West Virginia Blue
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The smoking gloves in Charleston Friday weren't that of Joe Frazier but Barack Obama's formidable running mate, Joe Biden. In the campaign's first major appearance in West Virginia since the primary, Senator Biden spoke to a crowd of around 2,000 enthusiastic supporters.
I took some annual leave from work to volunteer for the campaign, and I am glad I did. It was a great event. I showed up at around 6 am and was put to work immediately. I didn't have the most glamorous tasks- picking up food for Senator Biden out at Famous Daves; collecting volunteer sheets from the crowd and directing them through the Secret Service metal detectors; and folding up chairs, tables and crowd barriers at the end. I did, however, have a really good time. I was able to witness the organized chaos that is a major campaign event. I left around 4 pm after a long day's work.
In terms of the event itself, it was excellent. The speakers did a great job warming up the crowd. The best moment of the day took place when Senator Byrd spoke to the crowd and told everyone that Biden was an honorary West Virginian via his upbringing in the coal and steel town of Scranton, PA. Byrd also lauded the skills of Senator Obama. Byrd's support of Obama brings his career full circle and represents, in my mind, the passing of the torch from the old Democratic Party to the new Democratic Party, which respects the ways of the past while moving the country into a progressive future.
Senator Biden's speech was the type of firebrand stump that is one of his best attributes. Biden is the type of guy that people can relate to. Biden's background is similar to many West Virginians and he is one of the Senate's only non millionaires. This comes through when he is talking as he seems genuine in what he says. There were a lot of union folks in the crowd and Biden's was the type of speech that really fires up the unions. Biden's oratory skills are a mix of union leader, statesman and factory worker. Biden can get emotional when he talks about the issues facing average folks and he can build toward peaks in his speeches in a way that gets the blood boiling. He did a great job and I am more than happy that Senator Obama chose him as his running mate.
OBAMA HAS NOT WON YET
*Breaking news! Senator Obama has not been elected yet! I realize Obama's lead in the polls look insurmountable but Obama supporters cannot get complacent in the final days of this long journey. If this election is close it gives Republican operatives an opportunity to steal it and they will. If you don't believe me just look at Cuyahoga County, Ohio in 2004 and the shenanigans in Florida in 2000. Let's finish strong and take our country back!
THE HOAX THAT BROKE THE ELEPHANT'S BACK
*Many conservative news organizations reported earlier this week that a lady in Pittsburgh had been attacked by a large BLACK man for having a McCain sticker on her bumper. Photos of the woman showed a large backward B carved into her face, which was supposed to signify Barack Obama. Police have now declared the attack a hoax and the woman that portrayed it is likely to be charged with giving false statements to authorities.
It is shameful the way that conservative news outlets like Drudge and Fox News picked up the story as they emphasized the man's race and called it political mutilation. The underlining current on this story was that a white woman was attacked by a black man supporting Obama, which many feel would have slight political implications for southwester PA. For everyone's sake, thankfully this was all made up. It is embarrassing though as a Fox News VP stated that this hoax might have just sealed the deal for a McCain loss in PA. Even if some lunatic had committed this crime why would it in any way be used politically against Obama? We all know why and it is a four letter word that many desperate conservatives are willing to use against Obama to win this election- RACE. There is simply no place for that kind of politicking in the United States. Here is a link about the story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
THE PALIN WAR WITHIN
The McCain campaign is beginning to fold under the pressure of recent polls that have them down nationally by huge margins. One camp within the campaign places most of the blame for their current predicament on the choice of Sarah Palin as VP. They cite her inexperience, naivety and poor performances in national interviews and the debate as major factors that have driven folks to Obama.
The other camp represents strong Palin supporters who feel the VP candidate is becoming the scapegoat of a poorly organized campaign. This contingent also feels that Palin was horribly managed by her handlers and that her image nationally has suffered greatly because of it.
Alas, there is a third camp and this one probably represents the few realists at McCain HQ. These folks think that Palin was highly unqualified and ill prepared for the national stage and that her weaknesses were emphasized by her handlers. Here is a link with more about the infighting:
The question remains whether or not Sarah Palin has a political future in the GOP if the McCain-Palin ticket is molly whopped on election day. It is my prediction that many in the GOP base will blame McCain for holding down Palin and not vice versa. Remember, most of these folks are only lukewarm on McCain anyway so throwing him under the bus will not be a problem. That being said, I think Palin is the favorite for the 2012 Republican nomination. Her two main competitors will be the almost as folksy but slightly more substantive Huckabee and the always well financed Romney. I also imagine some foreign policy figure will rise to the occasion to vie for the military and neo-con vote. It will be another interesting primary season and hopefully divisive as hell for the GOP.
via AmericaBlog, a Daily KOS diary that is more than a little surprising. I would need to see some confirmation of this response before I believed it. But, if true, it is very good:
"Well, it looks like the candidate in this election who will be the ultimate uniter won't by Barack Obama but Sarah Palin. Yesterday I was booowled over to learn that some rabid, rabid Republicans who live in rural Missouri now agree with me on one thing: They hate Sarah Palin. Hate her. The final nail was Thursday night's VP debate....
It turns out that they really, really, really, really did not like the fact that Palin flat out did not answer many of the questions. They found that to be outrageous. After all, the entire reason they were watching the debate was to see her answer questions, doggone it.
They also did not like all her attempts to be folksy. To them it just came off as, um, I think the word they used was "phony." In fact, the candidate who seemed to them to be real and more like them was not Sarah Palin but Joe Biden.
The women, in particularly, did not like Palin's flirty, winky act. That went over like a lead balloon. And both the men and the women did not like her "Can I Call You Joe" schtick. They found that to be disrespectful to Senator Biden."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...
"Governor Palin is eager for the opportunity to contrast her record of reform to the hollow rhetoric of a politician who has spent the bulk of his adult life inside the confines of Washington, D.C.," said Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.
John McCain's going to St. Louis to debate Sarah Palin?
PALIN IS LYING TO AMERICA
John McCain's doubletalk express is in store for a major public embarrassment as the record of his Vice Presidential running mate begins to surface. Let me be frank, Governor Sarah Palin has lied to the public about her position on pork barrel politics. Pork barrel spending, or earmarks, occurs when a politician obtains government money for local projects to earn favor with local voters.
John McCain has made damnation of pork one of the main themes of his campaign despite the fact that most earmarks greatly benefit local communities throughout the country by helping pay for hospitals and much needed infrastructure. Despite McCain not differentiating between good and bad earmarks, everyone agrees that some of these projects are outrageously wasteful. McCain has often pointed to the "bridge to nowhere" project in Alaska as one of these wasteful projects. The "bridge to nowhere" was a $400 million project designed to replace a ferry from Ketchikan, Alaska to the Ketchikan Airport, which only serves 200,000 passengers a year- the island itself only has 50 inhabitants. The bridge was to be as long as the Golden Gate Bridge but by comparison the Golden Gate has over 48 million passengers a year.
The obvious waste of money presented by this bridge was apparent to everyone. However, the corrupt and money hungry Alaskan Republican Party, which has made Alaska the nation's leader in federal earmarks per capita, refused to back off until it was obvious the bridge was a damaging political issue. Governor Palin was an avid early supporter of the project. In October 2006 Palin was asked whether she continued to support the bridge to which she replied, "Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now - while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." That differs a bit from Palin's recent speeches like the one at the GOP convention where she said, "I told the Congress thanks, but no thanks, for that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves."
We all know that many politicians lie but do they have to be so arrogant about it. There are actually pictures of Palin wearing a t-shirt in support of the bridge to nowhere and once the bridge project was scrapped she still spent that $400 million on other pork projects in Alaska. It was only a matter of time before these lies came to the public's attention and shame on McCain and Palin for thinking Americans were stupid enough to not investigate Palin's bogus claims.
I wish the lies stopped there but they do not. Palin's support of wasteful pork goes so much deeper and the more we find out about her record the more we realize McCain's decision to choose her as his running mate was driven by political ambition and not the desire to find someone best fit to be second in command of the greatest country on earth.
While Palin was mayor of Wasilla she got $27 million in pork for her town of less than ten thousand people. The question that must be asked is whether or not this money was spent on useful public projects or wasteful political pandering. Who should we ask? Let's ask the self-anointed pork buster himself? This according to CNN, "In a 2001 statement opposing a transportation spending bill McCain singled out for criticism about $3 million worth of those projects (for Wasilla). McCain's list of objectionable spending included a $2.5 million road project for the town that then had a population of 5,500, as well as a $450,000 appropriation for an agricultural processing plant." Ouch. McCain's folks probably should have checked the record before rushing to make their politically pandering pick.
Alaskan reporter and former Palin aide, Larry Persily, has recently stated Palin is not telling the whole truth about earmarks. He said of Palin, "She was hungry for funding from the federal government..." Also according to a recent CNN report, "Palin not only sought money from Alaska's congressional delegation, but she hired the former chief of staff to veteran Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens -- now under indictment in a wide-ranging corruption probe -- for help. The result was that Wasilla won $600,000 for a new bus facility, $1.75 million to upgrade its dispatch center and $2.4 million to improve water and sewer facilities."
The transition from mayor to governor did little to satisfy Palin's hunger for pork. In her brief two years in the Alaska Governor's Office, Palin has asked for $450 million dollars for a state with a population of just over 680,000 people. How this person has the nerve to go out and sell herself as a change agent is beyond me. Palin is the female version of Bush. She is a just another politician that says one thing and does another and neither her nor John McCain can be trusted to lead this great country out of the corrupt mess we have suffered through for the past eight Republican-led years. Let's change things on November 4th by returning our country to the people with a vote cast for Democrat Barack Obama.
Talk about a curve ball. John McCain had everyone buckling their knees when he selected Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. The initial impact of choosing Palin, in addition to the GOP convention bump, has vaulted McCain ahead of Barack Obama in many polls. It remains to be seen if the Palin strategy will win McCain the White House but the pick has drastically changed the dynamics of the 2008 campaign.
WHY PALIN?
So why did McCain pick Palin? It was a decision driven by desperate necessity. McCain couldn't pick who he really wanted and he needed a wildcard to take people's minds off of the problems facing the country created by HIS Republican Party. Media accounts have it that McCain wanted to tap Joe Lieberman as his VP but that his aides told him the already uneasy ultra conservative Republican base would revolt on the convention floor (Lieberman is a socially liberal war hawk) if the Connecticut Senator got the nod. McCain was now left with a group of flawed GOP primary opponents or a wildcard. Many thought that wildcard would be experienced Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson or eBay CEO Meg Whitman. These two women would bring a lot to the table in terms of experience and would help McCain pander to pissed off conservative Hillary supporters. The often reckless McCain decided to go with a little known and little vetted Alaskan governor in what he rightfully hoped would be a game changing decision.
STRATEGIC IMPACT
McCain's folks realized that the 42 year old Palin was one of the only people in the country that could both sure up the conservative base while at the same time giving McCain a shot at bringing over some of the more conservative Hillary primary voters, those elusive but crucial Reagan Democrats. Palin's appeal to undecided voters has less to do with her being a woman than it does her rural and average person appeal. Everything about Palin screams identifiability- be it true or not. Republicans are much better at the perception game than Democrats and although that leads to poor government it often results in victorious GOP elections. Most Americans in the center of the country's electorate view Palin as a good looking, middle aged soccer mom who shoots straight both verbally and figuratively. Middle America can relate to Palin's portrayed image much better than they can McCain, who is from military royalty and is a multimillionaire or Barack Obama who is racially mixed and has an unusual name. Joe Biden has the appeal but his experience in Washington leaves little zest to catch people's attention.
WHAT DEMOCRATS WANT TO HAPPEN
It seems every time I prognosticate I get myself in trouble but here are some scenarios that I hope play out. McCain's choice of Palin is a paper tiger. Palin appears now to be a slam dunk but it has undercut some core aspects of McCain's message, namely experience. Palin is not experienced and quite unproven on national and international issues. In fact, Palin has been quoted to have said she knows little about foreign policy or the American economy. Age having already been an issue for the 72 year old McCain brings Palin's ability to step in and lead the country that much more into the spotlight. Once Palin starts fielding questions we will see if she can hold her own under the pressure of media scrutiny. Any mistake that Palin makes will be that much more magnified and it may be viewed that Palin's lack of experience shows poor decision making skills on the part of McCain. The Democrats have to be careful as hell with Palin. Any perceived sexism or improper aggression on their part would also be magnified by the media given the Hillary dynamic that played out in the primary. Reality means nothing and perception everything in the 24 hour news cycle and if Palin forgets the name of the Iraqi President or if Biden would call Palin a bitch then the ramifications could turn the election.
McCain's second worry must be Palin's ideology and record and the problem is twofold. The first pitfall of Palin's political ideology is its roots in ultra conservatism. There is a reason why Palin solidifies the right wing of the GOP- she has some fairly out of touch stances on a number of issues. Palin is as anti choice on abortion as any major American politician. Abortion is such a difficult moral issue but many policymakers agree that in cases of rape or incest the mother should be given all due consideration in deciding whether or not to take the baby to term. Not Palin. Even if a woman was raped by her father and becomes pregnant Palin believes that mother should not be allowed to terminate the pregnancy before it comes to term- not after a trimester, not after a month, not after a week. I just do not think that radical and unyielding a position can survive nationally and if it can then I am worried about more than just this election.
Palin's radical political views also have her coming out against evolution. Yes, evolution. Palin is a creationist and would continue the radical right's attempts to dumb down America to the point where we do not stand a chance against other nations in the fields of science. The Bush Administration has been repeatedly criticized for its war on science over the past eight years and with people like Palin at his side John McCain will kowtow to the radicals in his party so that the war against knowledge continues. People have the right to be as ill-informed as they please but when we elect leaders we should hold them to a higher standard. Otherwise they will set policy that will continue the retardification of our great nation.
McCain must also be worried about Palin's record. McCain failed to fully vet the Governor despite what his campaign says. We are finding more and more out about her policy positions each week. Her limited experience as mayor of a town with 8k people as well as her two years as Governor of 670,000 people and 1 million caribou has left only traces of a governing philosophy but what we find when we look at her decisions is not good. When mayor, Palin increased government spending by 33% and city taxes by 38%- including an increase of the regressive food tax. Palin spent $15 on a sports complex for her small city but failed to build a needed sewage treatment plant. Instead of using tax surpluses to repair the weather weary city roads, Palin took the town further into debt with a $5 million levy. Palin inherited a city with zero debt and when she left the mayor's office Wassila's debt was $22 million. Palin was also one of the most pork friendly mayors of Alaska- often calling on corrupt Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens for fist fulls of money. Hypocrisy is a cold Alaskan dish and Palin eats it with a spoon.
Finally, McCain's last and most serious worry has to be that once the Palin bounce subsides he is left with his weak argument for change. McCain has perhaps given up his high ground position in this political war to earn himself an early and ultimately meaningless, unless sustained, skirmish. I mean how in the hell can the Republicans sell themselves as change agents when they have been the one's causing all this mess in the first place. It reminds me of a line from the movie O' Brother Where Art Thou. The sitting governor is trying to figure out how in the hell he will beat his opponent given his poor standing in the polls. Junio says, "Well, people like that reform. Maybe we should get some?" to which Governor Pappy replies, "I'll reform you, you softheaded sonofabitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent!" Well, I don't see it selling and it could prove a big mistake later for McCain. Palin may be popular but even if she doesn't screw up when answering questions from the media she will still lose some of her wow factor after a few weeks. If and when that happens the McCain campaign will have no discernable message and no real claim for why the Republicans should be given another four years to drive our beloved country into the ground.
CONCLUSION
The Palin strategy has worked so far. McCain has caught up with, if not passed, Obama in the polls and will probably stay there until the first presidential debate. Once the debates begin Palin will become an afterthought, unless she makes a great gaffe, until the VP debate. The Palin strategy is very risky but it might have been McCain's best political move. She certainly wasn't the most qualified candidate McCain had to choose from but that means little to a savvy politician like John McCain.
Only a few Democrats are in a position to attack Palin with Hillary Clinton being one of them. Palin has radical views and little experience and is no friend to the average Jane or Joe. She is more like George W Bush than McCain could ever be and that is both bad and good for Dems. Likability, not leadership ability, wins most presidential elections and the GOP knows that.
Time will tell if the GOP has undercut itself with the Palin strategy but Democrats should be worried. If you thought Obama was going to have himself a cakewalk into the White House then you were just wrong. This campaign is as close as they come and if you want the country to change direction and move out of doldrums of the Bush years then you better be working to get Obama elected because with 58 days until the election he is losing.
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