@fuscom, good point regarding McCain vs. Republican strategy. Republicans are extremely good at *winning* at all costs and I think that this move by McCain smacks of a desperate attempt to become more relevant. And also, bringing the presidential campaign into the bailout negotiations will definitely do more harm than good IMO.
I think I've now seen it all from the Republicans. They do whatever it takes to win, and this is just another low road they've chosen to drive down.
By now I'm sure you've heard that Senator McCain has suspended his campaign so that he can immediately get to D.C. and "help out" with the bailout proceedings.
He now feels that there's an extreme sense of urgency in D.C. surrounding the bailout, so much so that yesterday morning instead of returning a call to the Obama campaign regarding a joint discussion about the bailout, he met with Lady Lynn de Rothschild, a former Clinton backer that recently endorsed McCain.
He wants to expedite his trip back to Washington so much that yesterday he stayed in NY for a previously unscheduled interview with Katie Couric.
He's so incensed with the need to get back to D.C. that he's still attending the Clinton Global Initiative event in NY today before leaving.
And because it's so important to get to D.C. and work on the bailout plan, he's pulling out of the Friday night Presidential debate and his team has said that Palin's debate next week might be postponed as well.
So let me get this straight. Getting to D.C. to help with the bailout proceedings was so all-encompassing that he had to suspend his campaign, but at the same time he's meeting with wealthy supporters, giving unscheduled meetings, and attending events? Isn't the point of suspending his campaign so that he can get down to D.C. immediately and help out?
No, that's not the point. The point is that McCain is down in the polls, seen as weaker on the economy than Obama (by 10 points according to a recent Fox poll [PDF]) and needed to get back into the news cycle again in a way that shows him as a leader, so this is the stunt his campaign has cooked up. He hasn't done jack shit to help with the bailout thus far so what's with the sudden urgency, John?
My amazement isn't in her lying (all politicians lie) but rather in the media swallowing her talking points without really caring about whether they're true or not, caring more about what makes a good article or headline, or what attracts more viewers. She says that she opposes the Bridge To Nowhere so, hell, let's all talk about her opposition. Don't forget about her running her campaign as governor on the promises of the Bridge, or how after "she killed it" she still kept the money and just used it on other projects. Those points aren't interesting, so let's talk about things that get ratings.
My biggest problem is that we can't question her beliefs on abstinence and sex ed, because that is attacking her family.
Why can't I question her beliefs on abstinence as it has caused her to side with Bush and only advocate abstinence-only education? His personal/religious beliefs led him to think that abstinence-only education is the way to go when all research shows the opposite. Her doing the exact same thing because of her personal/religious beliefs is causing harm to the teenagers who need sex-related advice the most. That's a political flaw.
I'm a little confused as to how pointing out facts somehow makes me a left-winger talking point regurgitater? I don't even read Dailykos. I posted my opinions about her as a politician and then pointed out some hypocrisies regarding points in her speech.
@TJenkins, please elaborate on which "DNC approved talking points" I had in my original post that are false. McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal.... him marrying his current wife while still married.... what's false here?
The Obama campaign has done a much more thorough job debunking all of Palin's lies during the speech. Wow, there are a lot of them.
The speech last night solidified my opinions about Sarah Palin, and those are:
I've wanted to wash these opinions out as the vitriol that some speechwriting team put together, but Republican party strategists have insisted that the speech was hers, so I will attribute every word of her speech directly with her as a person and politician.
There were many points made in her speech that made me want to puke. Here is a sampling:
Her speech was sarcastic and baiting, not the type of speech she should give to first introduce herself to the American people. Lies, lies, lies, no real policies to point to, no real answers for the questions ahead, jabs thrown at her opponent but no meat to cling to on her own decisions.
Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.
"I never thought I would hear myself saying this," Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. "... While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."
They're doing it to get attention, to get people to buy it, to sell more ads. The article has little to do with the current misconceptions of Barack Obama so the cover and the article just aren't in sync at all. I was expecting a thorough breakdown of all the things people think Obama is and then a history of why people think that, but instead I got a history of his civil service work in Chicago. Gotta be a ploy just to get people riled up.
This is the one of the funniest photos I've seen in awhile. I know John McCain is an invigorating young man but this is just unbelievable. I can literally feel the electricity surrounding this event.
McCain 2008. Feel the excitement.
Decriminalizing marijuana and taxing the hell out of it would make a metric ton of money that states and the federal government could use to do some real good in the country. Like more nuclear reactors and wind farms to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources. Or hell, anything else that our country needs to do.
I think if people abused it then they'd just end up stoned and at their house lounging around all day, all the while paying through the nose to do so. Doesn't seem that harmful unless you put a dollar figure up against lost productivity.
This has got to be the first time I've seen something like this actually happen. Gordon Smith, a republican senator from Oregon, campaigning for office by telling his constituents how well he and Obama have worked together. He even uses the Obama campaign's Gotham typeface in the ad. Cool!
I think this is pretty smart for Smith, and reminds me of the ads that Richard Moore (Democrat running for North Carolina governor) ran in his campaign, saying that he was one of the first to endorse Barack Obama. He got my vote.
A fairly stunning new ad from Oregon's Republican senator Gordon Smith leaves little doubt as to which way the wind is blowing there.
In the ad, Smith, running hard away from Bush, associates himself at length and explicitly with Obama.
This is really sad news for anyone involved in journalism.
An ambulance rushed to the studio and a source at the network said Russert was briefly revived. But, the broadcasting lion apparently passed away either on the way or at a local Washington D.C. hospital.
My father-in-law passed away a few short months ago in exactly the same manner -- sudden heart attack, little that could have been done. What a blow to his NBC and real-life families.
Tim Russert, NBC journalist and political heavyweight host of "Meet the Press," has died after collapsing at NBC's Washington news bureau. He was 58 years old.
It's time. It's difficult to see him go but this is what his campaign needs to do now and I think it affords him some additional visibility with his new Libertarian-minded group called The Campaign For Liberty.
I was a big Ron Paul supporter early on, before the early primaries and caucuses, and it was tough to see him do so poorly in states like New Hampshire where the Libertarian slant is more pronounced. I never anticipated Paul winning the Republican nomination but I did enjoy his thoughts on shrinking the government and going back to traditional foreign policy.
Rep. Ron Paul's presidential campaign, a pugnacious, ideological crusade against big government and interventionist leanings in the Republican party, will officially end Thursday at a rally outside the Texas GOP's convention, ABC News has learned.
Has John McCain ever said anything that made you sit back and say, "damn, that's eloquent", or, "I agree with you"? It's almost every day that something comes up that makes me think McCain is just a complete idiot pandering to the 28% of America who he's probably already got sewn up.
I hate Joe Lieberman. He should be kicked out of the Democratic caucus.
Furthermore, during a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.
While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.
Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.
I don't doubt that Obama is saddened by his mentor's conviction, but the rest of his statement is from outer space. "This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew." Deja vu, anyone? I could swear I've heard it somewhere before. Sure enough--the racist, anti-American Rev. Wright whom we've all seen on video wasn't the Rev. Wright whom Obama knew for 20 years, either. And the outrageously bigoted Father Pfleger wasn't the Pfleger whom Obama assiduously supported with earmarks--another form of political corruption.
Yes, I just quoted Power Line. I think pigs are flying.
Should have done it last night. Now she gets to look stupid for the next few days, not like it's anything different.
He just makes it too easy. Next up, a commercial touting the benefits of gay sex and marriage.
Do we have any Hillary supporters here?
As an Obama supporter I'm not a fan of it, but I know it'll pull some votes in the Fall so it may be a necessary evil.
Gnorb, I'm somewhat satisfied with the decision but wholly dissatisfied with how Clinton supporters acted. They basically had a lynching party and were throwing racial epithets around like it was their fucking right to have their delegates count when their candidate (Hillary) supported the delegate sanctions. It's sickening and it further supports my theory that Hillary's base of "white blue-collar workers" just means "racists". See, even fake Hillary thinks so:
The Republicans absolutely did this on purpose in Florida, trying to screw the Democrats over on purpose.
This entire situation really pisses me off mainly because Hillary Clinton talks as if Obama and the entire DNC is out to disenfranchise these voters when her own campaign agreed to these restrictions many months ago. Now that she's going to lose the Democratic nomination she's conveniently forgotten that she was against counting these states to begin with, and is now trying to fight like a martyr for their cause. Give me a fucking break.
It is unfair to count Michigan and Florida in the manner that they originally voted because Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan and didn't campaign in Florida. Obama's campaign has agreed to give them half voting rights at the convention which I think is a generous offer. The only real way to make it right is to redo both primaries and allow a few days of campaigning in each state to try and make it fair. If that's not chosen then I don't think they should be seated.
And Obama needs to come out with a new commercial that quotes the Hillary campaign agreeing to the sanctions against these states since her, and the media, has conveniently forgotten.
He basically suggested that McClellan had not really written many of the strongly worded accusations, and even talked of a phone conversation he had with him earlier that day where McClellan said his editor had definitely made some tweaks.
The reporters on the panel promptly laughed in Ari’s face.
Gee, what a surprise that Dick Cheney's company is evil.
I can't believe someone could have Hillary's voice and mannerisms so well-practiced but, indeed, it's possible. If you close your eyes you really can't tell the difference.
This is seriously getting ridiculous now.
Yahoo News is reporting that an air strike in Sadr City that was aimed at "known criminal elements" also took out part of a hospital.
"They (the Americans) will say it was a weapons cache (they hit)," said the head of Baghdad's health department, Dr Ali Bistan. "But, in fact they want to destroy the infrastructure of the country."
He charged that the attack was aimed at preventing doctors and medicines reaching the hospital which is located inside an area of increased clashes between American troops and militiamen.
The corridors of the hospital were littered with glass splinters, twisted metal and hanging electrical wiring. Partitions in wards had collapsed.
We're continuing to violate the Geneva Conventions:
Art. 11. In no circumstances may hospital zones be the object of attack. They shall be protected and respected at all times by the Parties to the conflict.
Right after 9/11 the world was with us and felt our pain. That's all gone now and I don't know if it will ever come back.
Not to me, I carry my driver's license wherever I go. Drudge said that this would "be harmful to Obama" .... I guess because his only supporters in Indiana are the poor who cannot afford a photo ID? WTF?
As for Obama losing, yes he lost. However I think what Gnorb was trying to get at is that it wasn't one big downward trend for him in Pennsylvania but the opposite, he came back from many, many points down to lose by about 9-10 points. Yes he outspent her but he always outspends her because he's raised a ton more money than she has, and he continues to raise more each month. Has there even been a month in the last 12 months where she raised more than he did?
According to CBS News' Delegate Scorecard she only picked up +13 delegates and is still down by 120 or so. The North Carolina primary is coming in a couple weeks and there are 134 delegates up for grabs there with Obama having a 15-20% lead in many polls I've seen (it's my home state.) There's little doubt that although NC has fewer delegates than Pennsylvania, Obama's winning margin will be far larger than Clinton's in PA, so he'll be coming away with 10-15 more delegates which erases her PA victory additions. No pundits are talking about this though, and the Clinton campaign certainly likes to avoid problematic delegate math issues whenever possible.
I've talked to many people, and some consider The Clintons to be so devious and underhanded that they will do anything they can to get superdelegates to switch to her side, but I can't see that happening. If Obama keeps his lead (or extends it with many Obama-favorable primaries still to come) and goes into the convention with 1) more states won, 2) more pledged delegates, and 3) the popular vote, I can't see any possible scenario of Clinton still getting the nomination. There would be riots in the streets. Blacks across America would probably feel as disenfranchised as they felt in the 50s and 60s. It'd be pandemonium.
Regardless of who gets the Democratic nomination, about 50% of American democrats will be thoroughly pissed off, and some will vote for McCain in the election, or simply not vote. For a long time I thought Obama would dominate McCain in a general election, but now I'm thinking that either Democratic candidate has their hands full, especially as the race drags on and the Dems get uglier and uglier compared to McCain.
» Next... ... Last Reply: 1 month ago by Mike.
I have no respect for Nancy Pelosi whatsoever after she completely disregarded Kucinich's 35 articles for impeachment against Bush. She dismissed and didn't even read them.