Obama Won

I think Obama won the first debate. It was close but I think Obama pulled ahead.

The reason it seems like a tie is because there were low expectations for McCain. McCain needed to win this debate. A tie isn’t good enough. The focus was foreign policy. McCain’s strength. But still Obama was able to hold his own.

Change That We Won’t Notice

Republicans are always complaining about pork barrel spending. Sarah Palin opposed (after she supported) the bridge to nowhere! McCain doesn’t support DNA testing for wolves! Um, well, that’s nice but so what? McCain is trying to paint himself and Palin as these reformers against wasteful spending when in fact, these wasteful projects are a tiny drop in the massive bucket that is the federal budget.

What’s really amusing is that McCain had to hijack Obama’s “change” theme. I guess “experience” wasn’t getting them the results they were looking for.

WOW

PALIN SLAPPED THE SPIT OUT OF OBAMA LAST NIGHT.  THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT HIT THEM DO THEY? LET ME TELL YOU, THE GAME IN THIS ELECTION IS CHANGED THANKS TO PALIN…YOU GO GIRL… HEHEHE.

YOU KNOW, IF/WHEN OBAMA LOSES IN NOV. WE CAN LOOK TOWARD HIS SNUB OF HILLARY AS THE TURNING POINT BECAUSE IT GAVE MCCAIN AN OPENING TO PUT SARAH PALIN ON THE TICKET THAT HAS ELECTRIFIED THE COUNTRY. PALIN IS NOW THE NEW AND EXCITING ONE AND REPUBLICANS ARE ON FIRE.  INDEPENDENTS NOW SEE MCCAIN AND PALIN AS CHANGE AND MAVERICKS. IT’S TOO BAD FOR OBAMA AND DEMOCRATS BUT I CAN’T SAY IT’S SURPRISING. DEMOCRATS KNOW HOW TO LOSE…ITS THEIR EXPERTISE!

I DEDICATE THIS SONG TO PALIN’S SPEECH LAST NIGHT, BECAUSE THE GAME DEF. NOW BELONGS TO PALIN

UGK – THE GAME BELONG TO ME

The Racism Excuse

Very good article!  Had to post it.  I have to agree with the narrative being that “racism” has taken over and that is the reason Obama has lost a 15 and 12 point lead from June.  Maybe if Colin Powell were running, there would not be these problems.  He had the experience and judgment a lot of people trusted in a world where we can get blown up at any moment by Iran or any country that hates us.  I feel like the media’s racism talk is just an easy excuse to make up for the fact that the media preferred and pushed a candidate has been seen now as a celebrity with not a lot “there” there.  Frankly, I feel it may be too late for him to change the perception that he’s a celebrity being pushed on us like the media pushes on us Paris Hilton or Tila Tequila.

Why does no one talk about McCain’s age and agism in society being a factor in a potential McCain loss?  In fact, why do we never hear what McCain has to do to win, only Obama?  To say that racism is to blame for Obama losing is a slap to America.  Is America free or racism? Of course not.  We still have a long way to go, and I don’t even see an Obama presidency as particularly furthering racial equality (as he has completely abandoned a lot of things like affirmative action).  Americans are too stupid to elect Obama for President?  No, maybe people looked at what they saw, and they did not like what they saw.  These cries of racism will get bigger as Obama’s numbers slide more and more.  Obama will be defeated this November in my opinion, and I will get so sick of the media saying that it’s due to racism, furthering a racial divide in the country.  A black man could have been President.  Colin Powell, an African American with gravitas, foreign policy experience, knowledge and a war hero, would have won easily in my opinion. If Obama wasn’t being seen as an overexposed person media figure, as new polls show that 48% believe he has, and had more of a record of accomplishment, it would be so much different.  If Obama had served this country and served 14 years in Congress and the Senate like the man he likes to emulate, JFK, did, he would have a shot.

The media whining will not help Obama.  Obama whining will not help him.  If he wanted to be seen differently, he would have agreed to do townhalls with John McCain like he said he would, to address American voters from across America.  Actually if he wanted to be seen differently, he would have waited to get more experience in the Senate to settle the uneasiness people feel about him.  Of course there are people who will not vote for Obama on the basis of color.  But every poll has shown that less people would vote for a female candidate than an African American one; however Hillary Clinton probably would have won 310+ electoral votes.

By the way, John McCain has passed Obama in the Gallup daily tracking poll.  Apparently, Obama, you should have at least seriously considered Hillary, the woman who arguably won more votes than you.

Convention ratings:

NBC: 4.85 Million

ABC: 3.78 Million

CBS: 3. 52 Million

(9 PM NBC ‘Deal or No Deal’ 10.95 Million)

Anyway, here’s the article.

Things are supposed to be looking rosy for Democrats this November. But in case Barack Obama loses the Presidency, an excuse is all ready to go: America’s too racist to elect a black man. Not even, in his Vice Presidential pick Joe Biden’s inimitable description, one so “articulate and bright and clean.”

This narrative has gained traction with the Democratic Presidential candidate’s recent setbacks in the polls. We hear it from the convention crowd in Denver and liberals in the press. The older, poorer, white, often Hillary voter who sounds ambivalent about the Obama coronation is an enticing scapegoat.

“Call me crazy, but isn’t it possible, just possible, that Obama’s lead is being inhibited by the fact that he is, you know, black?” wrote John Heilemann in New York magazine earlier this month. “What makes Obama’s task of scoring white votes at Kerry-Gore levels so formidable is, to put it bluntly, racial prejudice.”

In this week’s Newsweek (and on Slate), Jacob Weisberg reasoned that only some “crazy irrationality over race” could prevent Mr. Obama from winning the White House. If he does win, America will have reached post-prejudice Nirvana. “If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth,” Mr. Weisberg continued. “To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn’t just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation’s historical decline.” Wow. Vote for Barack, or America is as irredeemable as many foreigners believe.

Part and parcel of this argument is that Republicans are bound to play the race card. The Democratic candidate made this case himself in late June. “They’re going to try to make you afraid,” Mr. Obama told a rally in Florida. “They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. ‘He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’”

After a second round of this — recall the Obama line “He doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on the dollar bills” — the McCain campaign dared complain that at no time has the GOP candidate said anything remotely about his opponent’s race. Predictably, Mr. McCain was charged with playing the “race card” himself.

Not so long ago Mr. Obama was the Tiger Woods of American politics. As Geraldine Ferraro indelicately pointed out this spring, his African heritage helped him cast his candidacy in a history-changing light. Now, merely because the McCain campaign has begun to get its act together and raise issues like taxes and foreign policy, Mr. Obama is suddenly the victim of rampant Jim Crow sentiment?

The bitter glee that some Democrats find in their imagined racist America is a strange turn for Denver. Thursday’s nomination of the first African-American candidate by any major party will in fact make history. Mr. Obama defeated the party favorite, Hillary Clinton, with a broad appeal that largely steered away from race. His success says something good about Democrats and the country.

There are Americans who judge politicians by their race, or gender, or religion; Mr. Obama will certainly carry the black vote in November because he is black and because he is a Democrat. But we reckon that a scant number of voters are motivated by racism, and that number’s growing smaller by the day. Virginia elected a black Governor two decades ago, and Illinois has had two black Senators. America has had two black Secretaries of State, and major corporations are run by black CEOs. No other Western democracy has done as well at opening up political, business and other arenas to minorities.

Mr. Obama’s descent from his Icarusian heights earlier this spring reflects a shift in this race that has nothing to do with race. A skin-deep Obamamania had energized the country. Now that’s giving way to serious consideration of credentials and policy substance. After all, voters are choosing the world’s most powerful man. Mr. McCain has been drawing contrasts with his younger rival to close the gap in the polls. We’ll see if the trend continues.

As a matter of sober fact, many Americans look at the junior Senator from Illinois and worry, as his Democratic Vice Presidential candidate pointed out last year, that he isn’t “ready” for the job. Does this mean that anyone who agrees with Joe Biden’s previous assessment is a racist? Do Democrats really think so little of their fellow Americans?

“Clinton’s Thankless Job” (Washington Post)

As Hillary Clinton prepares to make her speech tonight, I found a very good article by Marie Coco of the Washington Post.  Hillary Clinton will be parsed over and is expected to unite the party.  Every breathe and pause she takes will be parsed over by the media as whether or not she has successfully “united the party.”  The problem is that Obama’s problem is Obama’s problem.  It’s not Hillary Clinton’s job to unite the party for him, it’s his.  But like the story of so many women, its the woman who has to come behind and clean up after the men.  You see the covers of Obama on Time, Newsweek, People, and all of these magazines that give him such (unwarranted) adulation, I can’t help but admire Hillary Clinton.  Just as she beat Obama in debate after debate, yet the Obama-media gave adulation to Obama, though all he did was repeat a lot of what Hillary said, she now has to put on a good face and keep going, trying all she can to clean up for this man. She is expected to unite the party and has to do it with a smile or else she will be barbecued as she was in the media because she didn’t automatically endorse Obama that night.   The article has very good points:

If there is a political job more fraught with peril than running to
become the next commander in chief, surely it is being cast as
cheerleader in chief.

Hillary Clinton
will be damned if she looks too methodically perfect, too much the
purveyor of practiced routine and not enough the cheery personification
of enthusiasm. She’ll also be damned if she’s too exuberant, too
obviously raising her voice in unbridled exhortation for the team. She
will either be deemed too cool or all-too-cagily warm.

Clinton can’t win tonight. But then, she knows that.

She is set to address the Democratic National Convention
in Denver to give the valedictory address of her 2008 campaign — a
race in which she went further than any woman in American history
toward the elusive goal of electing a female president. But this speech
is also meant to soothe her bruised supporters and get them to support Barack Obama,
a man who — for not a few of them — has brazenly overtaken the
more-qualified woman to grab the prize and, in so doing, has writ large
the story of their own lives.

Clinton is a woman who knows how to lose — to lose any shred of
privacy, to lose face, to lose any expectation of being treated with a
modicum of respect by the talking heads in the media and, now, to lose
a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination that she expected to
win. As if to heap insult upon injury, the Obama campaign let it be
known that it did not for a minute seriously consider Clinton as a vice
presidential candidate, notwithstanding the 18 million votes she earned
during the primaries and her demonstrated ability to win over white,
working-class voters who remain cool to Obama and who are necessary for
victory in the fall. A reference to those 18 million cracks in the
glass ceiling, which the Obama forces conceded could appear in the
party’s platform, would be just words.

In her 2003 memoir, “Living History,” this is how Clinton described
her reaction to her earliest political loss, during her senior year in
high school: “I ran for student government president against several
boys and lost, which did not surprise me but still hurt, especially
because one of my opponents told me I was ‘really stupid if I thought a
girl could be elected president.’ As soon as the election was over, the
winner asked me to head the Organizations Committee, which as far as I
could tell was expected to do most of the work. I agreed.”

The work of the next phase of Clinton’s career has been going on
doggedly, and often with little notice, since she suspended her
campaign on June 7. She’s been a campaign emissary for Obama to the
Sheet Metal Workers union; to Hispanics and others in New Mexico and
Nevada; to older women in South Florida who still haven’t quite
accepted the loss of what for some of them may be their last chance to
see a woman elected president. The speech Clinton made in departing
from the race was, among Democratic activists, “probably the most seen,
talked about, buzzed about speech of the campaign,” says Mike Lux, a
consultant for Democratic interest groups and an Obama supporter. It
went over well, even among Obama loyalists.

That tends to be how Clinton does things. The public Clinton doesn’t usually show hints of the private pain that burns inside.

The same cannot be said of some of her supporters, who can be
expected to stage at least a few demonstrations of their fury at the
outcome of the race and at what they perceive as repeated displays of
disrespect that Obama has shown their hero. It is not lost on them that
in selecting Joe Biden
as his running mate, Obama chose a Washington insider who voted in
favor of the Iraq war — two of the sustained attacks on Clinton that
Obama used to devastating effect during the primaries.

The television cameras will linger on angry and tearful Clinton
delegates in the convention crowd. The commentators will no doubt take
this as a demonstration of disunity — and not a few will, of course,
blame Clinton.

But it is usually the job of the party nominee to build unity once a
vanquished rival has conceded and made the right gestures. Unless the
loser happens to be a woman. Then it’s just like high school, and she
must do the work.

Obama on Taxes

In recent ads by John McCain, Obama is portrayed as the candidate who will raise taxes and make times even tougher. The Obama Campaign has worked to refute these claims. Watch the video below

My advice to Obama is to keep this up and continue to emphasize that American families would have a bigger tax cut under his plan and not McCain’s.

Worthless Nancy Pelosi – Worst Speaker Ever?

“I don’t agree that it’s a good idea to impeach the president unless we have a real case against him,” Pelsoi said, when asked by the Marin Independent Journal about the criticism during a reception that preceded her talk. “You can’t impeach a president because you disagree with his policies. You have to have some high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Statements like this really make me wonder what is wrong with this woman. Is she seriously saying that the Bush administration has not committed high crimes and misdemeanors? Is she getting paid (like she was paid for FISA)? Is she being blackmailed? Is she just stupid? That quote from the Marin Independent Journal makes a strong case for the latter argument.

Whatever the reasons behind her actions, I don’t think many could argue that Pelosi’s time as Speaker of the House has been dismal. Congress is wildly unpopular but Democrats will hold on to their majority. I just hope they wise up and vote in a different speaker. If they continue at this pace, it may not hurt them now but it will hurt them in 2010 (particularly if Obama wins the presidency).

To be fair, it’s not just Pelosi messing things up. A lot of the Democratic leadership could use retooling but that is a rant for another day.

The 2008 Primary and double standards

I was reading an old post-primary debate analysis not long ago. It really made me think. We had two completely different standards, and the two candidates lived in alternate universes.

We have a female candidate and an African American candidate, both historic candididacies, and yet, only Obama’s candidacy was viewed in the media as a great accomplishment for America.

Hillary Clinton plays “divisive” and “racial” politics for merely mentioning the fact that she gets more working white class support and Obama was losing ground in that area. Even mentioning the word white is a racist code word, but Obama isn’t sending sexist signals by saying “you’re likable enough,” “at periods when she feels a little down” or “the claws are coming out.” No, those aren’t sexist code words, in fact, lets just say there is really no such thing as sexist code words.

Hillary’s surrogates are out of line for bringing up his middle name or saying it was a good thing he went to a muslim school in his childhood, while Obama’s surrogates talked about examining Hillary’s tears and questioning them. We have Obama’s surrogates saying there would be riots in the streets if Sen. Obama were to somehow not win the nomination. But Hillary’s surrogates were out of line.

We had a candidate that was able to take everything from the Republicans and the media for over 8 years and still managed to keep going, fight back, become the Senator and be re-elected to the Senate, and a candidate who has gotten nothing but fawning coverage since running for Senate against the formidable Republican candidate Alan Keyes; and yet, it was Obama who was best able to beat the Republicans.

We had one candidate who fought hard to take on the healthcare industry in an ultimately losing battle in the 1990′s and now knows what it would take to get things done and get these kinds of things passed, and one who has shown no evidence of taking on hard fights; and yet, Obama is the one who will get things done in Washington.

We had one candidate who we knew at least was involved in an administration that worked across party lines to get things done, and one who says he will but has shown no evidence of doing that. And yet, Obama is the unifying, bipartisan one.

We have one on one debates where Hillary is clearly the winner in every focus group, where every exit polls show people who cared about the debates chose her, and yet Obama is so “cool and collected” and “presidential” in the debates, according to the media.

We had two presidential candidates who during a debate was asked a question about a new leader in the world. Neither candidate was specifically asked, but Obama turned to Hillary as if it were her question to answer-likely because he didn’t know the answer. Showing her depth of knowledge, she answered the question. And yet, Obama is the great intellect.

We had a candidate who rightly called out the media for the blatant sexism that went on in the campaign and one who experienced no racist comments but preemptively calls or has his surrogates call any criticism of Obama, such as being presumptuous, a racist attack. And yet, Hillary is the one who constantly plays the victim card.

We had one candidate who was attacked by the moderators as well as other candidates including Sen. Obama in debate after debate and still managed to make it through and keep going; then we have one candidate who was asked some difficult questions in a debate and whined about the questions, the questioners, and the candidate who used the questions to raise questions, as well as vowing no more debates; and yet, Obama is the one who can show the biggest and best contrast against John McCain during the upcoming debates.

We had one candidate who constantly leveled attacks on Bill Clinton by slyly sending out surrogates to accuse Bill Clinton of being racist and constant attacks on the Clinton record; and yet we have the same candidate promising to make many things the same way they were during those terrible Clinton years.

We had one candidate who was able to connect with the economy and had detailed language on how to put families back on track, most probably because she was part of an administration that helped the economy. We know what the Clinton’s did with the economy, how we had a wonderful relationship with many of our allies in the world, how we had peace and prosperity from people who had expertise in creating jobs and benefits for people in Arkansas for years; we have no idea how Obama will deal with the economy or any other issue for that matter. We’re expected to put our trust in a first term senator who ran a year after he was elected and who has not done anything within Illinois to prove any substantial abilities to help families, in fact, who has people on his team who contributed to putting his constituents in rat infested housing and doing nothing about it. And yet, Obama is the safer and better pick.

We had a candidate who had foresight into the Georgia and Russia crises back in April, and one who had to deliver two different statements on the same day in order to sound better on the conflict after meeting with advisers, because he didn’t know what to say or what was going on. And yet, Obama is the leader we can trust.

We have one candidate who attacks another candidate for being entrenched in a corrupt system and promising change while he defends and uses the corrupt system within Chicago in which he fought against any type of change when Republicans and Democrats came together to try and do just that. And yet, Obama is the reformer.

We have a candidate who was not afraid to go on stations and answer questions from people who will publicly denigrate her campaign, such as Keith Olbermann, or someone who has not exactly been a favorite to Democrats such as Bill O’Reilly and can go toe to toe with them, and someone who is afraid of Fox News and constantly whines about the news channel saying bad things about him and his wife and refusing to go on the station to answer hard questions he once promised he would And yet, Obama, not Hillary, is the open and honest one.

We have a candidate who was skewered by the press for Bosnia and exagerations and whose baggage has been rummaged through for years, while we have a candidate who publicly takes credit for things he had no involvement in and the media is dead on the subject, just as they have been on so many subjects on Obama’s past. And yet, Obama is the forthright candidate and you just cannot trust Hillary.

We had one candidate who didn’t stutter and stammer in the face of hard questions, who didn’t require a team of 300 foreign policy advisors emailing her the question reporters would give and answers to give them, who doesn’t need a teleprompter to sound a certain way, who doesn’t have to stay on a set script to sound competent, whose “eloquence” only comes through in a scripted and teleprompter delivered speech and one who does. Like someone said, Obama doesn’t know what to say or do unless somebody told him. And yet, Obama is the magnificent one who will deliver us. All hail the wonderful savior from Chicago who has no experience or evidence of change but can deliver a damn good speech pretending to be outside of Washington corruption.

But in the end, great PR, marketing, close control of image and stage craft will only take one so far. Just ask Gov. Deval “Just words?!” Patrick about it.

Liar Liar Pants on FIRE? More National Enquirer Scoop on The Edwards Affair.

NOW, The ENQUIRER has uncovered more blockbuster information, including:

After Edwards confessed the affair to his wife, he restarted it, and was sexually involved with Rielle when she became pregnant.

Despite his denials, Edwards WAS aware that his former finance committee chairman, Fred Baron,  was funneling money to Rielle.

Uh oh…looks like John Edwards’s story continues to have more holes than a swiss cheese sandwich.

WHY no roll call, Obama?!

For the first time in over 40 years since LBJ was nominated unopposed, the Obama campaign has stated they not only do no want Hillary Clinton to be put into nomination, they may not even allow a roll call. Now why the heck is that? Because he doesn’t want to show that he BARELY won the nomination. As Jake Tapper point’s out:

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign appears reluctant to have any sort of roll call vote at the Democratic convention this month. Why? They have no interest in highlighting the narrowness of his victory.

This would mean the first Democratic convention without a roll call vote since President Lyndon Johnson ran unopposed for reelection in 1964.

The problem with not allowing Hillary’s delegates to get their say on why she should be nominated or even be able to support her through roll call will be more harmful for unity than any other way. Even the spokesperson of PUMA says that they will accept the results if things are done in an open convention way. Is Obama afraid he will lose? Guess what, this was an extremely close race. It wasn’t all about you, Mr. Obama.