The OAO 2006 US Elections Thread

[SuperJerk 0]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WH4-7PF7h6M&amp...ted&search=

 

I don't get the music and tiger print.

I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when that ad was written.

 

"Let's put together an ad where we show Democrats criticizing Bush."

 

"Bush's approval rating is 40%? How the hell's that supposed to help us?"

 

"We can show great Democratic presidents of the past."

 

"What?"

 

"Then we'll cap it off with a clip of Jon Stewart!"

 

"Whose side are you on?"

[CanadianChris 0]

Rush Limbaugh's really getting into the swing of things:

 

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15408508/

 

To Rush Limbaugh on Monday, Michael J. Fox looked like a faker. The actor, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has done a series of political ads supporting candidates who favor stem cell research, including Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, who is running against Republican Michael Steele for the Senate seat being vacated by Paul Sarbanes.

 

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

 

Limbaugh, whose syndicated radio program has a weekly audience of about 10 million, was reacting to Fox's appearance in another one of the spots, for Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, running against Republican Sen. James M. Talent.

 

But the Cardin ad is similar. It is hard to watch, unless, for some reason, you don't believe it. As he speaks, Fox's restless torso weaves and writhes in a private dance. His head bobs from side to side, almost leaving the video frame.

 

"This is the only time I've ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has," Limbaugh said. "He can barely control himself."

He later apologized, then switched gears, attacking Fox for using his disease for political gain.

 

That's just disgusting. But, par for the course, I suppose.

[SuperJerk 0]

Webb on sex passage recital: 'It's smear after smear'

CNN

RICHMOND, Virginia (CNN) -- A bitter Senate campaign entering its final stretch turned uglier Friday, as a Republican incumbent pulled up sexual passages from novels written by his Democratic opponent, who called the move baseless character assassination.

 

In a news release and list of quotes posted Friday on the Drudge Report Web site, Sen. George Allen, R-Virginia, accused his opponent, former Navy Secretary Jim Webb, of "demeaning women" and "dehumanizing women, men and even children" through his fiction writings. At least two of the listed passages include children in sexual situations.

 

Allen's campaign did not include the press release and list of passages on its Web site, where press releases are generally posted. There was, however, a Thursday statement from Chris LaCivita, general consultant for the Allen campaign, saying some references in Webb's novels are "disturbing" and "portray women as servile, subordinate and promiscuous."

 

Webb served in Vietnam and later led the Navy during the Reagan administration. He is running as a Democrat. He has written six best-selling novels from 1978 to 2001, his Web site says. His writings have largely focused on war and military storylines, influenced by things he experienced.

 

The first quote describes a shirtless man picking up a naked boy who runs toward him. The book describes what happens after the man picks up the boy and turns him upside down. It comes from the 2001 book "Lost Soldiers."

 

Webb responded Friday morning on Washington Post radio. "Let me explain what that was," he said. "I actually saw this happen in a slum of Bangkok and when I was there as a journalist. A man placing his lips on his son's private parts ... and the duty of a writer is to illuminate the surroundings.

 

"There is nothing that's been in any of my novels that, in my view, hasn't been either illuminating surroundings or defining a character or moving a plot," Webb said.

 

He added that he has "strong female characters" in his writings -- rejecting LaCivita's assertion that Webb's books portray women as "servile, subordinate and promiscuous."

 

The Allen campaign included several passages aimed at supporting that argument, including graphic sexual depictions and a quote from the 1981 book "A Sense of Honor," describing the character "Nurse Goodbody" as "a bedtime friend to many of the doctors in Bethesda" who had hinted "that she simply could not contain herself."

 

Webb told Washington Post radio that to pull excerpts from his writings "and force them on people, sort of, like pound them over the head with them," rather than having someone read the entire book "is just a classic example of the way this (Allen) campaign has worked. And you know, it's smear after smear."

 

"This is a Karl Rove campaign," Webb said, referring to the head of President Bush's 2004 re-election bid. "We have known this one was coming for quite some time."

 

Webb said advisers had warned him his opponent would pore over his novels to find incendiary passages. Webb accused Allen of not having "a record to run on" and attempting "character assassination."

 

The Allen campaign's attack came days after a Washington Post article headlined "Women's Vote Could Tip Close Contest." A Washington Post poll earlier this month found the two candidates virtually tied among female voters.

 

On Thursday, Webb's campaign posted a news release looking at parts of Allen's voting record with the headline, "George Allen Votes Against Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence." Allen has denied such complaints.

 

Allen's re-election bid has been dogged by complaints of racial insensitivity. Polls in mid-August showed him with a solid lead until he was caught on videotape referring to Webb campaign volunteer S.R. Sidarth, who is of Indian descent, as "Macaca." The term refers to a class of monkey.

 

Allen apologized repeatedly and said the term was something he made up. Later, two former associates told CNN that Allen used a racial epithet to describe African-Americans -- allegations Allen and other former associates denied vigorously.

 

Sexual scenarios in fiction novels by prominent political and governmental figures have been controversial in the past. Webb, on Washington Post radio Friday, referred to one.

 

"I mean we can go and read Lynne Cheney's lesbian love scenes if you want to, you know, get graphic on stuff," he said.

 

Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote the novel "Sisters," published in 1981, which included lesbian love scenes.

 

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out a news release Friday pointing to sexual passages in books by other GOP conservatives, including Dick Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/27/webb.allen/index.html

 

Why the hell would anyone vote for George Allen?

[snuffbox 0]

Some of that Webb literature is pretty fucked up.

[SuperJerk 0]

"Why the hell would anyone vote for George Allen?" part 2

 

From a New Republic piece that was published 4/27/06, before the "macaca" indicident. There is substantial evidence that Allen is both a racist and a Confederate sympathizer.

 

In the early '90s, Allen exuded the revolutionary spirit of the Republican insurgency. His 1994 inaugural address as governor promised to "fight the beast of tyranny and oppression that our federal government has become." That year, he also endorsed Oliver North for the Senate even as Virginia Senator John Warner and others in the party establishment shunned the convicted felon. At North's nominating convention, Allen proposed a somewhat overwrought approach for beating Democrats: "My friends--and I say this figuratively--let's enjoy knocking their soft teeth down their whining throats."

But, while Allen may have genuflected in the direction of Gingrich, he also showed a touch of Strom Thurmond. Campaigning for governor in 1993, he admitted to prominently displaying a Confederate flag in his living room. He said it was part of a flag collection--and had been removed at the start of his gubernatorial bid. When it was learned that he kept a noose hanging on a ficus tree in his law office, he said it was part of a Western memorabilia collection. These explanations may be sincere. But, as a chief executive, he also compiled a controversial record on race. In 1994, he said he would accept an honorary membership at a Richmond social club with a well-known history of discrimination--an invitation that the three previous governors had refused. After an outcry, Allen rejected the offer. He replaced the only black member of the University of Virginia (UVA) Board of Visitors with a white one. He issued a proclamation drafted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans declaring April Confederate History and Heritage Month. The text celebrated Dixie's "four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights." There was no mention of slavery. After some of the early flaps, a headline in The Washington Post read, "GOVERNOR SEEN LEADING VA. BACK IN TIME."

 

Allen became active in Virginia politics in the mid-'70s, when state Republicans were first learning how to assemble a new political coalition by wooing white Democrats with appeals to states' rights and respect for Dixie heritage.

Allen was a quick study. In his first race in 1979--according to Larry Sabato, a UVA professor and college classmate of Allen's--he ran a radio ad decrying a congressional redistricting plan whose main purpose was to elect Virginia's first post-Reconstruction black congressman. Allen lost that race but was back in 1982 and won the seat by 25 votes. He spent the next nine years in Richmond, where his pet issues, judging by the bills he personally sponsored, were crime and welfare. But he also found himself repeatedly voting in the minority on a series of racial issues that he seems embarrassed by today. In 1984, he was one of 27 House members to vote against a state holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, "Allen said the state shouldn't honor a non-Virginian with his own holiday." He was also bothered by the fact that the proposed holiday would fall on the day set aside in Virginia to honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. That same year, he did feel the urge to honor one of Virginia's own. He co-sponsored a resolution expressing "regret and sorrow upon the loss" of William Munford Tuck, a politician who opposed every piece of civil rights legislation while in Congress during the 1950s and 1960s and promised "massive resistance" to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning segregation.

 

In high school, Allen's "Hee Haw" persona made him a polarizing figure. "He rode a little red Mustang around with a Confederate flag plate on the front," says Patrick Campbell, an old classmate, who now works for the Public Works Department in Manhattan Beach, California. "I mean, it was absurd-looking in our neighborhood." Hurt Germany, who now lives in Paso Robles, California, explodes with anger at the mention of Allen's name. "The guy is horrible," she complains. "He drove around with a Confederate flag on his Mustang. I can't believe he's going to run for president." Another classmate, who asks that I not use her name, also remembers Allen's obsession with Dixie: "My impression is that he was a rebel. He plastered the school with Confederate flags."

 

 

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060508&am...a050806&c=1

[vivalaultra 0]

After early voting today, I was disappointed to realize that I'm going to be labeled a Republican for this coming term due me voting predominantly for the GOP, except for a couple races where I voted Independent, including a vote for Kinky Friedman. I've been listening to too much talk radio, and it's turned me evil.

[snuffbox 0]

You guys will do well with a Kinky governor. He will be Texas' new Coke Stevenson.

[vivalaultra 0]

If Kinky turns out to be as good a statesman as I hear Coke Stevenson was, I'll be satisfied. And when I heard Kinky and Jesse Ventura speak at my university, Jesse said that if the state of Texas voted Kinky into office, then he'd run for President in 2008, so I'm all for that. I'd vote Jesse Ventura over Hillary Clinton any day.

[SuperJerk 0]

I seem to care more about the Virginia race than the one in my own state.

 

Democrats: To fix Iraq, first GOP must go

POSTED: 5:51 p.m. EDT, October 28, 2006

Adjust font size:

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- The only remedy to a series of Iraq policy failures by President Bush is a Democratic takeover of Congress in the November 7 election, Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb said Saturday.

 

The former Republican, who was President Reagan's Navy secretary, said in the Democrats' weekly radio address that Bush's incompetence in Iraq had undercut the fight against terrorism.

 

Webb is locked in a close race in Virginia against Republican Sen. George Allen that could determine whether the Senate remains in GOP control.

 

"Since 2003, President Bush has laid out nine different plans for victory in Iraq, none of them serious and none of them workable. And most seriously, this incompetence has hindered our ability to fight international terror," Webb said.

 

It marked the second time since July 1 that Webb, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, has given the Democrats' address. Both times, his focus has been Iraq.

 

Webb warned in a newspaper column in 2002, the year before Bush ordered the Iraq invasion, that a war there would destabilize the oil-rich Middle East and mire U.S. forces in a bloody and protracted conflict. As of Friday, 2,810 American troops had died in Iraq.

 

"It gives me no great pleasure today to be saying `I told you so,"' said Webb, whose son, Jimmy, is a Marine on active duty in Iraq. "It pains me as an American that our casualties are again escalating while this president and his followers are still incapable of bringing forward an intelligent, commonsense approach to ending our involvement there."

 

Webb cited Iraq and other Bush-backed policies among his reasons for leaving the GOP. Now, other Republicans are reaching the same conclusions he did about the war.

 

"Over the past several weeks a few realists in the Republican Party, such as (Virginia) Sen. John Warner and former Secretary of State Jim Baker, have begun to make their voices heard. They are moving away from the fantasy world of this administration, toward real solutions," Webb said.

 

Allen has been one of Bush's most reliable supporters of the war, but Allen began playing down his stance three weeks ago after Warner, the respected Armed Services Committee chairman, returned from Iraq with a grim assessment of increasing sectarian carnage there.

 

With polls nationally and in Virginia showing low popularity for both the president and the war, Allen sought to align himself with Warner on the issue. However, Allen has refused to publicly differ from Bush's intent to keep troops in Iraq through his term.

 

"A Democratic Congress will demand from day one that the president find a real way forward in Iraq. We'll work with the administration and other Republicans to develop a concrete plan, but none of us are ready to settle for empty rhetoric, or the same old unacceptable results," Webb said.

 

In the Saturday address, Webb did not mention the latest controversy in the Virginia Senate campaign. On Friday, Allen's campaign selected sexually explicit passages from Webb's six war novels and thrust them into the race, claiming they are demeaning to women.

 

Webb's fiction evokes events he witnessed as a Marine in some of Vietnam's bloodiest battles and the scarring effect they had on those who fought in them. It includes descriptions of sex and rape.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/28/Dem...o.ap/index.html

 

I bolded the most interesting point. Some Democrats are selling bipartisanship, which may play better in the South. I'm sure that even to a lot of conservatives, divided government is starting to sound like a good idea. This administration was far more tolerable when the Democrats had control of the Senate from June of 2001 through the end of 2002.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I'm voting for a Republican for magistrate.

[SuperJerk 0]

I have no problem with a Republican that runs on a platform of keeping taxes low, the military strong, balancing the budget, and not over-regulating the economy. These are not things which the Democrats have handled well. But that's not the same thing as the current Republican platform of cutting taxes for the top, throwing money at weapons systems that don't work, supporting a failed foriegn policy, going additonal trillions into debt to privatize Social Security, ignore pollution laws and passing tax-dollar giveaways for corporations. The Republicans need to get back to their core principals, and away from one-stop shopping for their favorite special interest groups.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I was laughing my ass off at the Paul R Nelson stuff on O&A thursday. Hes running for Congress in Wisconsin or something...that whole race seems crazy. Hes accusing his democrat Ron Kind of using taxpayer dollars for research on Vietnamese prostitues, maturbation habits of old men and a study using teenage girls watching porn...

 

As for Maryland and Erlich, I think the only thing he promised that didnt happen in his 4 years was slots in MD and thats because the Democrats blocked it just because it was a Republican who brought it up. Ive heard that if Omalley wins, slots will be coming to MD real soon. I voted for Erlich and I probably will again but I cant see him winning another term..

[snuffbox 0]

O' Malley is a swell guy.

 

Paul Nelson here in Wisco, not so much.

[snuffbox 0]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15475741/?GT1=8618

 

B-more has dropped all the way down to 12th on the list of most dangerous American cities. Martin O' Malley deserves some credit for that, though the place is still a goddam jungle.

[Ripper 0]

I was just thinking what was my favorite campain commercial and then this commercial came on that said that the opposing canidate tried to kill his pregnant sister and starve his mother to death.

 

Good god I love political commercials.

[SuperJerk 0]

I was just thinking what was my favorite campain commercial and then this commercial came on that said that the opposing canidate tried to kill his pregnant sister and starve his mother to death.

 

Good god I love political commercials.

 

I feel cheated. The worst we've got where I live are candidates who want senior citizens to get raped in crooked nursing homes.

 

 

Hey, you know what this election was missing?

 

Gay marriage joins taxes, terrorism on Bush agenda

 

STATESBORO, Georgia (AP) -- President Bush has for months cast the midterm elections as a choice about just two issues: taxes and terrorism. Now, with polls predicting bleak results for Republicans, he is trying to fire up his party by decrying gay marriage.

 

"For decades, activist judges have tried to redefine America by court order," Bush said Monday. "Just this last week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and should be defended."

 

The line earned Bush by far his most sustained applause at a rally of 5,000 people aimed at boosting former GOP Rep. Max Burns' effort to unseat a Democratic incumbent. In this conservative rural corner of eastern Georgia, even children jumped to their feet alongside their parents to cheer and clap for nearly 30 seconds -- a near-eternity in political speechmaking.

 

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples must be given all the benefits of married couples, leaving it up to the state Legislature to decide whether to extend those rights under the structure of marriage or something else.

 

One alternative, civil unions, is an idea Bush supports. But he ignored that on the way to portraying the New Jersey decision as the kind of thing America should do without.

 

"I believe I should continue to appoint judges who strictly interpret the law and not legislate from the bench," the president said, earning more applause in the sweltering basketball arena at Georgia Southern University. He pointed to his nominations to the Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

 

The gay-marriage theme became a staple in Bush's political remarks last Thursday, the day after the New Jersey ruling on a touchstone issue for religious conservatives who are crucial to Republican electoral calculations. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said it was added merely to respond to the ruling -- not because his other messages were failing to connect.

 

But the lines, repeated to great enthusiasm at a second rally later Monday in Texas, mark one of the only substantive changes in the president's stump speech as he turns from raising money for Republican candidates to encouraging the GOP faithful to vote November 7.

 

To that end, he was focusing on the South.

 

After campaigning for Burns, trying to win back the seat conservative Democrat John Barrow took from him in 2004, Bush flew to the Texas district vacated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. DeLay resigned in June amid a series of investigations of his fundraising activities.

 

Organizers said Bush's appearance in a partially filled airport hangar in Sugar Land, Texas, drew more than 6,000 to support Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' write-in campaign to replace DeLay. The former Republican party star and Bush ally on Capitol Hill was nowhere to be seen, and the president never mentioned DeLay's name.

 

The rally finale was Texas-style dramatic, with Bush posing with Sekula-Gibbs with his Marine One helicopter and a multicolor fireworks show in the background.

 

The election in the reliably conservative district outside Houston is complicated. Republicans were legally barred from replacing DeLay's name on the ballot. So supporters must choose Sekula-Gibbs twice -- once for the special election filling out DeLay's term and again for the general election for the next Congress.

 

She faces former congressman Nick Lampson, who has out-raised and outspent her, giving Democrats a chance at a seat long in the GOP's hands. A Lampson victory would also be sweet revenge for an opposition party that DeLay fought at every turn while in office.

 

On Tuesday, Bush is heading back to Georgia, a state he twice won comfortably. Tuesday's rally, about 130 miles west of Statesboro, is aimed at helping another former GOP congressman, Mac Collins, oust Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall.

 

After Thursday, the president's schedule remains fluid, as his political advisers balance the need for help in tight races against the president's unpopularity.

 

Bush pleaded with Republicans not to give up keeping control of Congress -- and mocked Democrats.

 

"You might remember that about this time in 2004, some of them were picking out their new offices in the West Wing," he said. "The movers never got the call."

 

Democrats ridiculed him back, for an itinerary that took him to once-solid GOP areas.

 

"Clearly President Bush is more of a liability than an asset as he's forced to stump for candidates in districts that were once considered safe for Republicans," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Stacie Paxton.

 

The president played down the idea that next Tuesday's vote is a referendum on his embattled presidency. "This is different from a presidential campaign because it's not necessarily a national election, in that each congressional race really depends upon the candidates and how they carry the message," he said in an interview on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."

 

Bush also rejected the idea he'll become a lame duck after the elections. "I promise you I'm going to be president up until the very last day, and I've got a lot to do," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/30/bus...g.ap/index.html

[SuperJerk 0]

GEORGE ALLEN UPDATE

 

"Now you gettin' personal!"

 

So...Allen's hired thugs physically attack a guy for asking embarrassing questions, put a headlock on him from behind and throw his head into a glass door...the whole thing is caught on tape...and the lead story is still a bad joke John Kerry told 2 days ago?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

On the bright side, Webb is now ahead of Presidential hopeful Allen in the polls.

[2GOLD 0]

Like it or not, John Kerry was the last democratic nominee for the Presidency so he's going to be the lead story over Allen's crazed loons. Just how things work in the media. One was the face for an entire party, the other is just some guy running for senate in VA who may or may not be a Presidental nominee candiate someday. If this had happened in 2007 or 2008, Allen would have been the lead.

 

Is it right? Hell no, the Allen thing should have been a top story over John Kerry's inability to tell a joke. But the media is going to go with which guy is more high profile. That sadly is still Kerry.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Did anyone else catch the senatorial debate in Florida on MSNBC tonight? Katherine Harris has an incredible ass for her age, but little else going for her. The more she kept talking, the worse she sounded.

[snuffbox 0]

GEORGE ALLEN UPDATE

 

"Now you gettin' personal!"

 

So...Allen's hired thugs physically attack a guy for asking embarrassing questions, put a headlock on him from behind and throw his head into a glass door...the whole thing is caught on tape...and the lead story is still a bad joke John Kerry told 2 days ago?

 

ULTRA SOCIALIST WACK JOB MEDIA

[snuffbox 0]

Did anyone else catch the senatorial debate in Florida on MSNBC tonight? Katherine Harris has an incredible ass for her age, but little else going for her. The more she kept talking, the worse she sounded.

 

It's being replayed on Cspan2 right now.

[2GOLD 0]

How did Katherine Harris even get elected in the first place?!?! Screw her up for re-election, I want to know how she got the job the first time through following the Florida election debacle.

[SuperJerk 0]

How did Katherine Harris even get elected in the first place?!?! Screw her up for re-election, I want to know how she got the job the first time through following the Florida election debacle.

She's not the incumbent.

[2GOLD 0]

How did Katherine Harris even get elected in the first place?!?! Screw her up for re-election, I want to know how she got the job the first time through following the Florida election debacle.

She's not the incumbent.

 

I mean, how did she even get elected to the House of Representatives? Nevermind her going for the Senate, how did she even win a rep seat??

 

ETA: I forgot she was going for Senate now, thought she was going for Representative again, that's why I said re-election the first time.

Nevermind, she was in a republican district. Ok, answered my own question.

 

She doesn't have a shot at this does she?

[snuffbox 0]

I think the fact that Floridians weren't too embarassed by the debacle of '00 (omg u guys r still tak about that?!) might be a good indication of how a Kathy Harris can still be a viable political figure there.

[SuperJerk 0]

How did Katherine Harris even get elected in the first place?!?! Screw her up for re-election, I want to know how she got the job the first time through following the Florida election debacle.

She's not the incumbent.

 

I mean, how did she even get elected to the House of Representatives? Nevermind her going for the Senate, how did she even win a rep seat??

 

2002 was a good year to be a Republican, and there were probably enough people who were grateful she helped cost that awful Al Gore the presidency so Bush could eventually unite us after 9/11.

[Art Sandusky 0]

I'm worried about this election. All this talk of a Democratic takeover is predicated on the American people making a reasoned decision. They couldn't get it right in 2004 so I don't have much confidence two years later.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Katherine Harris was considered golden after 2000. People didn't really start to catch on that she was batshit insane until a little later. I like how she did an entire interview one time standing sideways to show off her rack.

[SuperJerk 0]

I get the feeling had Katherine Harris not been born rich and discovered politics, she'd be doing three shows a night at the Shady Lady Gentlemen's Club.