment in a new ad:
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Read examples of racism from the left this election season here.
But whatever you do, don’t pigeonhole rednecks:

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Read a letter to the New York Times from 1908 that brands McCain’s favorite president with his current favorite perjorative for his opponent.
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Is McCain really in that much trouble in his home state? Check the average of polls here. The Obama camp claims their internal polls are tightening.
Personally, I don’t think he’s going to lose his home state. But it may be the ultimate margin of victory that McCain’s trying to manipulate.
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What’s with the “yet” in this ad? Bob Cesca has a theory.
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It would appear so, based on the clip above. A loss will have the conventional wisdom coronating her as the 2012 front-runner. However, there may be a few in the GOP who have been holding their tongues until after the ballots have been cast.
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From Domino’s Pizza, via Marc Ambinder. I sent this out to the newsroom & got a funny response from operations engineer John Creel, whose text below is in red:
— Spend more per order than other consumers.
(*WITH THE OIL MONEY PROFITS WE CAN SPEND MORE.)
— They rely on credit cards to pay more than other consumers.
(*DOESN’T EVERYBODY’S HAVE A AMERICAN EXPRESS GOLD CARD.)
– They tend to order two large pizzas at a time, and they’re usually
specialty pizzas.
(*EVERYTHING WORTH HAVING COMES IN 2′S. WE ALL GOTTA PAIR DON’T WE.)
– They are more likely to order online, and more likely to pick up their
orders.
(*LIMOS ARE GREAT FOR PICKING UP PIZZAS, ESPECIALLY WHEN LOBBYIST ARE
BUYING.)
— Rely on delivery more than Republicans.
(*DELIVERY BOY IS A JUST A GUY TRYING TO MAKE A BUCK. WE’RE SPREADING THE WEALTH WITH HIM.)
– Pay cash more than other consumers.
(*CREDIT CARDS LEAVE A PAPER TRAIL TO FOLLOW. WE DON’T LIKE ANYTHING TRACEABLE BACK TO US.)
– Like more variety with their orders, opting for side items, chicken and
beverages more than Republicans.
(*WE LIKE OUR PIZZA LIKE OUR POLITICS … LOTS OF VARIETY.)
(*REPUBLICANS CALL THE SIDE ITEMS PORK, BUT WE PUT THEM ON OUR
CONGRESSIONAL BILLS AND VOTERS LOVE THEM.)
Funny stuff, John! Thanks!
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Oops. Maybe he was recording his album?
More from McCain’ speech in Defiance, Ohio:
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The ad above may be remembered as one of the worst in the country for the year 2008. It’s also a sign of how much trouble Elizabeth Dole finds herself in. The worst part about the ad is the woman saying “there is no God” at the end which is NOT Kay Hagan, Dole’s opponent. No politician who has integrity - on either side of the aisle - would do something like that.
…but how much of the ad is true? Click here for a fact-check.
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Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com speculates on the spellbinding Georgia Senate race:
“Very quick observation about Georgia’s senate race, which along with California’s Proposition 8, may be the thing to watch on Election Night in the event of an Obama blowout. The polls, from what I can tell, are showing a fairly high undecided vote among the African-American population. Rasmussen’s most recent poll, which had Saxby Chambliss up by two, shows that 12 percent of black voters are undecided in the senate race. Were those voters to split 4:1 to Jim Martin, that would be worth a net of around 2 points to him, making the race a tie. SurveyUSA, likewise, shows a higher rate of undecideds among black voters (7%) than among whites (3%).
Related thought: it’s very difficult to imagine what a Chambliss-Obama voter looks like. It’s pretty easy to imagine what a McCain-Martin voter looks like. So if the Georgia polls have Obama down by 4 or 5 points, but Martin down by 2 or 3 points (as they do), something doesn’t quite seem right; I’d think the gap should be a bit wider.
Basically, I think this race is a true toss-up rather than a Lean R. African-American voters might be unfamiliar with Jim Martin, who didn’t become the nominee until August, but the ‘D’ beside his name is worth a lot..”
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Above: at long last, the folks at Freedom Blogging have finally enabled me to post videos from NewsChannel9.com here. Above: NewsChannel9’s Erica Green has an early voting report.
The Hamilton County Election Commission says as of Wednesday, 61576 people have voted early.
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From the Boston Globe:
“Ad spending and ad placement data obtained from Democratic and Republican operatives show that in the closing days of the campaign the Republican voice has grown louder in states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
For instance, Obama had been scheduled to buy about $2.5 million in Florida ads for the last week of the campaign. McCain is now set to spend about $1.6 million and the Republican National Committee added $1.5 million to their buy in the state this week. Obama appears to have added more weight to his ads since.”
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From Time magazine:
Pennsylvania: Obama 55, McCain 43
North Carolina: Obama 52, McCain 46
Nevada: Obama 52, McCain 45
Ohio: Obama 51, McCain 47
Arizona: McCain 53, Obama 46
Find out more info, including male/female & making over $50K/under $50K preferences here.
How about those Arizona numbers? Here’s another one, from NBC, that’s no doubt making McCain nervous. [Remember, Al Gore infamously lost his home state in 2000.]
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Think about it: what ad since 1984 can that infomercial compare to, besides this one?
“Discuss: all else being equal, the most optimistic candidate wins the election. And that’s definitely the mood that Obama is going for with this thing.”
I also would point out that not mentioning John McCain or President Bush was stroke of genius. It makes it harder for the right to criticize the ad because of this.
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Above: a screen grab from Fox News yesterday.
This is not the first time Fox’s graphics department has gotten it wrong.
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Test your 2008 campaign knowledge here, & answer questions that include
2. Which one of these statements did Barack Obama make while campaigning?
A) “I’ve now been in 57 states. I think one left to go.”
B) “Most of all, I believe in you, Nebraska. Or South Dakota. Or wherever I am.”
C) “We’ve come so far since we began this campaign 21 years ago.”
Here’s a trivia question I’d add: which two presidential candidates stopped in Chattanooga during the primary season? (answer here)
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[below: the latest writings about the state of the conservative movement, as expressed by conservatives]
From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism. Tuesday’s probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign’s closing days.
Some polls show that Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain’s saddle than his association with George W. Bush. Did McCain, who seems to think that Palin’s never having attended a “Georgetown cocktail party” is sufficient qualification for the vice presidency, lift an eyebrow when she said that vice presidents “are in charge of the United States Senate”?
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Above: Bill Clinton & Barack Obama, together on stage for the first time, last night after the ‘infomercial‘ aired.
Posted in: Ads • Barack Obama • Campaign History • Humor • Joe Biden • Sarah Palin • Stump Speeches • The Ballot Box • The GOP • Voters | Post a Comment »


I thought it was well-done. It certainly beats Ross Perot’s informercial from 1992.
He kept it positive - didn’t mention the word “Bush” once.
Watch & tell me what you think.
Read McCain’s ‘prebuttal’ to the infomercial here.

A lot of you have voted already. As of Monday, more than 50,000 people have voted in Hamilton County.
Which way are early voters leaning? Marc Ambinder:
Obama leads by 16 points among likely voters, by 17 points among independents, by 13 points among men, by 20 points among women, is tied among whites, and is up eight among white Catholics. Of the 15 percent of the sample who’ve already voted, Obama leads by 19 points (although this subsample has a fairly large MoE). 74% of Obama’s backers say they support him “strongly,” which is 20 points higher than the percentage who say the same about their support for McCain.
Click here for the full Pew results, as of Tuesday.
Here’s a site where you can see the early voting numbers already in from around the country. Very useful.
From that site I glean:


The Peach state is turning into one of THE states to watch this year - & I had written that state off months ago, back when Bob Barr’s Georgia support started dropping off.


& not just the presidential race. The battle for Saxby Chambliss’ Senate seat remains intense.
The two latest polls come from polling firms that lean either way.
The left-leaning InsiderAdvantage poll has Saxby Chambliss & Jim Martin at 46-44%, That same poll also shows McCain leading by just 1 point).

The right-leaning Strategic Vision poll has Chambliss up by 2, & McCain up by 6.
& it’s possible that Georgia may be the last Senate race called - as in called several weeks after election night. MSNBC’s First Read blog explains:
“If Martin wins, he’ll have Obama to thank because the surge in African-American turnout is clearly benefiting the Democrat. By the way, Georgia could be the state that is the final race called in the country. Why? The state has that quirky runoff law, and a third-party candidate in the race might hold one of the major party candidates under 50%. The last time Georgia hosted a Senate runoff was the last time the country elected a new Democratic president: 1992, when the election of Clinton ended up helping the Republicans pull the Senate upset (Paul Coverdell defeated Wyche Fowler). This time, however, Republicans fear that an Obama victory will only energize African Americans in the runoff and make Chambliss’ path to victory even more difficult.”
Speaking of African-American turnout, it’s huge in Georgia - check it out. Georgia’s Secretary of State reports that 35% of early voters are African-American - more than double the percentage of the state’s population.

& there seems to be a correlation between a state’s African-American voting population & percentage of early voter turnout. FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver has the details here. In short, the higher the percentage of blacks in a state, the higher early voter turnout is. The states with the highest turnout are Georgia, North Carolina & Louisiana.
Can McCain count on voters who make up their minds in this final week? The trends (from Pollster.com) from past Presidential elections, in terms of their numbers, don’t look promising:

Click this link (again, to Pollster.com) to find out which way those last-minute voters swing.
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But still, interestingly, yet probably unsurprisingly, Obama still faces a major disadvantage with voters down here in that long-GOP stronghold, the South, per ABC News:
Obama is outperforming any Democrat back to Jimmy Carter among white voters, getting 45 percent to McCain’s 52 percent. But in the South, it is a very different story. Obama fares worse among Southern whites than any Democrat since George McGovern in 1972.
Whites in the East and West tilt narrowly toward Obama (he’s up 8 and 7 points, respectively), and the two run about evenly among those in the Midwest. By contrast, Southern whites break more than 2 to 1 for McCain, 65 percent to 32 percent.
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Above: wet, wet wet conditions in Chester, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Doesn’t look fun at all.
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Above: Obama making calls to undecided voters in Colorado.
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Michelle Obama appeared on Jay Leno Monday. Click here to watch.
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From the Toot:
“…once you’ve made a narrative choice, you do have to stick with it - you can’t just keep bouncing around, or people become confused. If you are telling the story of a scary vampire, you can’t decide in chapter 2 that he’s also 500 feet tall and radioactive and bent on destroying Tokyo, in chapter 3 that he is actually a giant man-eating shark, and in chapter 4 that he is all this and a super-terrorist trying to plant a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. All of these things are, indeed, scary, but taken together they add up to a muddle.
This is the problem. It’s not just the McCain campaign’s problem - although their inability to pick a narrative and stick to it is a special kind of inexcusable - it’s a problem for the entire wingnut noise machine. Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties. It makes no sense. It’s a jumble sale of fears and scary associations from 50 years of wingnut witch hunts and smear campaigns, a flea market of pre-owned and antique resentments, and if one does detect a semi-consistent 1960’s motif running through it all, that’s because that’s when most of these ideas were coined.”
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Above: at a joint rally with Sarah Palin in Hershey Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
He also appeared in North Carolina..

…but, interestingly, without incumbent GOP Senator Elizabeth Dole. (this may be why)
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It’s the major card McCain has left to play. But Newsweek’s Andrew Romano is pessimistic. Former Bush staffer Peter Wehner hsays the party needs to return to its reformist roots [which, I'd add, is what John McCain should have pushed harder for - challenging his party to return to its fundamental principles - instead of blatantly pandering to its base, which has spent the past year essentially rooting for the status quo, or at least is blind to why the status quo is in such a sorry state].



Single-party government rarely works for very long. It tends to overreach when there are no limits to those in power (see Congress/President Bush, 2002-2006). If this plays out, that will bode well for the beginning of a comeback for the now-battered GOP. [though I will say that if you sat on your hands & approved of how things were run under Republican leadership, you have a smaller rhetorical leg to stand on.]
['divided' here being less than a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate]
If this crazy year ends the way the trends are looking - that Obama will be elected - Obama’s historical standing would improve if he brought about change with the help & support of the minority party.
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Why is McCain behind Obama in the Pennsylvania polls? Michael Barone hazards a guess:
“My hypothesis is that that is because places like the Philly suburbs are places where the recent decline in household wealth has been most conspicuous. Housing prices mean a lot more to you when your house started off at $400,000 and declined to $290,000 than they did when you started off (as may be typical of Scranton or a blue-collar town in metro Pittsburgh) at $140,000 and declined to $110,000. Newspaper coverage of our current economic distress focuses on the very poor (like a recent Washington Post story on North Carolina, which focused on an ex-convict in a cheap motel in Charlotte), but the people who are getting hurt most visibly in their lifelong project of accumulating wealth are the more affluent. They’re the ones whose house values have most visibly and spectacularly declined, and whose 401(k) accounts and stock portfolios have tanked in the last few months as well. Folks in Scranton or in the cheap motel in Charlotte didn’t expect to live comfortably ever after off their increased house values, 401(k)’s, and Merrill Lynch accounts; a $700 monthly check from Social Security is about what they have long expected and that’s not in danger (yet). Folks in the Philly suburbs did expect to live comfortably off such assets.”
& he concludes
“The irony here is that voters motivated by anger at the decline in their wealth seem about to elect a president who has promised to embark on wealth-destroying policies.”
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The exodus of a chunk of voters - Libertarians - who traditionally vote Republican, that’s what.
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Here’s a view-from-the-crowd at a Joe rally in New Port Richey, Florida on Monday. He remained in Florida on Tuesday.

Above: at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, appearing with McCain.
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Sadly, there appears to be quite a few reports of ‘ugly Americanism‘ at her rallies, & that’s a shame for Palin & her supporters, who in my opinion should quickly & forcefully speak out about those who would tarnish her image, especially if you are hoping she becomes the Republican party’s standard-bearer after the election.

That’s it for now! I know it’s a lot to digest, but please feel free to comment on anything mentioned above. ALL views are welcome here.
& check back later in the day, as I’ll provide more info in this post. Let me know what you think of the ‘one-post’ format. I think I’ll stick to doing it this way through the home stretch.
Posted in: Ads • Barack Obama • Commentary • Joe Biden • John McCain • Polls • Sarah Palin • Strategy • Stump Speeches • The Ballot Box • The Democrats • The GOP • Voters | 1 Comment »

[above: Obama the Cabbage Patch candidate]
Above: the “One Week” closing argument speech given in Canton, Ohio yesterday.

The Weekly Standard’s Arnon Mishkin dubs it “the Obama Effect” in an attempt to crack the nut that is this year’s undecided voters:
Where there is a perception that there is a “socially acceptable” choice, respondents who do not articulate it, are likely not to agree with it. Are they lying? Or just genuinely torn about taking that route or another? I am not going to psychoanalyze what is going on in their heads, but in the end, the pattern tends to be that those undecided voters vote against that “socially acceptable” choice.
Nate over at FiveThirtyEight.com refutes this theory by Bill Greener at Salon.com, who says Obama cannot win if his numbers are under 50%, & he uses Tennessee’s 2006 Senate race as an example:
“Problem #2: Greener cherry-picks his data in literally every race. He isn’t even subtle about it. Here is a good example:
How about Tennessee, where black Democrat Harold Ford was up against white Republican Bob Corker for Republican Bill Frist’s old U.S. Senate seat? Harold Ford did slightly better than Steele and Blackwell. The day before the election, he was within a point of Corker, 47 to 48 with 5 percent undecided, according to OnPoint Polling. On Nov. 7, Corker got 50.7 percent of the vote, Ford got 48 and an assortment of independents took 1.3 percent. Ford was able to pick up one out of every five undecided voters.
OnPoint was the only polling firm to show the Tennessee race within 1 point on the eve of the election. Meanwhile, Gallup showed a 3-point lead for Corker, Rasmussen showed a 4-point lead for Corker, SurveyUSA and Pollmetrix showed 5-point leads, and Mason-Dixon showed a 12-point lead. Corker eventually won by 2.7 points, smaller than the margin predicted by all firms but OnPoint.”
If you’re interested in trying to figure out 2008’s undecideds, I recommend clicking on all the links provided above.
What do you think?
Posted in: Barack Obama • Polls • Strategy • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »

[above: Cabbage Patch Candidate Joe Biden. No, I don't think it looks like him either.]
Above: in New Port Richey, Florida, yesterday.
On Monday Biden spoke with a local news anchor in Kentucky (watch it here), who asks him about what he plans to do with his Senate seat if elected, & comments on a poll revealing a good chunk of folks in the Bluegrass state still (falsely) believe Barack Obama is a muslim.
Speaking of local TV interviews, Barbara West, the WFTV anchor in Florida whose now famous interview of Joe Biden has been seen by just about everyone on the planet, interviewed John McCain yesterday. Click here to watch, & then come back & tell me what you thought of how she handled McCain vs. Biden. Also, click here to join the discussion on whether or not she was biased.
Biden was in North Carolina yesterday, courting the youth vote. He was in Greensboro & Greenville - again, like we said with Palin, probably the closest any candidate will come to our area.
Posted in: Joe Biden • Stump Speeches • The Media | Post a Comment »

[above: Cabbage Patch Sarah Palin]
Above: in Asheville, North Carolina. Drink it up, Tennessee Valley Palin fans - this is likely the closest she will come to our area. Also, note: she’s wearing jeans.
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The finger-pointing surrounding “Clothing-gate” continues. Bad idea all around. If you are rooting for this ticket to win, you need to do your part by stopping talking about it - it’s sucking oxygen from your message.
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Elaine Lafferty, former editor of Ms. Magazine (wait! don’t click away!) & a Democrat (I promise! keep reading!), calls Palin a ’smart’ candidate (see?):
“Now by “smart,” I don’t refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don’t really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I’d heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.”
I’ve never felt the woman wasn’t smart. Those who call her dumb are revealing their own prejudices. I do, however, believe she has unwisely stuck to the politics of division (”pro-America parts of the country”) that has helped to (not 100%, but certainly a decent fraction) put her ticket where it is right now.
So that’s a liberal woman defending Palin.

Now, to provide ‘balance’ to this post, let’s check in with a conservative man who can’t stand her. Take it away, Christopher Hitchens:
“This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.”
What do you think?
Posted in: Sarah Palin • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »

Above: in Denver, before a crowd of 100,000 people on Sunday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says it’s broken up a plot by skinheads to launch an attack on a black high school and to assassinate Barack Obama.
According to court records, two neo-Nazi skinheads planned to rob a gun store and target an unnamed high school in Tennessee. There, it’s alleged, the two planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are said to have significance among white supremacists.
The two then allegedly planned to kill Obama, despite their doubts they could pull off an assassination.
They’ve been identified as 20-year old Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tennessee, and 18-year-old Paul Schlesselman, of West Helena, Arkansas. Both are being held without bond. They allegedly had a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols when they were arrested.
The Obama campaign hasn’t commented on the arrests.
Thank goodness for the ATF.
One tidbit from the news release, which I just read: AFTER they shot up a school, killing 102 people, AFTER they spray-painted their car with racist symbols & slogans, they were going to get to Obama as fast as they could, & kill him shooting from their car’s windows - all while wearing top hats & white tuxedos.
Posted in: Barack Obama • Fact-Checking • Local Politics • Strategy • Stump Speeches • Voters | Post a Comment »

Above: in Tacoma, Washington.
Posted in: Joe Biden • Stump Speeches • The Media | 2 Comments »
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2 DAYS OUT
November 2nd, 2008, 1:18 pm by Dan Lehr“The Best Race I Ever Covered“
I think David Broder speaks for us all.
Essential reading from the dean of the Washington Press Corps here.
“It’s been so rich with precedent and incident — and so very, very long — that we have, if anything, undervalued and even lost sight of its significance at times. In these final hours there’s some sense in pausing, pulling back and taking the broad measure of a contest that’s sure to affect not only this country’s civic life but also its emotional and psychological landscape for some time to come.” - Frank Bruni, the NY Times
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Commentary: Why Was He Such a Failure?
[before reading any further: check out this post, in which historian Doris Kearnes Goodwin outlines what makes a great president 'great.']
As much as the right would like to avoid it, 2008 most certainly a referendum on the policies of George W. Bush. He has always had a core of support (& I strongly suspect those hardcore supporters also find themselves rooting hard for Sarah Palin right now), but has had the lowest & most drawn-out approval rating of any modern president.
Why?
President Bush failed as a president because of his inability to adapt to what the times required. & as Scott McClellan famously said in his tell-all earlier this year, his administration conducted business in a “permanent campaign” mode.
President Bush governed on a binary basis. Binary could mean assigning everything a “0″ or a “1″ .. or one could look at it like an on/off switch. The administration either catered to the “1s,” those who comprised the administration, or those who would keep that administration in power either in public opinion or the ballot box, & did the opposite to the “0s,” which at the start of his administration meant anyone who voted for Al Gore (almost 50% of the nation). This ‘binary’ policy applied to foreign policy (”you’re either with us or against us”) & domestic policy (”anyone who disagrees with us aren’t true patriots & want the United States to fail”).
No president before Bush ran the White House so full-throttle in this direction. & only in the last couple of years (roughly since the 2006 congressional elections which reputed this style of government) has George W. Bush begun to reverse this approach’s catastrophic effects.
Bill Clinton was forced to declare “the era of big government is over” after his party’s resounding defeat in the 1994 congressional elections.
George H.W. Bush was forced to renege on his “no new taxes” pledge when it was clear that there was no other option to keep the budget out of the red.
Ronald Reagan had to sit down & talk with Democratic congressional leaders to work out compromises on the budget, tax rates, & election reform.
President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Administration, among other departments that are now viewed by the right as ‘liberal causes.’
My point is that every President necessarily has to bend with the times. Compromises were made for the overall good of the country, even though it meant that any particular president’s ideological beliefs would take a hit.
Not so with President Bush. He was not a president who surrounded himself with people who challenged his assumptions enough. He often “went with his gut” in making decisions, rather than glean empirical data or alternate points of view.
Again, the President has recently turned back on this “black & white” view of the world, & things in many areas of the world have improved. Iraq. North Korea. Iran. We are now involved in negotiations with all three countries, which were earlier deemed ‘the axis of evil.’
We are starting to see a military policy that recognizes that those who practice Islam do not all feel the same way about things, an assumption as silly as assuming the same for all Christians.
This year, thankfully, we are turning the page on a dark chapter in the history of the American presidency. It’s as if Herbert Hoover were elected after the stock market crashed, or James Buchanan were president after the Civil War started.
Either men running for president now would have served us far better in the last 8 years.. John McCain especially. & that’s why part of the Shakespearean tragedy that is John McCain most poignant is the fact that McCain had a decent shot at the presidency back in 2000, right after he beat George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary.
But what happened? Those who favored George W. Bush’s rise to power set in motion an ugly & destructive campaign in the state of South Carolina. McCain’s loss there effectively dashed his hopes for realizing his destiny as the 43rd presidency of the United States.
That in and of itself is tragic. But even more so is the fact that those very forces that kept McCain down 8 years ago joined his campaign late this summer, & have been running it ever since. Considering the personal integrity I have seen in this man for 8 years now, McCain truly struck up a deal with the devil. Everything that happened afterward - the Palin choice, the ‘lipstick on a pig’ distraction, the erraticness of McCain’s campaign of the week of the bailout bill, the branding of Obama as a ’socialist Marxist what-have-you’ - is from the playbook of those who have been in power for the past 8 years.
I suggest making your choice based on how you feel things have been run for the past 8 years. If you are leaning McCain, you have to take a leap of faith that he will upon election immediately eschew these forces at work & become a President who doesn’t put a party’s success over the country’s. & if you are leaning Obama, you have to take a leap of faith that the executive powers that were expanded by an order of magnitude in the last 8 years will not be continued under the leadership of a president from a different party.
No matter who your choice is, I believe that above all else, your vote should be based on which candidate - & as you can read above, an argument can be made for both - would run the nation in a manner that does not resemble the management style of George W. Bush.
That’s my opinion, & you’re free to disagree. Scroll down & leave a comment if you have anything to say. All viewpoints are welcome.
Gleeful & Glum
From the AP:
“That smiling guy walking down the street? Odds are he’s a Barack Obama backer. The grouchy looking one? Don’t ask, and don’t necessarily count on him to vote next week, either. Supporters of John McCain, long less enthusiastic than Obama’s, have become increasingly glum about the presidential campaign in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Saturday.”
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Above: home-video from an Obama rally in Pueblo, Colorado yesterday.
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Above: McCain in Newport News, Virginia yesterday.
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Above: home-video of Biden at BGCU yesterday.
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Above: home-video from a Palin rally in Glenn Allen, Virginia yesterday.
Posted in: Barack Obama • Campaign History • Commentary • Joe Biden • John McCain • Sarah Palin • Stump Speeches | Post a Comment »