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Obama: McCain Fails to Mention Middle Class

September 27, 2008 By

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sought to score a quick post-debate advantage Saturday by traveling to two Republican-leaning states and accusing GOP rival John McCain of being out of touch with middle-class Americans.

“We talked about the economy for 40 minutes and not once did Sen. McCain talk about the struggles middle-class families are having,” Obama told more than 26,000 people who stood out in the rain with him on the campus of the University of Mary Washington.

Full Article

You know, I realize Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s best bet is to paint the Republican party as the Rich White Guy party, but to me it seems more like condemnation for not using the same buzzwords.  I guess it would work better if they actually did some homework, because even though he’s not throwing around the actual phrase “middle class,” McCain is saying a lot of the same things as Obama.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race, U.S. Economy

Fun With Joe Biden

September 25, 2008 By

I’m not much of a Daily Show fan, but I did dig this:

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Barack Obama Makes One of the Smartest Decisions in this Campaign

September 17, 2008 By

Report: Obama Turns Down Support From Lindsay Lohan
By Fox News Staff Writer

Lindsay Lohan wanted to stump for Barack Obama, but was turned down with a polite ”thanks, but no thanks,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Full Article

Admittedly, this isn’t a difficult decision, but it’s still a smart one!

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Sarah Palin's Private Email Hacked

September 17, 2008 By

The info is here, but basically, a group calling itself “anonymous” figured out the password to Governor Palin’s private Yahoo email.  What did they find?  Not much of anything.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Bob Schieffer on Animal Illustrations

September 14, 2008 By

I remember watching Dan Rather covering the 2000 Presidential Elections, and let’s face it, there was a point sometime that night where Dan seemed to lose his mind.  He busted out all of the similes, metaphors, and old country sayings he could.  Some didn’t see to make sense, but all were pretty darn entertaining.

Well, one of those saying has never made any sense at all to me:  if a frog had side pockets, he’d carry a gun.  I wrote that one off to Dan having been on the air for several hours straight, but it turns out he left out part of the saying!

Courtesy of Bob Schieffer’s most recent column over at CBS News

If it comes down to one of those “what if” situations, try the old bullfrog parable: “If bull frogs had side pockets they’d carry six shooters and wouldn’t be afraid of snakes.”

I don’t remember Dan’s context to know if he used the saying correctly, but it’s nice to know I didn’t sit there watching the guy slip off into insanity that night 8 years ago.

Anyway, check out Schieffer’s article.  It’s a fun read from one of the more genuine people in network news.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race, Media

"Wonder Woman" on Sarah Palin

September 13, 2008 By
From Philadelphia Magazine, here’s Linda Carter on Sarah Palin:

Don’t get me started. She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness… that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she?

It goes on and gets worse.

However, I find it interesting that Linda jumped on the hearsay/rumor bandwagon, as USA Today says:

But in her 21 months as governor, Palin has taken few steps to advance culturally conservative causes. Instead, after she knocked off an incumbent amid an influence-peddling scandal linked to the oil industry, Palin pursued a populist agenda that toughened ethics rules and raised taxes on oil and gas companies.

And she did so while relying on Democratic votes in the Legislature.

“She has governed from the center,” says Rebecca Braun, author of Alaska Budget Report, a non-partisan political newsletter. “She has in some small ways supported her religious views — for example, proposing money to continue the office of faith-based and community initiatives — but she has actually been conspicuously absent on social issues. She came in with a big oil and gas agenda, which really required Democratic allies to get through.”

John Bitney, who was Palin’s issues adviser during the 2006 campaign and later worked as her legislative liaison before she fired him, says, “She’s a very devout Christian. That’s a part of her core. But we never put those issues forward in the campaign. She takes the positions she takes because that’s who she is, but when she came into office, that wasn’t her agenda.”

Sarah Palin realizes that government isn’t about pushing a personal agenda. That, above all else, is what scares people.

Hat Tips: Tammy Bruce & American Thinker

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race, Celebrity Nonsense

Obama Ad Pokes Fun at McCain's War Injuries

September 13, 2008 By
I’m sure you’ve seen this:

Turns out McCain isn’t refusing to keep up with the times. It seems he can’t use a computer because his war injuries limit his ability to use a keyboard! (source)

As Jonah Goldberg quotes from The Boston Globe (3/4/00) in the above article:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan – Ted Williams is his hero – but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Classy, Barack, very classy.

Considering that the President probably has a secretary that can send emails for him, I’m just not understanding the problem.

HT: Gateway Pundit

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Florida Federation of Republican Women to Boycott Oprah

September 13, 2008 By

Florida Republicans boycott Oprah
By My Fox Tampa Bay

The Florida Federation of Republican Women has called for a boycott of the Oprah Winfrey Show because she refuses to have Governor Sarah Palin as a guest on her show until after the election.

Article Continues…
Click Here for Video (myfoxtampabay.com)

Is Oprah really a crusader for women’s rights, or is she just a crusader for ratings? Let’s face it, Oprah’s audience is mostly women, so it only makes sense that she’d present issues that interest them.

However, nowadays Oprah is pushing both political and spiritual agendas, and I have no doubt that she fears having Palin on the show would be construed as an endorsement, thus she’d inadvertently put the last nail in the coffin of Barack Obama’s campaign.

Closing thought: Why didn’t the FFRW start their boycott of Oprah back when she started campaigning for Obama?

HT: OneNewsNow

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race, Celebrity Nonsense

The "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" Picks Up Steam

September 12, 2008 By

Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks Competitive
By Lydia Saad

The positive impact of the GOP convention on polling indicators of Republican strength is further seen in the operation of Gallup’s “likely voter” model in this survey. Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

Full Article (Gallup)

The Democrats may actually “pull defeat from the jaws of victory” on multiple levels this election. I’m totally dumbfounded as to how they let that happen.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Palin & Global Warming: Finally, a Politician that Gets It!

September 12, 2008 By
From her ABC News interview last night:
“Do you still believe that global warming is not man-made?” Gibson asked Palin.

“I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change. Here in Alaska, the only Arctic state in our union, of course, we see the effects of climate change more so than any other area with icepack melting. Regardless though of the reason for climate change, whether it’s entirely, wholly caused by man’s activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet — the warming and the cooling trends — regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it and we have to make sure that we’re doing all we can to cut down on pollution,” Palin replied.

Full Article (ABC News)

Fact: The World is ever-so-slightly warmer, but not enough to cause alarm.

Fact: We don’t know what’s causing this. It could be man-made, but it may well be part of the climate’s natural behavior.

Fact: If anything is going to do Sarah Palin in, it’ll probably be her reluctance to jump on the man-made global warming bandwagon.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race, Global Warming

Obama Education Plan Needs to Spend More Time Studying

September 9, 2008 By

An interesting little read from Cato @ Liberty:

Senator Obama launched a major education counter-offensive today, in a speech laying out his vision for the future of American schooling. Calling for a renewal of the public school system to “meet the challenges of a new time,” Obama held up the National Defense Education Act of 1958 as a model for what he has in mind. He told the Dayton, Ohio crowd that “Eisenhower doubled federal investment in education after the Soviets beat us to space. That’s the kind of leadership we must show today.”

The trouble is, the NDEA was an expensive failure. Congress’ goal was to improve achievement in math and science following the Soviet Union’s launch of the Satellite Sputnik. There are no nationally representative science results from the time, but high school mathematics performance actually fell in the eight years following passage of the law, according to national norm studies conducted by the College Board, which administers the SAT and PSAT (see figure below). By 1983, math scores had still not returned to the level they had been at before the NDEA was passed.

Article Continues…

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Obama Wins World Vote

September 9, 2008 By
World wants Obama as president: poll
By Reuters Staff Writer

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said.

Article Continues… (abc.net.au)

And I should care…why? Ultimately, the only opinion that matters is that of the U.S. voting public. It takes more than popularity to run a country.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

McCain Aims At The Middle

September 7, 2008 By

McCain Targets GOP and Bush Along With Obama
By Associated Press Staff Writer

Barack Obama isn’t John McCain’s only opponent. Sometimes McCain sounds like he’s running almost as hard against President Bush and the Republican Party as he is against Obama, his Democratic rival for the White House.

Article Continues… (Newsmax.com)

Being ridiculously conservative and part of the 28% that approve of “Dubya,” I’m not too happy about this. However, this race is going to be won by swaying independents and undecideds, and I read somewhere (I’ll have to go digging for the stats at some point) that those groups traditionally vote for the more moderate candidate, so aiming moderate and distancing himself from Bush, while keeping the conservative base happy with a conservative VP nominee, is a brilliant strategy. I’m not much of a supporter of strategy over legitimate concern for putting “country first,” but McCain is still the lesser evil.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

RNC Ratings

September 6, 2008 By

I’m sure you’ve heard this already, but I can dig up a source if anyone really needs one.

So, the last night of the DNC featuring Barack Obama’s acceptance speech set a record for the most-watched night of a political convention ever.  The RNC wasn’t expected to match up.

Well, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech came close to tying Obama’s ratings, and McCain’s speech beat it.  Only one week after setting the previously-mentioned record, Obama lost it to his competitor.

As much as I’d like to say this means people are backing McCain, I’m a realist.  This race is still anyone’s game.  What I suspect actually happened was a little backlash from the amount of media coverage Obama’s been getting; everyone knows where Barack stands on the issues, but McCain’s side of the story hasn’t been heard.  My guess is that McCain’s ratings were bumped by curiosity.

Remember how I said I wanted to see both conventions set ratings records, as that would show people were genuinely interested in this country’s future?  Needless to say, this news makes me quite happy!

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Jeremiah Wright Returns

September 1, 2008 By

REV. STRIKES AGAIN
By GEOFF EARLE

“This ordinary boy [Obama] just might be the first president in the history of the United States to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania legally,” Wright said, referring to Michelle Obama, in a sermon at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston.

Article Continues… (New York Post)

Now that’s class, baby!

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Sometimes the Cartoons Say it Best

August 31, 2008 By

gm080830 Sometimes the Cartoons Say it Best
See more at Townhall.com

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Final Night of DNC Draws Record Number of Viewers

August 29, 2008 By

DNCC logo dnc2008 1 500 Final Night of DNC Draws Record Number of Viewers

38 Million View Obama’s Speech; Highest-Rated Convention In History
By Brian Stelter

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday as an estimated 38 million viewers watched on television, setting a new record for convention viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Article Continues… (New York Times)

So, Obama got more viewers than the Olympic opening ceremony, and this now rates as the most-watched political convention ever. Let’s hope this is due to genuine political interest, and not just sheep drawn to “The City of Blinding Lights.”

I guess next week’s RNC will give us our answer.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

DNC Day 1 Gets Lousy Ratings, but Does That Mean Nobody is Watching?

August 26, 2008 By
widget icon DNC Day 1 Gets Lousy Ratings, but Does That Mean Nobody is Watching?

Democratic Convention ratings tepid
By Michele Greppi and Andrew Krukowski

Preliminary national television ratings data from Nielsen Media Research indicate that interest in the first night of the Democratic convention as covered by the three major broadcast networks was tepid, to say the least.

Article Continues… (Crain’s New York Business)

Don’t get me wrong, as a registered Republican who leans Libertarian (mmmmm, small government), I’d love to say this means nobody cares about the Democratic Party. Love to.

However, I simply can’t. For starters, this is a preliminary rating, and those often change once more information comes in. In addition, this article doesn’t yet contain cable ratings, which could significantly increase the numbers of viewers. That’s most likely the biggest problem with a boat-load of networks carrying the same event; data collection on viewership requires more math.

Second, even though most polls say the majority of people still get their information from television, the number that find their news online is slowly growing. Let’s face it, why should I sit through an hour or more of network coverage when I can get a summary online almost immediately after it happens?

Third, I suspect that most casual viewers/voters won’t tune in until Thursday. Why listen to a bunch of filler when Barack is the main event?

While I’d love to say “nobody cares about the Democratic Party,” truthfully, I’d much rather see both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions kick some Olympic booty when it comes to ratings. Why? Because that would mean people cared more about the welfare of others and the direction this country is headed than about trivial entertainment. That would be a great day, indeed!

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race, Media

McCain = Hitler? Hardly!

August 24, 2008 By

McCain camp lashes ‘outrageous’ Madonna
By AFP Staff Writer

John McCain’s campaign hit back at Madonna on Sunday after the pop diva kicked off her world tour with a concert that bracketed the US presidential candidate with Adolf Hitler.

Article Continues… (AFP via breitbart.com)

Ah, the desperate attempts at attention from an aging pop diva…

But seriously, are we so far removed from the Holocaust that we don’t realize how steep a comparison to Hitler really is? John McCain hasn’t killed 6 million innocent people in an attempt to wipe out an entire race. Keep that in mind, Mo.

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race

Obama on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act

August 24, 2008 By


I’ll be the first one to say that banning abortion outright probably won’t solve anything (I suspect it would go over like Prohibition did in the 20′s, but with worse consequences), but how can a child be denied the right to life after birth? When do those basic human rights kick in?

Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Race
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