Remember everybody, go out and VOTE! We don’t want Obama to be this guy:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xnk9aqih8o]
If you live in a state that allows early voting, then vote early. Get your friends and your family to vote. No matter who you vote for, people died so you could vote so do it.
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When I said it yesterday, I was thinking in the back of my mind, no, they won’t actually go there. However, not only did they, they didn’t waste any time. On MSNBC today Brad Blakeman criticized Barack Obama for flying on his campaign plane to visit his ailing grandmother. All I can say is wow.
Blakeman tried to equate it to the $150,000 the McCain campaign spent on clothes for Sarah Pailin. I’ll try to be fair, is it completely above board for him to have flown on the campaign plane? Maybe, maybe not. Is this a stupid line of attack for the republicans to take. Absoloutely. I guess that’s why some strategist no one outside the media has ever heard of was tasked with saying it, in case it sounds stupid (Yah think?).
It was pointed out on Countdown that if a democrat had said the same thing about McCain visiting his mother then the republican outrage would be heard far and wide, it would dominate cable news for 8 days. I agree, Bill O’reilly’s head would explode in a fit of fake outrage.
My question is: is McCain even trying to win anymore? Huffington Post has the clip here.
Barack Hussein Obama…yeah, that guy’s different. He’s an arab or something. No, no way I would vote for him.
B. Hussein Obama, followed moments later by the professation that “What? It’s his middle name.” So which is more galling: the use of Barack Obama’s middle name to mark him as “not one of us” or the fact that they person who just said his name is such a coward that they don’t have the balls to come out and say that is what they are doing. How much of a weasel do you have to be?
I suppose it’s a testament to how much this thinking has been marginalized that not only do racists such as these have to hide in the shadows, disguising their intent with indirection. It’s also a testament to how far we’ve come as a society that it isn’t working. Despite what the McCain campaign thinks, 10 point leads on polls that traditionally skew right is not within the margin of error.
Yes we can.
John McCain’s campaign seems to be run by drunken lemurs. That of course is just speculation by an ameteur and I get all my news from Keith Olbermann, John Stewart, and Fark.com. However, it lurches from tactic to tactic, never sticking with one for very long. Even when they stick with one, hurling negative attacks, they jump from attack (Ayers) to attack (ACORN) and I swear they are just trying to get Obama to respond in a way that they can put it in an ad next week. It wouldn’t surprise me if some surrogate this weekend says something about Obama taking a couple days off to spend with his grandmother. McCain won’t say it and neither will Pailin but just someone will and then they’ll use whatever Obama says back against him.
But it won’t work. Obama is not the sort of guy who takes the bait. He hasn’t risen to any baiting so far that I know. He just remains resolute and dare I say it, Presidential. He by all appearances wants to lead, not get down in the mud and scrap. So GoBama!
I think it comes down to being a black man trying to suceed in a white world. I remember reading about Jackie Robinson when I was a kid. I remember the part where Branch Rickey told him that he would not be able to respond the way he wants to to people trying to get a rise out of him. Jackie Robinson had to be above it all or he would never make it. They say both women and African Americans have to be twice as good as the next guy. Obama went to Colombia, he went to Harvard Law and was the first African American to edit the Harvard Law Review, and now he is the first African American nominated by a major party in the presidential election. I think he knows a thing or two about being twice as good and leaving his ego at the door. He is certainly not going to let some cranky old man who thinks it’s his turn to be president ruin this run. McCain however, seems to be trying real hard to provoke a man just so he can bring him down.
What a difference just a couple of days makes. It seems that Sarah Palin’s VP run is blowing up on the launchpad. Who knows though, maybe the McCain Campaign will soldier on with her regardless.
For starters, there is the so called troopergate scandal. She fired Alaska’s public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, because he refused to fire a state trooper who was Palin’s former brother in law. Palin claims he was fired for failing to fill vacancies, whatever that means. Why he was fired and her guilt or not of wrongdoing is immaterial. Why the hell would McCain want to bring this onboard his campaign. It’s not like this broke yesterday, it has been ongoing for a while now.
Secondly, her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. In and of itself, this is not a big deal. It happens. The problems start because this was the story the campaign put out to deflect the rumors that Palin’s four month old son is actually her grandson. I think the rumors are just rumors but they chose to dignify them with the response that it couldn’t possibly be true because her daughter is five months pregnant now. Even better, this is being used to shore up anti abortion, evangelical votes. It’s a great talking point that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant, but is keeping the kid and marrying the father. So while the Obama camp is bending over backwards to keep this out of the discussion, McCain is tripping over himself to campaing on it.
Third, she was for the “bridge to nowhere” before she was against it. No surprise here, she was very much in favor of bringing in lots of money via congress until it was a scandal that could affect her chances of winning an election.
Fourth, as recently as ten minutes before running for mayor of Wasilla she was a member of a Pro Seccession political party, advocating for Alaska to leave the union. You may or may not have an opinion on Alaska’s statehood (I don’t, I didn’t even know it was an issue until this morning) and she is certainly entitled to hers but again, why would the McCain camp want that anywhere near their campaing. Could it be that they learned about it from ABC News just like I did?
All this leads to one question: did the republicans, McCain, or any of his people do any research at all on Sarah Palin? It looks increasingly like they did the bare minimum when vetting her. McCain himself has said that the process was very thorough. It seems more likely that they chose whatever ultra right wing woman who looks good on camera they could find to get all the Vagina Americans (thank you Daily Show) to vote McCain in November. If the vetting process was so thororough, why didn’t they seem to know that six months worth of scandals were going to hit during the long weekend before the convention? Why is Cindy McCain going on National TV saying the proximity of Alaska to Russia makes for good foreign policy experience (why does that McCain campaign have so little control over the candiates spouse that she is allowed to say shit like this)? Why is Palin’s resume being padded with her tenure on the PTA?
The republicans are already in trouble this week. Hurricane Gustav was going to hit New Orleans, this close to the three year anniversary of Katrina, right in the middle of the Republican convention. RNC spinners lept into action and it seemed like McCain would be giving his acceptance speech with New Orleans in the background. Gustav dropped to a category 1 before making landfall though and it was a non event (politically anyway). Personally, I felt like the Republicans had nowhere to go but down on this one. If Gustav was Katrina redux then McCain would be polling in the 20s very shortly. If New Orleans survived a category 5 then they would get a bump, maybe. Instead, they got a “performed as expected” and the focus remains on Palin.
Palin was mayor of a town smaller than my high school, governer of a state the size of Little Rock, and has no experience pertinent to being President. She brings nothing to the table for McCain. However, McCain can no longer claim that Obama is not experienced enough. It was a bad choice. It’s all good from my end though.
Barack Obama Dreams from my Father, yes we can, you’ve heard it all. The primary is months behind us and the general election is months away. I’m not as excited about politics as I was in May and not as excited about them as I will be in the fall. However, I will say that I am going to vote for Barack Obama. The main reason is that he inspires me. Politicians in recent years have resorted to “Vote for me because my opponent sucks” to get the vote out. Consequently I’ve been fairly disillusioned with politics in general. In 2004 I voted for Kerry but only so I could vote against Bush. Then Bush won and it seemed like things were just getting worse and worse. I was heartened when the Democrats took back congress in 2006 but the politics were more of the same. And I haven’t exactly been inspired by the democratic leadership over the past two years.
I read Barack Obama Dreams from my father and The Audacity of Hope recently. I’m inspired by Obama because he says to the people, come with me and we’ll make the world a better place. You can tell that he genuinely wants to make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren. I have a new baby and I know that I want to leave the world a better place than I found it(Dan Savage Fans, campsite rule) and after 8 years of Bush I am overwhelmed with the idea that this is not a realistic dream.
Barack Obama Dreams from my Father and I want to leave my daughter with dreams to pass on to her daughters. I want to see health care become a right rather than just another way big business can screw us over. I want to know that if my child goes to war it’s because there are no other options and not because some people read 1984 as an instruction manual. Can Barack achieve all this. I doubt it. It’s not that I don’t think he is a good man, he is. But he is not the second coming he is not a miracle worker. However, of all the people that have run for president in my lifetime he might be the only one that truly believes the world can be a better place.
Yes we can.
The other day John Edwards, former VP contender with John Kerry and a man whose name has been mentioned as a possible VP for Obama, was seen leaving the hotel room of Rielle Hunter a woman he is alleged to have not only had an affair with but also had a child with. The press, displaying is usual classiness, chased him into a public men’s room where he was forced to call security for an escort from the building.
Is John Edwards having an affair? Who cares? If a politician is having an affair I don’t care. If he’s not having an affair with some woman then he’s gay and I still don’t care. John Edwards seems like a decent guy, I voted for him and Kerry in 2004. He probably would have made a decent Vice President, far better than the guy who is in the slot now.
The press displayed its usual dickishness by chasing after John Edwards. And in the end only the gossip blogs and the Enquirer even published the story so I wonder if any of it is even true. And anyway let politicians have all the affairs they want. It’s between them and their spouses. Let them be gay all they want. It’s none of my business. We are a nation of prudes who want to simultaneously know all the juicy details and condemn the person we are being nosy about.
John Edwards may or may not be the father of Rielle Hunter’s child. Do I care? no and neither shuld you. As a politician all I care about is he going to fight for what I believe in. That is the sole criteria by which I judge a politician when deciding whether I vote for them or not. So next time you get a chance, vote for John Edwards, for something. I doubt he had an affair and I seriously doubt he went to get some nook nook from a woman that not only is it well publicized that they are having an affair but she was being stalked by the press to get some juicy pictures of John Edwards going to see her. He’s not that stupid and neither is she.