Campaign 2008

[Guest]

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There's a tiny little state that doesn't exist now by Kentucky that voted Libertarian, huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

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Indeed, Ms. Palin’s primary aim seemed simply to repeat the same thing over and over: John McCain is a maverick, and so is she. She is a governor. She understands Americans. To stay on that course, she had to indulge in some wildly circular logic: America does not want another familiar Washington figure. But they want Mr. McCain (who has been in Congress for 26 years).

[SuperJerk 0]

Indeed, Ms. Palin’s primary aim seemed simply to repeat the same thing over and over: John McCain is a maverick, and so is she. She is a governor. She understands Americans. To stay on that course, she had to indulge in some wildly circular logic: America does not want another familiar Washington figure. But they want Mr. McCain (who has been in Congress for 26 years).

Source? I'd like to read more.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/opinion/...tml?ref=opinion

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If you thought his first map was bad. I mean Arizona a toss up??? WTF.

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Just as I thought; many of the headlines and articles are suggesting that Palin "turned in a performance" last night and the debate actually HELPED the McCain campaign. Amazing. I am convinced that the media is determined to keep this race as close as possible even if it means reporting obvious falsehoods. If anyone not named Sarah Palin had "turned in" such a performance they would have been tarred and feathered. Instead of expecting nothing less than a marvelous performance, everyone lowered their standards for Palin so much that all she had to do was speak coherently, which she could barely accomplish. Being the second in line for the top job should require more than just meeting less than the bare minimum expectations but 2008 America could care less about that. This ridiculously close election means great TV and talking points.

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It's good that the Kouric interviews have taken their effect, but they've lowered the bar very low for Palin. She can do less than satisfactory and score major points, which is pretty shitty. Palin has been studying for this debate like it's some midterm, and will be scant on details. She'll flash a few and the talking heads will throw her a bone. Biden will win this debate, there is no doubt about it. Palin will dance around the issue and recite lines and anecdotes. Some people will inevitably empathize with whatever she'll be talking about, and the analysts will chalk it up to be a respective victory

 

The points she'll be reciting tonight are McCain's aides', not hers.

 

 

Called it.

 

 

Also, I hope someone will agree with me on this one, but did anyone find the highest point of the debate to be when Biden discussed the genocide in Darfur? He really showed that it was an issue that he truly cares about and wants to do something about.

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Looks like the Liberal Media is going to run as far as they can with Palin winning the debate because she didn't puke on her shirt or trip over her podium.

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http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5928293

 

Oh, The View.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UaRXvRwhOk

 

Only the Jonah Hill parts are funny.

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I kept waiting for Leonardo DiCaprio to say "Why don't you just give me a bottle of scotch and a handgun to blow my fucking head off".

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Amy Adams!

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Analysis of the content of Palin's answers last night.

 

On the most pressing issue facing Americans this week -- the economy -- she had surprisingly little to offer. She repeated the McCain tax cut plan and health care plan.

 

But since their tax cuts mostly go to the wealthy and their health insurance proposals offer little more than a potentially useless tax credit, that just wasn't enough. And when moderator Gwen Ifill asked about consumers who face debt or difficulties with their mortgages, she actually asked to change the subject and went back to another answer on energy exploration which had been fully covered minutes before.

 

On Iraq, she was just incoherent. She said something about the surge and Obama and fighting. But it didn't answer the question, which was: What is the right plan for Iraq?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/ros...ref=mpstoryview

 

 

From Peggy Noonan:

 

As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic "talk over the heads of the media straight to the people," and it is a long time since I've seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.

 

Joe Biden seems to have walked in thinking that she was an idiot and that he only had to patiently wait for this fact to reveal itself. This was a miscalculation. He showed great forbearance. Too much forbearance. She said of his intentions on Iraq, "Your plan is a white flag of surrender." This deserved an indignant response, or at least a small bop on the head, from Mr. Biden, who has been for five years righter on Iraq than the Republican administration. He was instead mild.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122300786229301597.html

 

from teh internets...

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...sadly, I cannot dispute the accuracy of the flowchart Y2Jerk posted.

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edit:

Edited October 3, 2008 by SuperJerk

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The VP debate was watched by 69.9 million viewers, the highest for any debate since 1992 (Bush, Perot, Clinton debate) which had the same number of viewers.

 

Sarah Palin should at least get a reality show deal from this campaign. She might be the biggest star on TV.

 

Apparently it was the second most watched debate trailing only a debate between Carter and Reagan in 1980

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edit:

And now, Your Moderator, Walt Disney.

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Id like to throw out that Im about (---) close to going back to voting for Bob Barr after Mr. "Anti-Pork!" voted for enough pork to feed a small country in voting yes on the Financial Bill in the senate, in what has to be considered a Democratic set up from the get go (keep bill from passing first in the house so the Senate has to add a ton of stuff to the bill knowing McCain would vote yes for it). I cannot for the fricking life of me believe he voted yes to a bill with tax incentives and cuts for such wonderful important economic issues as Wool Research, Wooden Arrows and Racetracks.

 

He would refuse to vote for a military spending bill on the basis that it had a troop withdraw timeline attached and yet he'd vote for this crap?

 

 

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The only problem with that little theory is that it was the House Republicans that played a major part in voting down the bill.

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The only problem with that little theory is that it was the House Republicans that played a major part in voting down the bill.

I think its all too convenient that the Congressional Black Caucus members doesn't vote for it, and then Obama has to come and call Elijah Cummings (Representive of MD on the Black Caucus) and promise to both him and other members that if they vote yes this time around that he would "revisit bankruptcy laws to give judges more leeway to restructure residential mortgage payments when threatened with foreclosure" (source). Why didn't Obama call him before the first vote and make that same promise when he knew they wouldnt vote for it in the House the first time? Im straight out convinced the Democrats wanted this bill to go to the Senate so they could tack on the tons of extra pork that the House Bill didn't have and also pressure the House to vote for the newly modified bill "or else".

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Haha, the McCain campaign posted this fake quote before they could find a celebrity who would agree to have it falsely attributed to them.

 

Peggy Noonan later accepted ownership of the quote, by the way.

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RCP has Obama ahead in electoral votes by 168, and ahead in all but 2 of the battle ground states.

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Something near and dear to my heart: grade equivalency levels. Here's one for the two candidates at the dabate last Thursday.

 

Debate analysis: Palin spoke at 10th-grade level, Biden at eighth

 

Story Highlights

• Language monitoring service says Palin spoke at 9.5, Biden at 7.8
• Candidates tied at sentences per paragraph and letters per word
• Higher grade level doesn't mean a better sentence, expert says

But higher grade level doesn't necessarily mean better sentence, Payack said. He pointed to Palin's second-to-last sentence in the debate, which the formula put at a grade level of 18.3:

 

"What I would do, also, if that were ever to happen, though, is to continue the good work he is so committed to of putting government back on the side of the people and get rid of the greed and corruption on Wall Street and in Washington," Palin said.

 

"When she said it, it sounded good, but on paper it's a completely different animal," Payack said. "It's like, what is that?"

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/03/deb...ords/index.html

 

The measure is typically used to indicate what a student is capable of reading the equivalent to. The school version of Microsoft Word also has the ability to measure grade equivalency. I've had to do a lot of tampering with sections of written text to lower their reading level, and basically we're looking at simple vs. compond and complex sentences, syllables per word, and words per sentence, to determine grase level equivalency.

 

Grammatically, though, I would hate to see Palin's score.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Grammatically, though, I would hate to see Palin's score.

 

Depends on who you're supporting. I think I'd rather like it, personally.

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I'm not all "OMG SEXISM~!" because I know it wasn't a serious comment, but I am going to remember this the next time a McCain supporter falsely accuses someone of sexism.

 

 

 

 

 

Factcheck.org's article about the VP Debate:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/fa...lin_debate.html

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McCain plans fiercer strategy

GOP plans to focus on Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal ties

By Michael D. Shear

The Washington Post

updated 3:46 a.m. CT, Sat., Oct. 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

 

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

 

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

 

Being so aggressive has risks for McCain if it angers swing voters, who often say they are looking for candidates who offer a positive message about what they will do. That could be especially true this year, when frustration with Washington politics is acute and a desire for specifics on how to fix the economy and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is strong.

 

Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, dismissed the new McCain strategy. "This isn't 1988," he said. "I don't think the country is going to be distracted by the trivial." He added that Obama will continue to focus on the economy, saying that Americans will remain concerned about the country's economic troubles even as the Wall Street crisis eases somewhat.

 

'Just the beginning'

Moments after the House of Representatives approved a bailout package for Wall Street on Friday afternoon, the McCain campaign released a television ad that challenges Obama's honesty and asks, "Who is Barack Obama?" The ad alleges that "Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes. Ninety-four times. He's not truthful on taxes." The charge that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes has been called misleading by independent fact-checkers, who have noted that the majority of those votes were on nonbinding budget resolutions.

 

A senior campaign official called the ad "just the beginning" of commercials that will "strike the new tone" in the campaign's final days. The official said the "aggressive tone" will center on the question of "whether this guy is ready to be president."

 

McCain's only positive commercial, called "Original Mavericks," has largely been taken off the air, according to Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads.

 

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's performance at Thursday night's debate embodied the new approach, as she used every opportunity to question Obama's honesty and fitness to serve as president. At one point she said, "Barack Obama voted against funding troops [in Iraq] after promising that he would not do so."

 

 

Palin kept up the attack yesterday, saying in an interview on Fox News that Obama is "reckless" and that some of what he has said, "in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief."

 

McCain hinted Thursday that a change is imminent, perhaps as soon as next week's debate. Asked at a Colorado town hall, "When are you going to take the gloves off?" the candidate grinned and replied, "How about Tuesday night?"

 

 

Yesterday in Pueblo, Colo., McCain made clear that he intends to press Obama on a variety of familiar GOP themes during the debate, as he accused the Democrat once again of getting ready to raise taxes and increase government spending.

 

"I guarantee you, you're going to learn a lot about who's the liberal and who's the conservative and who wants to raise your taxes and who wants to lower them," McCain said.

 

A senior aide said the campaign will wait until after Tuesday's debate to decide how and when to release new commercials, adding that McCain and his surrogates will continue to cast Obama as a big spender, a high taxer and someone who talks about working across the aisle but doesn't deliver.

 

Two other top Republicans said the new ads are likely to hammer the senator from Illinois on his connections to convicted Chicago developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko and former radical William Ayres, whom the McCain campaign regularly calls a domestic terrorist because of his acts of violence against the U.S. government in the 1960s.

 

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. appears to be off limits after McCain condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that linked Obama to his former pastor, saying, "Unfortunately, all I can do is, in as visible a way as possible, disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning."

 

McCain advisers said the new approach is in part a reaction to Obama, whose rhetoric on the stump and in commercials has also become far harsher and more aggressive.

 

They noted that Obama has run television commercials for months linking McCain to lobbyists and hinting at a lack of personal ethics — an allegation that particularly rankles McCain, aides said.

 

Campaigning in Abington, Pa., yesterday, Obama continued to focus on the economy, even as he lashed out at McCain.

 

"He's now going around saying, 'I'm going to crack down on Wall Street' . . . but the truth is he's been saying 'I'm all for deregulation' for 26 years," Obama said. "He hasn't been getting tough on CEOs. He hasn't been getting tough on Wall Street. . . . Suddenly a crisis comes and the polls change, and suddenly he's out there talking like Jesse Jackson."

 

Obama highlighted a new report showing a reduction of more than 159,000 jobs last month, and he linked the bad economic news to McCain and Palin.

 

"Governor Palin said to Joe Biden that our plan to get our economy out of the ditch was somehow a job-killing plan; that's what she said," Obama told a crowd of thousands. "I wonder if she turned on the news this morning. . . . When Senator McCain and his running mate talk about job killing, that's something they know a thing or two about, because the policies they've supported and are supporting are killing jobs in America every single day."

 

'A very aggressive last 30 days'

McCain issued a statement yesterday saying the bailout bill "is not perfect, and it is an outrage that it's even necessary. But we must stop the damage to our economy done by corrupt and incompetent practices on Wall Street and in Washington."

 

Speaking in Pueblo just as the House was finishing deliberations on the package, McCain blamed fellow lawmakers for the failure to adequately regulate the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

 

"It was the Democrats and some Republicans in the Congress who pushed back and did not allow those reforms to take place, and that's a major reason we are in the trouble we are in today," he said. "Those members of Congress ought to be held accountable on November 4th as well."

 

Before the bailout crisis, aides said, McCain was succeeding in focusing attention on Obama's record and character. Now, they say, he must return to those subjects.

 

"We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of McCain's top advisers. "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."

 

No one is surprised by this. He's a desperate and pathetic man who sees something he think is owed to him slipping away. Fire back with Keating 5, his infedility, his poor health (and undisclosed records), Palin's witch doctor, etc. If he wants to open this can of worms, then do it.

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Obama is responding pretty quick to McCain's new strategy...

 

 

Branding his opponent as “erratic in a crisis,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is preempting plans by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans.

 

Obama officials call it political jujitsu – turning the attacks back on the attacker.

 

McCain officials had said early in the weekend that they plan to begin advertising after Tuesday’s debate that will tie Obama to convicted money launderer Tony Rezko and former Weathermen radical William Ayers.

 

But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: “Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.

 

“Turn the page on the financial crisis by launching dishonorable, dishonest ‘assaults’ against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy, and we can't afford another president who is this out of touch.”

 

Then Obama says: “I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.”

 

McCain officials told Politico that the new offensive is likely to focus on Rezko and Ayers. The officials said the campaign will not bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor, because McCain has forbade them from using that as a weapon. Without being specific, the officials said outside groups may focus on Wright.

 

When word of the planned attacks leaked Saturday, Obama officials said within hours that it was an attempt by McCain to distract voters from the economy.

 

“We think the McCain campaign made a huge error by telling the press that their strategy was to distract from the most important issue facing voters,” a senior Obama official said. “Every attack going forward will be easy to characterize for what it is – an attempt to distract from the Bush-McCain economic record."

 

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds hinted at the tough new line Saturday on “Fox & Friends.”

 

“There are associations that are important to who Barack Obama is as a candidate, who he’d be as president,” Bounds said.

 

Obama-Biden communications director Dan Pfeiffer said about the new ads: “If John McCain thinks he can ‘turn the page’ on the economic crisis facing American families, he is even more out of touch than we imagined. Now there may be no good answers for John McCain due to his erratic response to the financial crisis, but his desire to avoid discussing the economy is something we will remind voters of everyday for the next month.”

 

Politico.com

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I was just kidding around earlier when I said McCain sounded like

...now he really will.

 

This didn't work before, why would it work now?

 

Mudslinging this late in the game isn't going to accomplish anything except piss EVERYONE off, especially voters. That goes for bringing up Tony Rezko (Obama) or Charles Keating (McCain), especially since neither senator was ever charged with any actual wrong-doing. Its based on a logical fallacy, that because someone knows someone who is guilty of something, they must be guilty of something too.

 

The Bill Ayers thing, as I've noted before, is just dumb because Obama was a little kid when Ayers was active in the Weathermen, and nothing Obama has ever said or done could lead any rational person to believe just KNOWING Ayers makes him guilty of anything.

 

Here's a really awesome idea...forget harping on "experience" (because it seems like all you have is experience at being wrong), and forget being a "MAVERICK~!!!!!" (because all you've managed to do is piss off both sides, i.e. the bail-out). McCain needs to explain why Obama is wrong on the ISSUES. Obama is wrong about this because ________________________. I am right about this because ____________________. Present a case, not just an vague accusation that he's "too liberal" or "is going to raise YOUR taxes." McCain can win is by changing people's minds on who's plans are best to handle the important issues. He's tried everything so far BUT this, and it's no wonder he's losing.

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Too bad the GOP guilt-by-association thing wasn't prevalent when Don Rumsfeld was shaking Hussein's hand. You know, the actual Saddam Hussein, not a guy who happens to have 'Hussein' for a middle name. Rhetoric vs reality, it's so hard to choose in this country.

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Apparently they think they can get people to believe it if Palin says it.

 

"We see America as the greatest force for good in this world," Palin said at a fund-raising event in Colorado, adding, "Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/04/pal...bama/index.html

 

 

 

CNN Fact Check: Is Obama 'palling around with terrorists'?

Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.

The extent of Obama's relationship with Ayers came up during the Democratic presidential primaries earlier this year, and Obama explained it by saying, "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood … the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago — when I was 8 years old — somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense."

 

The New York Times article cited by Palin concluded that "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers." Other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic, have said that their reporting doesn't support the idea that Obama and Ayers had a close relationship.

 

The McCain campaign did not respond Saturday to a request for elaboration on Palin's use of the plural "terrorists."

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Tory Logic has been known to be popular with a certain deomgraphic of Americans.