West Virginia Blue
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Disgraced Judge Elliott "Spike" Maynard has extended an invitation to reality TV star Sarah Palin, asking her to campaign for him in West Virginia - just one day after she posted violent imagery and rhetoric about the election on her Facebook page.
So never mind the fact that Maynard/Blankenship supporters told people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Michael Brune, Daryl Hannah, James Hansen, Mike Roselle, Climate Ground Zero, Kathy Mattea and Ashley Judd to "go home" and leave issues to the locals.
Though, between Palin, Dick Morris and the various out-of-state Republican ad groups, it's beginning to seem like Maynard and Blankenship have no one in-state to speak for them.
Maynard's already dreaming up ways he and Palin can play dress-up and stage a carefully-orchestrated photo-op to hide the fact that he's an opponent of mine safety.
From a press release:
We would love to have Sarah showcase modern mining as a clean, safe and cheap way to produce energy," said Maynard. "She'll have to put on a hard hat, but I'm sure she won't mind."
If you get a chance, contact senators Baucus (contact here) and Grassley (contact link here) to let them know that the whole country is watching them. Be sure to send this link to illustrate that even Appalachian American citizens are watching to see who they really end up representing.
This past week on TV, it was like a rehash of the last year with Palin, Hillary, McCain and Obama all showing up at once. Heck, there was even a cameo by Cheney with Biden.
Not wanting to dwell on 8 years of a failed administration, or an election cycle of dejection, the Republicans have already turned their eye toward 2012.
At a time like this, it's worth reliving one of the golden campaign moments... and example of the special talents of the Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla.
As we see the John McCain camp turn on Sarah Palin, it's amusing to go back and read the words of wisdom of fitness gym owner and erstwhile campaign consultant Vic Sprouse:
I was explaining to someone today the difference in my attitude before and after Palin's addition to the ticket.
Before I was definitely for John McCain and would have voted for him.
After the addition of Palin, I feel energized and ready to do anything I can to help the ticket win.
snip
KAPOW! She completely knocked it out of the park. A home run. A grand slam.
She took the podium, took the criticism, and shoved that criticism right back down the throats of her detractors... with as much grace as a seasoned veteran.
Even CNN commented that a "star" was born.
This was a Reagan moment.
This was an Obama 2004 moment. Her speech will literally go down in the history books as one of the most astounding certainly of my generation.
Sarah Palin as a vice presidential pick will certainly be remembered all right.
Republicans: Please run Sarah Palin for president in 2012.
NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.
Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito was picked by the McCain campaign to be on the "Palin Truth Squad" tasked with defending Palin from attacks. Apparently after being an ardent supporter of the worst Republican policies and Republican president over the past 8 years they figured Capito would do it.
But has Capito stepped up even once to defend Palin? And what is Shelley Moore Capito going to do now that the attacks on Palin are coming from within McCain's house?
John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.
And it has decided on Sarah Palin.
In recent days, a McCain "adviser" told Dana Bash of CNN: "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone."
Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?
Also, a "top McCain adviser" told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is "a whack job."
Maybe she is. But who chose to put this "whack job" on the ticket? Wasn't it John McCain? And wasn't it his first presidential-level decision?
So John McCain has reached the same conclusion West Virginia Blue reached months ago: Palin was a rushed pick and a bad, unqualified pick. But as a member picked to defend her, shouldn't Capito step up and denounce the attacks from McCain's campaign? Was that "truth squad" role as fake as Capito's "civility caucus"?
Previously, on the GOP side, only the RNC was spending money on ads in West Virginia. That the McCain camp is now spending on ads in the state is yet another sign that the broadening map is putting McCain on defense in multiple states that went for Bush last time, sometimes by significant margins, and forcing him to spend money in them with time running out.
The employee, who's with WCHS in Charleston, tells us that McCain is running this spot on the station geared specifically to West Virginia that attacks Obama on coal, charging that while clean coal means "thousands of jobs" for West Virginians, it's opposed by "Obama, Biden, and their liberal allies"...
Barack Obama supports clean coal, one of our disagreements with him by many here at this site.
The WCHS employee also confirms that the West Virginia station is running another McCain ad that stars Hank Williams, Jr., hitting Obama over the "bitter" line, a spot that had only been previously heard in Montana.
The other ad they're running focuses on Obama's remarks about people being "bitter." They've got Hank Williams Jr., an international celebrity, talking about how Obama doesn't "understand small towns" so we should support the Republican, John McCain, who is so rich that he can't remember how many homes he owns and he got rich by cheating on his first wife and marrying a beer heiress.
Perhaps Hank Williams Jr. is wealthy enough that he's not worried about the economy, but you can bet those of us living in small towns throughout West Virginia are pretty damn bitter about what the Republicans have done to our nation for the past eight years.
When Hank Williams Jr. says Obama doesn't understand "our way of life," is Williams referring to a life like his that includes a long history of heavy abuse of alcohol and drugs and four divorces and jetsetting to concerts? Because many of us in small towns aren't familiar with Hank Williams way of life and it's ridiculous for Williams to pretend to be one of us.
But all my rowdy friends know Barack Obama is the candidate who understands how to enact policies that'll be better for those of us living in small towns and come Nov. 5 Hank Williams Jr. is just going to have a tear in his beer.
Now here's a video from a genuine country star who was proud of being liberal and yes this song is bitter. So while Hank wraps himself pretentiously in the red, white and blue, I'll stick by the Man in Black.
Here's a more uplifting spoken word, Johnny Cash's I Am the Nation
There's a yard sign in Martinsburg that looks like an official yard sign from the McCain-Palin campaign though I searched for it on the campaign web site without success. I'll have to take a picture of it.
It says: "Sarah!" in beg letters with McCain Palin underneath.
Apparently that sign tells the story of their campaign. In case you missed this, the Republicans have the knives out to stick in each other's backs.
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) - With 10 days to go until election day, long brewing tension between Sarah Palin and key aides to John McCain has become so intense, it is spilling out into the public.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue" recently, while a Palin associate says she is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a mishandled roll-out that damaged her.
McCain sources point to several incidents where Palin has gone off message, and privately wonder if they were deliberate. For example: labeling robo calls "irritating," even as the campaign was defending the use of them and telling reporters she disagreed with the campaigns controversial decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source tells CNN she appears to now be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
I guess that happens when you spend 15 minutes vetting a vice presidential candidate who turns out to make up for her lack of intelligence with an overdeveloped ambition.
But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.
They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.
"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."
That says more about John McCain and his lack of judgment than it does about Sarah Palin. "Country First" my ass.
I was thinking about Joe Biden in Charleston on my way in to Martinsburg this morning. He wasn't my first pick for vice president yet alone president, but if, God forbid, he had to step into the role of president, he'd do a fine job. He's intelligent and has a good heart and he's experienced enough to be up to the task. He wouldn't need "to get up to speed." Obama made a safe pick with Biden that lacked drama. There's a lot to be said for steadiness and soundness in such decisions. As Clem said the other day, McCain picked his vice presidential nominee the way he gambles, he rolled the dice. Unfortunately the 72-year-old McCain was gambling with the nation's future.
And you know the part I'm really looking forward to? Sarah Palin's role in all this. I expect her to rip McCain absolutely to shreds. On background, of course, but it will be no less vicious for that. Her future, such as it is, lies with the wingnut rump of the party, and she knows what her audience wants: John McCain's blood. And lots of it. They never liked him in the first place, and I expect them to be howling for his head on a platter starting at about 8:01 pm EST on November 4th.
With despair rising even among many of John McCain's own advisers, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering - much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.
snip
"If you really want to see what 'going negative' is in politics, just watch the back-stabbing and blame game that we're starting to see," said Mark McKinnon, the ad man who left the campaign after McCain wrapped up the GOP primary. "And there's one common theme: Everyone who wasn't part of the campaign could have done better."
"The cake is baked," agreed a former McCain strategist. "We're entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It's every man for himself now."
Which you see McCain and Shelley Moore Capito, who after eight years of rubberstamp support, 90 percent for McCain and 80 percent by Capito, are trying to throw George W. Bush under the bus.
McCain told the Times that the administration "let things get completely out of hand" through eight years of bad decisions about Iraq, global warming, and big spending.
Former Republican John Cole, always a good source for trying to understand the GOP, wrote:
The best thing about the upcoming circular firing squad is that once former true-believers like Nicole Wallace are screwed over royally by the wingnut fringe of the party, they will start to go all Scott McClellan. Take it from my experience- nothing hardens your resolve like being called a traitor after watching the Mayberry Machiavellis destroy your party.
Still, I'm sure the GOP's Joseph DeSoto will see a "vision" of this as a good thing for the Republican Party.
The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.
I'm sure the Republican donors are pleased with her celebrity lifestyle. But maybe if she spent less time shopping, she could have spent more time studying the Constitution to find out what a vice president does.
Update
Meanwhile, Obama resoles his shoes.
And Michelle Obama said he always wears the same clothes because he hates shopping. Michelle Obama shops at Target, by the way, and still looks great.
I'm watching Sarah Palin's interview on CNN right now. Two weeks before election day--well into early voting in many states--she's still introducing herself to the country.
She's done nothing to win over independents. She can't speak credibly on the economy. She's stuck back-peddling on campaign trail rhetoric and explaining away her scandal-ridden past in Alaska.
John McCain, true to his love of the craps table, rolled the dice... and lost.
WASHINGTON - An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.
Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based spokesman for the group.
Comments right out of Heat of the Night directed to a sound man, probably a union guy, at one event. A blogger/reporter trying to interview Obama supporters at a Palin rally kicked to the ground by a big bearded fan of Mooselini. The Secret Service's reaction: stop reporters from interviewing the crowd.
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