Posts filed under 'Elections'
Oh noes!
This is pretty extraordinary. A candidate for the American Presidency is using flyers printed in German to turn people out for his campaign rally in Berlin on Thursday.
That sounds like sarcasm, but it’s not. Ruffini is genuinely perturbed by this - or at least believes that it’s somehow an effective talking point against Obama:
I’m surprised at this lapse in judgment in an otherwise well-oiled and professional Obama campaign. The last time they printed up campaign paraphenalia in a foreign language, it didn’t work out so hot for them.
So, this isn’t just some sober, high-minded foreign policy speech, part of a foreign trip occurring under the auspices of his official Senate office. It is a campaign rally occuring on foreign soil. They are using the same tactics to turn out Germans to an event as they would to any rally right here in America.
Hey, did you know that German was the official language of THE NAZIS??? This is conclusive proof that Obama is just like Hitler.
(h/t Thers & Blue Texan)
July 23rd, 2008 at 05:58pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Blogosphere,
Elections,
Obama,
Republicans,
Wankers
John McCain, with honorable mention for CBS:
Keith Olbermann led his broadcast tonight with Spencer Ackerman’s report on John McCain’s most recent gaffe: in an interview with Katie Couric, McCain claimed “the surge” was responsible for the “Anbar Awakening” — which actually began in September, 2006, months before the surge was even announced.
The strange thing, as Keith notes, is that CBS edited the gaffe out of its broadcast. Fortunately, they posted a transcript — and video — online.
Once again, John McCain reveals the depth of his foreign policy expertise, and the media demonstrates its clear liberal bias…
But wait, there’s more - John McCain also demonstrates the depth of his commitment to the environment:
And I’d like to mention offshore drilling if I could. My friends, we have to drill offshore. We have to do it! Oil executives say within a couple years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?
Well, if the oil executives are in favor, that pretty much settles it, right? I mean, who could possibly be more trustworthy on the subject of offshore drilling?
July 23rd, 2008 at 07:32am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Energy,
Environment,
Iraq,
McCain,
Media,
Politics,
Republicans,
Wankers
Okay, so he’s not nearly as bad as Michael “Autistic kids are whiny brats” Savage, but Ron Fournier is still pretty heinous:
Last week, we learned that while investigators for the House Oversight Committee were looking into the 2004 death of Cpl. Pat Tillman… they discovered that top political aide Karl Rove had exchanged emails with the Associated Press’ Ron Fournier on the day the news of Tillman’s death broke.
In one email, Rove asked, “How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?” Fournier responded: “The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight.”
(…)
Fournier, now the wire service’s D.C. bureau chief, shrugged off the embarrassing revelation, conceding only: “I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence.”
Of course, Fournier wasn’t simply being breezy. “Have a great weekend” — that’s “breezy.”
(…)
The Fournier revelation came as no surprise to anyone who has read his recent campaign work, which has routinely been caustic and dismissive of Democratic contenders. In two “Analysis” pieces and a column, Fournier questioned whether John Edwards was a “phony,” announced the Clintons suffered from “utter self-absorption,” and claimed that Barack Obama was “bordering on arrogance.” That’s the right of a pundit. But at the same time, Fournier avoided raising any doubts about Sen. John McCain, and in fact rushed to his aid in print during the senator’s time of campaign need.
(…)
Just in case this isn’t perfectly obvious, just in case people might be wondering if it’s common for objective political reporters to email partisan operatives off the record and behind the scenes, urging them to “keep up the fight,” the answer is a resounding no. Because it violates the basic journalistic guideline of maintaining neutrality. Especially at the AP, that kind of correspondence should be considered breathtakingly inappropriate.
Think about it: That year, Rove was engineering the president’s re-election — a campaign Fournier was covering as an AP reporter — and Fournier urged Rove to “keep up the fight”? Even if that phrase was not written in connection with the campaign, that kind of communication is just wrong. If Fournier could produce emails from 2004 in which he urged top Democratic strategists to “keep up the fight,” it would certainly remove doubts about his relationship with Rove, but I suspect Fournier cannot.
(…)
But let’s dig a little deeper: In his attempt to dismiss the Rove correspondence, Fournier said that the exchange came “in the course of following an important and compelling story” while he was an AP political reporter. Meaning Fournier was just doing his job.
Yet according to a search of Nexis, Fournier didn’t write any bylined articles about Pat Tillman’s death in April 2004. Or ever, for that matter. That means Fournier wasn’t reaching out as a reporter to Rove for information, quotes, or context about the sad Tillman story. Fournier didn’t need Rove to be a “source” for the Tillman story because Fournier wasn’t covering the Tillman story.
Instead, Fournier seemed to be using the Tillman story as an opportunity to initiate contact with Rove and let him know that Fournier was on his side, and to urge Rove to “keep up the fight.”
But wait, there’s more! This is what separates a Wanker Of The Week from a mere Wanker Of The Day:
Warning Clinton during the primaries about the dangers of having a candidate’s character questioned by the press, Fournier noted that Al Gore got unfairly tagged during the 2000 presidential campaign for having claimed to have invented the Internet. Fournier patiently set the record straight, noting that Gore “never said he invented the Internet,” that “his mistake was to place himself more centrally than warranted at the creation of the technology,” and that “such nuance was lost on people who voted against him in 2000.”
Silly voters. But how on earth did they come to the false conclusion that Gore ever claimed to have invented the Internet? Answer: By reading Ron Fournier.
- “He [Gore] claimed credit for inventing the Internet, and comics had a punch line for months.” [November 13, 1999]
- “Gore, who once claimed to have invented the Internet, e-mailed Bush and said Democrats won’t air TV ads purchased with unlimited, unregulated donations called ’soft money’ unless Republicans do so first.” [March 15, 2000]
Awesome. Ron Phonier is a wanker on so many levels.
July 22nd, 2008 at 09:22pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Clinton,
Edwards,
Elections,
McCain,
Media,
Politics,
Republicans,
Rove,
Wankers
I like what Pelosi and Reid are doing here:
Pelosi:
President Bush has long maintained that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq should be governed by the situation in Iraq. It is now clear that the situation in Iraq is that Prime Minister al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders want the withdrawal of our combat forces to be completed within a 16-month period, as recommended by Senator Obama.
Reid:
As Senator Obama visits Iraq to listen to our troops and commanders and meet with Iraqi leaders, it is becoming clear that America, Iraq and the world are coalescing around Senator Obama’s plan to end the war.
This weekend, Prime Minister Al-Maliki spoke in favor of the Obama plan. Today, despite pressure from the White House, Iraqi government officials publicly reiterated their support.
They are establishing the idea that Barack Obama is the man with the plan to get us out of Iraq, and that even the Iraqis are on board with it. This will be a very effective message in November, especially when contrasted with McCain’s “We’ll stay in Iraq a hundred years even if the Iraqis clearly don’t want us there.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 08:01am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Elections,
Iraq,
Obama,
Politics
He seems to be saying that yeah, McCain may be just as evil as Dubya, but at least he wouldn’t be an outright criminal if he were president:
The best aspect of a McCain presidency is that, while it would probably follow the policies of George W. Bush, it would put an end to the politics of Karl Rove. I went back and reread Michael Lewis’s 1997 New York Times Magazine profile of McCain, which gushed (persuasively) over McCain long before McCain- gushing had become a media cliché. You can see in it that, even before his first presidential campaign made him persona non grata in the GOP, McCain really was a highly bipartisan figure. The article cites McCain working unusually closely with Democrats, and quotes Democrats lavishing praise on him. He impugns his own party’s leadership as corrupt. He jokingly refers to his younger political self as a “freshman right-wing Nazi.” Conservative ideologues, as a rule, do not liken conservatism to national socialism.
Liberals tend to view the press’s love affair with McCain as a wildly unfair act of bias. They have a point. On the other hand, they should take some heart in the fact that McCain obviously cherishes the approval of the mainstream (and even liberal) media. His accessibility to the press and public is something small-d democrats should cheer. McCain has conducted interviews with very liberal publications like Grist. He’s promised to undertake an American version of “Prime Minister’s Questions,” whereby members of Congress could spar with him.
Does McCain spin and dissemble? Of course. But the current administration’s practices go far beyond mere spin. In Bush’s Washington, critics are enemies to be dismissed rather than engaged. A McCain presidency would promise to dismantle the whole Rovian method that has torn open such a deep wound in the national psyche.
Beneath his wildly fluctuating ideological positions, McCain is an establishmentarian Republican. Unlike Bush, he cares about elite opinion. He is comfortable sharing power in the traditional postwar style rather than monopolizing it. He might not be another Teddy Roosevelt, but right now another Gerald Ford doesn’t look so bad.
Sure, another Gerald Ford might not be so bad. BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.
What we really need is another FDR, but that ain’t happening.
July 21st, 2008 at 07:54pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Bush,
Elections,
McCain,
Media,
Politics,
Republicans,
Wankers
Okay, this is really complicated, so please try to follow along with me here:
Saying that McCain’s military service does not qualify him for the presidency is not the same as saying that it disqualifies him from the presidency. Nor is it the same as saying that his military service is bogus in any way.
Also, as McCain Source points out, McCain himself agrees with Clark.
But no, saying that getting shot down and taken prisoner and tortured for five years doesn’t qualify you to be president is the same as saying that Kerry lied about his service in Vietnam and shot himself to get a Purple Heart. Awesome.
July 1st, 2008 at 08:59am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Elections,
McCain,
Media,
Obama,
Politics,
Republicans,
Wankers
Shorter Joe Lieberman:
When the terrorists hit us in 2009, we need to have a president who is willing to seize unprecedented unconstitutional powers for his own and his party’s gain, and John McCain is that man.
That is what “keeping us safe” has become code for, isn’t it?
June 30th, 2008 at 09:05am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Constitution,
Elections,
Lieberman,
McCain,
Politics,
Republicans,
Terrorism,
Wankers
Well. Dick Zimmer, Frank Lautenberg’s Republican Senate opponent, has hit back hard against Lautenberg’s vote against cloture on the awful FISA “compromise”:
By ZimmerforSenate - June 26, 2008 - 12:49pm
Release Date: Jun 26 2008
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Now, I know there’s a lot of opaque political jargon in this statement, but I’m going to take a stab at unpacking some of the highlights:
o Frank Lautenberg pretends to be a normal person, but is actually a serial liar.
o Frank Lautenberg wants to tell us how to behave, and define what style clothes we can wear, and what kind of tables we can eat off of.
o Frank Lautenberg is frequently a no-show for important floor votes. (Either that, or he’s an absentee parent; like I said, this political jargon can be pretty tricky.)
o Frank Lautenberg padded his resume with bogus achievements (or, alternatively, is padding his campaign funds with cash from from questionable sources).
o Frank Lautenberg hates widows, orphans, and families.
o Frank Lautenberg is so imperious and bloodthirsty that he’s like a modern-day version of an ancient Roman.
o Frank Lautenberg is a tool of shadowy Far Eastern interests who want to subjugate the US and force us to speak their language.
I look forward to seeing Lautenberg respond to these allegations, hopefully in the same kind of highly charged political language.
(h/t Blue Jersey)
June 26th, 2008 at 06:23pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Politics,
Quotes,
Republicans
This is really pathetic. If they weren’t such wankers, I’d almost feel sorry for them:
Yup, Dino Rossi’s refusal to identify himself as a “Republican” is so transparently ridiculous that even FOX News is calling his bullshit.
Rossi dismisses the criticism by claiming he used the GOP moniker four years ago (new campaign slogan: “Deceiving voters since 2004″), though that’s not how he identified himself in the voters pamphlet last time around….
Makes you wish Rossi were a straight shooter like Republican GOP Party unaffiliated Insurance Commissioner candidate Curtis Fackler, the chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, who publicly frets about folks who “won’t vote for a Republican no matter what.”
“And we wanted to get around that,” he frankly told FOX News.
Yes, whatever you do, don’t admit that you’re actually Republicans. Their esprit d ecorps is trés impressive.
(I suppose he could always go with the “Washington For Rossi Party”…)
June 24th, 2008 at 09:03pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Politics,
Republicans
Ya gotta love Broderella’s Padawan apprentice, Richard Cohen - his ability to uncritically regurgitate conventional wisdom/Republican talking points is truly impressive:
In some recent magazine articles, I and certain of my colleagues have been accused of being soft on McCain, forgiving him his flips, his flops and his mostly conservative ideology. I do not plead guilty to this charge, because, over the years, the man’s imperfections have not escaped my keen eye. But, for the record, let’s recapitulate: McCain has either reversed himself or significantly amended his positions on immigration, tax cuts for the wealthy, campaign spending (as it applies to use of his wife’s corporate airplane) and, most recently, offshore drilling. In the more distant past, he has denounced then embraced certain ministers of medieval views and changed his mind about the Confederate flag, which flies by state sanction in South Carolina only, I suspect, to provide Republican candidates with a chance to choose tradition over common decency. There, I’ve said it all.
But here is the difference between McCain and Obama — and Obama had better pay attention. McCain is a known commodity. It’s not just that he’s been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It’s also — and more important — that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This — not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express — is what commends him to so many journalists.
Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don’t know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain’s decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailors a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically. That’s why his reversal on campaign financing and his transparently false justification of it matter more than similar acts by McCain.
Wow. So Cohen lists a whole bunch of McCain’s flip-flops that show him to be completely devoid of honor or principles, and then proceeds to rave about McCain’s honor and principles and how we know that there are some lines he will not cross. I suppose that may be true - for instance, he would probably not feed his wife and daughters to hungry sharks to pick up sympathy votes - but the lines that he has been willing to cross, like war, torture, habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, depriving servicemen of education and leave time, are all bad enough that they should disqualify him from the presidency.
As for Cohen’s statement about Obama not taking positions that challenge his base… has he been paying any attention at all? Did he not notice Obama coming out in favor of the FISA compromise that his base absolutely despises? I can go along with the “or otherwise threaten him politically” part, but I would add the word “knowingly” in there somewhere. I think his cave-in on FISA does hurt him politically with his base - it’s sucked a lot of enthusiasm out of all but his most die-hard supporters - but I don’t think that was part of his calculation. So it may have pissed off his base, but it sure as hell was not an act of political courage - quite the opposite, in fact.
Still, as shameless and spineless a triangulator as Obama may be, McCain has repeatedly shown himself to be far, far worse and far, far more dangerous. And Cohen is a dishonest ass for pretending otherwise.
(h/t bmaz)
June 24th, 2008 at 07:32am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Media,
Politics,
Wankers
Over three years ago, I was urging Democrats to lay some groundwork to ensure that Republicans couldn’t turn a terrorist attack or other disaster (this was several months before Katrina) into an undeserved political windfall:
Another thing that the Democrats must keep in mind is the very high probability that Republican policies will lead to a financial or terrorist-inflicted disaster. An electoral scandal and constitutional crisis is also a possibility: I believe there are limits to just how large a margin election “gaming” and fraud can cover up without leaving behind a gun too smoky for the media to ignore. What happens if that threshold is exceeded, at least to the point where the election outcome is severely in doubt? What mechanisms do we have for resolving such a situation?
In theory, Democrats should be able to capitalize on any of these negative outcomes, as they can all be laid clearly at the doorstep of the Republicans. In reality, they would be pilloried by the Republicans and the media for opportunistically “politicizing” a national tragedy.
Therefore, what I’m advocating is that the Democrats get out in front and periodically raise a big stink (and for the love of God, don’t capitulate!) about the various ways that the 100% Republican-controlled government has made us vulnerable…
(…)
[M]y point is that the Democrats need to be vocal about these issues in advance, so that everyone knows where they stand before the unthinkable occurs. It’s very easy to denounce terrorist attacks or stock market crashes after they happen, and both sides of the aisle will be doing exactly that. But the Democrats will be on the record as having warned of disaster, while the Republicans will be on record as steamrolling and shouting them down. This will give the Democrats standing and credibility to point the finger of blame after the fact.
(…)
Am I rooting for catastrophe? Of course not. I think it is highly probable, if not inevitable, but I desperately hope to be proven wrong.
What I am rooting for is that the Democrats will not let the Republicans get away with saying, “Well, these things happen, no-one could have seen it coming, we must all pull together now and do whatever we say,” as they did after 9/11. They must be held accountable for their willful refusal to protect America from harm.
Well, here we are three years later, and (as I predicted in that same post), the Democrats haven’t really gotten that message across, much to RJ Eskow’s dismay (and mine):
I’ve been privately warning Democrats for some time that Obama and the party need emergency preparedness plans. Major events between now and November could change the course of the election - especially a U.S. strike on Iran, or a terror attack against Americans at home or abroad.
We’re not seeing any signs of such plans. Not that we should -except that one outcome would be to explain now why Americans are much less safe as the result of GOP policies.
If it seems crass to weigh political considerations in the face of war or tragedy, remember that the future safety of civilians here and elsewhere will be greatly affected by this election. And they - the Republicans - are certainly thinking politically. When McCain’s chief political advisor, lobbyist Charlie Black, said yesterday that a terror attack “would be a big advantage for him, his biggest mistake was excessive honesty. That’s one of the few imaginable scenarios that could lead to a McCain victory in November.
(…)
So what should Obama and the Democrats be doing about these two possibilities? Some of their planning should be invisible - for the speeches that Obama might gave, the surrogates (military and otherwise) that would appear on Democrats’ behalf. But we should be seeing some groundwork being laid now, and we’re not. So, what should be happening?
[Main bullet points only - check out Eskow's post for the meat behind them]
Guanatanamo and Abu Ghraib should be described as Bush-created “terrorist factories.”
Democrats should explain that torture is un-American, that it breeds terrorists — and that it doesn’t help catch bad guys.
If we surrender our freedoms, the terrorists win.
…Democrats owe it to themselves - and more importantly, to the nation - to start telling the real story immediately. There should be no equivocation and no calculation.
Their motto should be: Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and do what’s right in the meantime.
I still believe that something terrible is going to happen, that the Republicans’ criminal mismanagement of, well, everything, has made it inevitable. Indeed, some pretty terrible things have already happened, like Katrina and the subprime meltdown. But when the next terrible thing happens, if Democrats haven’t already shown (or, better yet, tried to fix) how the Republicans have left us vulnerable, they will be unable to fight off the Republicans’ this-is-why-you-need-a-strong-daddy narrative.
(h/t Elliott)
June 23rd, 2008 at 09:56pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Elections,
Iran,
McCain,
Obama,
Politics,
Prisoners,
Terrorism,
Torture
Fortunately for Obama, it appears that novelty cola drinkers don’t care about FISA either.
They really turn out in droves, too.
June 20th, 2008 at 07:01am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Obama,
Polls
…That Americans find it easier to relate to Michelle Obama than to a beauty queen beer heiress known for stealing drugs and recipes.
Yeah, I know - shocking, isn’t it? I think all the bad blood the Republicans stirred up against Theresa Heinz Kerry is boomeranging back on them.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:21am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Obama,
Politics,
Polls
Wes Clark shreds McCain’s credibility on national security.
I gotta say, the more I think about it, the more I like Wes Clark for Obama’s running mate, or at least a high-profile surrogate for national security. McCain is using his service and his uniform to enhance his credibility on Iraq, Iran, and foreign policy/national security in general, but the reality is that he doesn’t have any better understanding of it than Dubya. As Clark says, McCain’s approach is simply “force, force, and more force” - and we’ve seen how well that’s worked in Iraq.
Putting Clark on the ticket, or at least on the Obama campaign, reminds me of the great scene in Annie Hall, where Woody Allen brings Marshall McLuhan out from behind a sign to shut up a pontificating know-it-all. After all these years of hearing Republicans tell us that Democrats (and especially Obama, who McCain is portraying as young and green and maybe even some kind of draft dodger, even though he was 12 when Vietnam ended) don’t understand military matters, I would love to see Obama pull Wes Clark out to say, “Excuse me - I’m the military, and you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
(h/t looseheadprop)
June 19th, 2008 at 07:19am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Iran,
Iraq,
McCain,
Obama,
Politics
Christopher Beam at Slate offers up some rumors that Obama should encourage:
Barack Obama wears a FLAG PIN at all times. Even in the shower.
(…)
Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.
(…)
Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.
Barack Obama’s new airplane includes a conference room, a kitchen, and a MEGACHURCH.
(…)
Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.
Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate…
(h/t shadowy & mysterious Codename V.)
June 18th, 2008 at 09:26pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Elections,
Obama,
Politics
She gets a lot closer than I ever would have thought possible, though. She even notes some of his flip-flops, especially on tax cuts, where McCain is actually now worse than Dubya.
The differences, according to Bumiller, are McCain’s opposition to global warming (which is pretty much a cosmetic sham), his opposition to torture (ditto), and the fact that he’s now moved to the right of Bush on immigration.
She also throws in this little gem:
Yet while it would be hard to categorize him as a doctrinaire Republican or conservative, Mr. McCain appears to have ceded some of his carefully cultivated reputation as a maverick.
Actually, it’s very easy to categorize McCain as a doctrinaire Republican or conservative, Lizzie. Maybe it wasn’t eight years ago, but it sure as hell is now.
And a little bit more:
In a CBS News poll two weeks ago, 43 percent of registered voters said they believed he would continue Mr. Bush’s policies, and 21 percent said he would be more conservative in his policies than Mr. Bush. Twenty-eight percent said he would be less conservative than Mr. Bush.
For those of you keeping score, that’s 64% of registered voters who believe McCain would be either the same as Bush, or farther to the right. Excellent.
Presidencies are about more than policies, of course, and Mr. McCain would bring a different style, background and world view to the White House should he be elected in November.
Style and background, I’ll grant. But world view? It’s exactly the same. Taxes bad, corporations good, we need a strong daddy government that will stop at nothing to protect us from the evildoers. Fortunately, it looks like the voters are starting to figure that out.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:39am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Bush,
Elections,
McCain,
Media
Well, it doesn’t sound like McCain’s attempts to woo disgruntled Hillary supporters are really going all that well. I can’t imagine why not.
TEN years ago John McCain had to apologize for regaling a Republican audience with a crude sexual joke about Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno. Last year he had to explain why he didn’t so much as flinch when a supporter asked him on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?” But these days Mr. McCain just loves the women.
In his televised address on Barack Obama’s victory night of June 3, he dismissed Mr. Obama in a single patronizing line but devoted four fulsome sentences to praising Mrs. Clinton for “inspiring millions of women.” The McCain Web site is showcasing a new blogger who crooned of the “genuine affection” for Mrs. Clinton “here at McCain HQ” after she lost. One of the few visible women in the McCain campaign hierarchy, Carly Fiorina, has declared herself “enormously proud” of Mrs. Clinton and is barnstorming to win over Democratic women to her guy’s cause.
How heartwarming. You’d never guess that Mr. McCain is a fierce foe of abortion rights or that he voted to terminate the federal family-planning program that provides breast-cancer screenings. You’d never know that his new campaign blogger, recruited from The Weekly Standard, had shown his genuine affection for Mrs. Clinton earlier this year by portraying her as a liar and whiner and by piling on with a locker-room jeer after she’d been called a monster. “Tell us something we don’t know,” he wrote.
But while the McCain campaign apparently believes that women are easy marks for its latent feminist cross-dressing, a reality check suggests that most women can instantly identify any man who’s hitting on them for selfish ends. New polls show Mr. Obama opening up a huge lead among female voters — beating Mr. McCain by 13 percentage points in the Gallup and Rasmussen polls and by 19 points in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey.
How huge is a 13- to 19-percentage-point lead? John Kerry won women by only 3 points, Al Gore by 11.
Oops. I guess most women can tell when they’re being played.
The fictional scenario of mobs of crazed women defecting to Mr. McCain is just one subplot of the master narrative that has consumed our politics for months. The larger plot has it that the Democratic Party is hopelessly divided, and that only a ticket containing Mrs. Clinton in either slot could retain the loyalty of white male bowlers and other constituencies who tended to prefer her to Mr. Obama in the primaries.
This is reality turned upside down. It’s the Democrats who are largely united and the Republicans who are at one another’s throats.
(…)
That story is minimized or ignored in part because an unshakable McCain fan club lingers in some press quarters and in part because it’s an embarrassing refutation of the Democrats-in-meltdown narrative that so many have invested in. Understating the splintering of the Republican base also keeps hope alive for a tight race. As the Clinton-Obama marathon proved conclusively, a photo finish is essential to the dramatic and Nielsen imperatives of 24/7 television coverage.
The conservative hostility toward McCain heralded by the early attacks of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and James Dobson is proliferating. Bay Buchanan, the party activist who endorsed Mitt Romney, wrote this month that Mr. McCain is “incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls” and “has a personality that is best kept under wraps.” When Mr. McCain ditched the preachers John Hagee and Rod Parsley after learning that their endorsements antagonized Catholics, Muslims and Jews, he ended up getting a whole new flock of evangelical Christians furious at him too.
The revolt is not limited to the usual cranky right-wing suspects. The antiwar acolytes of Ron Paul are planning a large rally for convention week in Minneapolis. The conservative legal scholar Douglas Kmiec has endorsed Mr. Obama, as have both the economic adviser to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America,” Lawrence Hunter, and the neocon historian Francis Fukuyama. Rupert Murdoch is publicly flirting with the Democrat as well. Even Dick Cheney emerged from his bunker this month to gratuitously dismiss Mr. McCain’s gas-tax holiday proposal as “a false notion” before the National Press Club.
These are not anomalies. Last week The Hill reported that at least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Mr. McCain. Congressional Quarterly found that of the 62,800 donors who maxed out to Mr. Bush’s campaign in 2004, only about 5,000 (some 8 percent) have contributed to his putative successor.
(…)
The ludicrous idea that votes from Clinton supporters would somehow make up for McCain defectors is merely the latest fairy tale brought to you by those same Washington soothsayers who said Fred Thompson was the man to beat and that young people don’t turn up to vote.
The October Surprise is going to have to be pretty damn spectacular…
June 16th, 2008 at 07:04am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Media,
Politics,
Polls
So much for Maverick:
According to the Pew Research Center, when asked to describe their views of McCain in a word, the term “maverick” didn’t even come up. Nor did “reformer” or “independent.” Ruh-roh. It looks like the embrace of Bush, 100 years in Iraq and his newfound affection for Bushenomics have all done serious damage to McCain’s perceived maverickness:
John McCain once had the most powerful brand in American politics.
He was often called the country’s most popular politician and widely admired for his independent streak. It wasn’t too many years ago that “maverick” was the cliche of choice in describing him.
But that term didn’t even make the list this year when voters were asked by the Pew Research Center to sum up McCain in a single word. “Old” got the most mentions, followed by “honest,” “experienced,” “patriot,” “conservative” and a dozen more. The words “independent,” “change” or “reformer” weren’t among them.
Voters have notoriously short memories, but it could be argued that McCain cheapened his own brand.
He embraced President Bush and attempted to become, like Bush, the choice of the Republican establishment. In the process, he helped obliterate recollections of his first run for president, when he became the first Republican in a long time with strong crossover appeal to independents and Democrats.
Losing his reputation for independence could prove particularly costly this year.
It turns out that there may be a cost for flip-flopping on tax cuts for the top 1% and wanting to “bomb bomb bomb Iran.” Who would have thunk it?
(…)
John McCain may just have lost his greatest asset.
This is great news. McCain’s image as an independent agent of change is completely gone. No-one sees him as a maverick any more. Unfortunately, it sounds like lots of Americans still view him as honest, experienced, and patriotic.
Okay, I’ll give him a pass on patriotic, even if he does vote for torture and against habeas corpus, but honest and experienced? No way. I suppose he could be considered experienced in the purely literal sense, but if his experience doesn’t translate into wisdom, knowledge, or competence, what good is it? And honest? Pfft. He lies every time he claims that he’s not an extension of Dubya, which is a lot.
June 15th, 2008 at 09:09pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Politics,
Polls
Oh, come on. You can’t tell me these people aren’t deliberately trying to sabotage him:
ABC’s Rick Klein reports: Sen. John McCain on Friday abruptly cancelled a Monday fundraiser that had been scheduled at the home of a Texas oilman, after ABC News contacted the campaign inquiring about a verbal blunder the Texan made during an unsuccessful 1990 campaign for governor.
Clayton Williams stirred controversy during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas with a botched attempt at humor in which he compared rape to weather. Within earshot of a reporter, Williams said: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
His Democratic opponent at the time, the late Ann Richards… highlighted the comments in a TV ad during that 1990 campaign. View the ad HERE.
McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said the Monday event was being cancelled, given the offensive comments. He said he could not yet say what McCain would do with donations brought into the campaign by Williams.
“These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time this event was scheduled,” Rogers said. He added that Williams apologized for the comments back in 1990, but he said that does not excuse them.
Williams told the Midland Reporter-Telegram recently that he had already raised more than $300,000 for McCain and the fundraiser to be held at his home in Midland. Williams said that he needed to help McCain raise money to stop an Obama campaign that would enact “socialist” policies if elected to office.
Can someone explain to me how absolutely no-one on McCain’s team, or in the Texas GOP, heard Clayton Williams’ name and didn’t immediately think, “Oh yeah, the lie-back-and-enjoy-it guy - maybe we don’t want McCain associated with him, especially when he’s trying to sucker woo disgruntled Hillary supporters”?
I can only hope that the McCain campaign excercises this same kind of diligence and attention to detail when they’re vetting potential running mates. I think David Duke and Mark Foley are available…
June 14th, 2008 at 12:39pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Republicans,
Sexism,
Wankers
EJ Dionne notes some very interesting and encouraging poll numbers, which I believe may be even more encouraging than he thinks:
In a report released yesterday, Gallup found that where McCain was winning 85 percent of self-identified Republicans, Obama was winning only 78 percent of Democrats.
Yet Obama led McCain 48 percent to 42 percent in the survey, which was conducted June 5-10. Obama enjoyed a seven-point advantage among independents, but Gallup noted that even when independents were excluded, Obama still had a five-point lead because Democrats now outnumber Republicans 37 to 28 percent. When independents were asked their partisan leanings, the Democratic advantage reached 13 points.
In 2004, Kerry carried 89 percent of the vote among self-identified Democrats, according to the network exit poll, but Democrats and Republicans accounted for equal shares of the electorate. President Bush won with an even larger share (93 percent) of supporters of his own party.
(…)
The good news for McCain is that this year he has consistently run ahead of his party. The bad news is that the GOP is in such a deep hole McCain may not be able to climb out. When voters in a recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll were asked, without candidates’ names, which party they wanted in the White House, Democrats had a 16-point lead. But when they were asked to choose between Obama and McCain, Obama led by only six points.
Here’s the thing, though: These polls were taken right at the very end of the primary process, when there were still a lot of Clinton supporters who were pretty much hating Obama’s guts. While there will certainly be some stubborn diehards who will never vote for Obama no matter what, I think that most of Hillary’s supporters will eventually come around, especially if Hillary works to bring them around.
In other words, I think that 78% number is pretty much the floor for Obama, and it’s going to keep rising as the election draws closer. If the party identification numbers hold, and if Obama can get close to the 89% range that Kerry got, then Obama should win pretty handily. Maybe enough to claim a mandate, even…
June 14th, 2008 at 10:17am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Elections,
Politics,
Polls,
Republicans
Because this isn’t totally creepy at all…
John McCain’s presidential campaign is blasting a New York Times report that his campaign manager once worked for a Kremlin-backed politician, and that McCain likely knew of his efforts.
The McCain campaign is strongly denying the paper’s reporting that in 2005, a White House National Security Council staffer called John McCain’s Senate office to complain that Rick Davis, at the time a GOP lobbyist, was “undercutting American policy on Ukraine” by lobbying for a Kremlin-backed politician, Viktor Yanukovich, the paper reported.
The Bush White House — and McCain opposed Yanukovich, whom the United States and others had accused of election fraud, and benefiting from violence and intimidation towards journalists.
Yanukovich is the guy who is suspected of poisoned his opponent with dioxin. Hopefully Davis didn’t ask him for any pointers…
June 13th, 2008 at 10:17pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Corruption/Cronyism,
Elections,
McCain
From Paul Alexander’s new biography of Karl Rove:
“Every Republican I know looks at the Bush administration as a total failure,” said Matt Towery, chairman of Newt Gingrich’s political organization.
“To do what he did politically to us is unforgivable,” Rep. Tom Tancredo told Alexander. “It will take generations to recover. I don’t know how long; maybe never.”
“I think the legacy is that Karl Rove will be a name that’ll be used for a long, long time as an example of how not to do it,” said long-time GOP strategist Ed Rollins.
National Journal, reporting on the McCain campaign:
“Generally speaking, Rove’s advice is action-oriented and useful,” said another senior consultant to the McCain camp. “It’s always well received.” This McCain adviser noted that Rove talks periodically to Black and a few other top campaign aides on several key matters. “It can be policy ideas, messaging ideas, fundraising prospects, or people who need calls from someone in the campaign.” Rove is “part of the information network that the campaign has,” this adviser said, adding that Rove talks fairly regularly to such key people as Wayne Berman, a major fundraiser for McCain; Nicolle Wallace, a communications adviser; and Steve Schmidt, a senior aide.
Seems like there might be some difference of opinion on whether Karl Rove and his math are an asset or a liability. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when the McCain campaign goes all-in on fearmongering, hateful smears, and impugning “Democrat” patriotism. I can hardly wait.
June 13th, 2008 at 06:45pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Politics,
Republicans,
Rove
Well, it looks like this is something to look forward: Any time a Democrat says that McCain literally doesn’t know what he’s talking about, the media, Republicans and the McCain campaign are going to cry ageism:
I can appreciate the fact that the McCain campaign and Republicans in general are a little touchy about the senator’s age — running to be the oldest president in U.S. history will do that — but that’s no reason to characterize every critical adjective in the language as some kind of slight about McCain’s septuagenarian status.
Poll after poll shows that more voters trust Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on matters of national security than they do Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. Hoping to bridge that chasm, the Obama campaign and Democrats harped on comments McCain made on the Today show this morning, repeatedly calling the 71-year-old presumptive GOP presidential nominee “confused,” seeming to feed into concerns voters might have about the Arizonan’s age.
After McCain said this morning that it’s “not too important” when U.S. troops come home from Iraq, Obama aide Susan Rice said on a conference call that McCain’s comments reveal a “real confusion and lack of understanding of the situation in Iraq” and the larger region. She added that McCain’s series of errors of fact and judgment are “reflective of a pattern of lack of understanding and lack of strategic depth.”
Reporters, apparently having internalized McCain’s talking points, asked Rice if she was attacking McCain’s age by calling him “confused.” She responded, “[W]hat I meant by that is very simple — on critical, factual questions that are fundamental to understanding what’s going on in Iraq and the region, Sen. McCain has gotten it wrong. And not just once but repeatedly.”
This comes a month after Obama, responding to an ugly attack by McCain about Hamas, told CNN, “[F]or him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination.” McCain, Lieberman, and their GOP allies said this was a shot at McCain’s age.
Look, this is silly. Every criticism is not a veiled reference to McCain turning 72. “Losing his bearings” has nothing to do with age — it refers to someone who has lost their way. They’re off track. They’re moving in the wrong direction. Likewise, people of all ages get “confused.”
Maybe McCain and the media can draw up a list of acceptable adjectives that McCain critics can use?
(…)
Tell you what, reporters and McCain campaign, pick a better adjective for us. “Confused” sounds like an attack on his age? Fine. You tell me. Befuddled? Bewildered? Baffled?
The problem isn’t that McCain’s critics are picking loaded terms; the problem is McCain doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about when it comes to his signature issue.
Why we’re not supposed to mention this is a mystery. I guess I’m confused.
Of course, it’s not about word choice, it’s about making Democrats afraid to point out that McCain is either lying, stupid, or flat-out crazy, which he often is. Take that line of attack away, and what do we have left?
June 11th, 2008 at 08:46pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Media,
Politics,
Republicans,
Wankers
That McCain would love to have Cheney serve somewhere in his administration, or that he said that he probably wouldn’t want him as vice president because “He and I have the same strengths.”
That’s just what we need in our next president, someone with the same skill-set as Dick Cheney.
June 11th, 2008 at 06:46pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Cheney,
Elections,
McCain
“The Kathleen Sebelius experience”
The story also points out that Sebelius couldn’t even deliver Obama her home state if she were his running mate, but so what? It’s six electoral votes, and it’s probably not a state that he’s going to be counting on. If she can deliver votes elsewhere, then I see no reason not to consider her. Especially if he gets the “George Bush screwed us by sending all the National Guard to Iraq” version rather than the State Of The Union rebuttal version.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:40pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Elections,
Obama,
Politics
Pessimist that I am, I have a tendency to imagine the worst-case scenario, and then get myself all worked up and furious about my own dark imaginings. Fortunately, Barry Crimmins was there to reel me in this time:
Lots of people voted for Hillary Clinton this year for lots of reasons. Few believed they were doing anything but expressing their preference concerning the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. The vast majority of these people will vote for Barack Obama this fall. A deluded minority think that they remain in a cohesive unit with all of Senator Clinton’s other primary and caucus supporters and hold great sway by doing so.
Good luck to them. Primary season voters chose Clinton for myriad reasons, including:
[Insert myriad reasons here]
…and so on and so forth. The point is, these people have not been alloyed into some sort of political super element.
Today, Mrs. Clinton will formally encourage her supporters to join the Obama camp. This gesture is as much for her as it is for Senator Obama because she will be suggesting that people do what would have done anyway. Despite this, some Clinton dead-enders will continue to threaten to break with Democrats while talking as if they represent that mythical super-alloyed bloc of 18 million voters.
But most of those millions didn’t intend to hand their perpetual political proxy to Mrs. Clinton when they cast a ballot or walked to her side of a caucus. They simply weighed in on which candidate they most supported in the Democratic field. Prior to making their decision, had Mrs. Clinton’s supporters known anyone would suggest that their vote would represent an eternal splinter affiliation, it’s likely many would have chosen Mr. Obama instead.
Most Clinton voters chose her as their first preference in a campaign during which they plan to vote for anyone who will end an eight-year nightmare of Republican rule. A few tough months on the campaign trail hardly trumps eight years getting ground under the boot-heels of Bush, Cheney and their operatives. This nation is involved in protracted, foolhardy war. The economy is in petroleum-fueled flames. The environment is on the verge of epochal ruin. On the other hand, a few bumps and bruises were incurred on the campaign trail. Boo-hoo!
I think Crimmins is probably right - it’s just hard to remember sometimes, because the dead-enders are the ones doing all the shouting. But being loud doesn’t make them representative. And hopefully not influential either.
(h/t bdr)
June 9th, 2008 at 11:05pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Blogosphere,
Clinton,
Democrats,
Elections,
McCain,
Obama,
Politics
Two words to keep in mind:
Rival, n.
- One who attempts to equal or surpass another, or who pursues the same object as another; a competitor.
- One that equals or almost equals another in a particular respect.
- Obsolete A companion or an associate in a particular duty.
Enemy, n.
- One who feels hatred toward, intends injury to, or opposes the interests of another; a foe.
-
- A hostile power or force, such as a nation.
- A member or unit of such a force.
- A group of foes or hostile forces.
- Something destructive or injurious in its effects: “Art hath an enemy called Ignorance” (Ben Jonson).
Please try to remember the difference.
June 9th, 2008 at 07:36pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Blogosphere,
Clinton,
Democrats,
Elections,
McCain,
Obama,
Politics
Hey, remember this?
The [Senate] Intelligence Committee began a comprehensive investigation nearly five years ago. Initially, the committee was prepared to release one authoritative document on the Iraq intelligence, what it said, and how it was handled. With the 2004 presidential election looming, then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) split the report in two — one on how wrong the intelligence community and agencies were (released before the ‘04 election) and another on how the White House used/misused/abused the available information (to be released after the ‘04 election).
Roberts played fast and loose for years. First he said publicly that he’d “try” to have Phase II available to the public before the 2004 election. He didn’t. Roberts then gave his word, in writing, that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would have a draft report on controversial “public statements” from administration officials by April 2006. That didn’t happen, either. Then he indicated that he wanted to give up on the second part of the investigation altogether. (In January, we learned that the investigation was impeded by the Vice President.)
Well, it finally came out, and it pretty much confirmed what most reality-based people already believed:
[Y]ou’ll never guess what investigators found.
A long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee report made public Thursday concludes that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.
In a statement, Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D- W. Va.) said, “There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.”
Key points from the report, by way of Rockefeller’s office:
* Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
* Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
* Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
* Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
* The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
* The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.
To this day, Still-President Bush will talk about his obviously false pre-war claims in the context of mistaken intelligence, which “everybody” believed at the time. But this long-overdue report is a reminder of just how wrong the Bush defense is — he (and his team) weren’t fooled by errors, they fooled others with arguments they knew had no foundation in fact.
Now here’s the beauty part:
And then, of course, there’s John McCain, who’s running on his national security expertise and judgment on military matters, who bought every line Bush told him, then parroted it to the nation. Worse, McCain has assured voters that “every [intelligence] assessment” justified the 2003 invasion. Today reminds us how wrong this is.
Or as Joe at Americablog puts it:
Republican Senators fought very hard to prevent the release of this intel report back in 2004 to insure Bush’s re-election. And, they wouldn’t release this report back in 2006 to protect their own re-elections. All that delay has resulted in the release of this report in 2008 — leaving John McCain to defend the Bush Iraq war agenda. In some ways, it was worth the wait.
This report makes the illegitimacy of the Iraq invasion even more mainstream and “official” (as opposed to being something that can be dismissed as a dirty hippie conspiracy theory), and makes McCain’s claim that “every assessment” justified it even more untenable. I wonder if he’ll keep saying that - I hope he does.
June 5th, 2008 at 06:38pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Bush,
Elections,
Iraq,
McCain,
Politics,
Republicans,
War
“The Johnson Treatment,” by George Tames
I do so hope this is true…
In a move that could further imperil his already weakened status in the Democratic Caucus and fuel talk about his split loyalties, Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) Wednesday took center stage in the GOP’s mounting attacks on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
Lieberman participated in a media conference call Wednesday morning organized by House Minority Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) criticizing Obama’s stance on the Middle East.
Lieberman’s criticisms came in response to Obama’s speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which was his first major address after claiming his party’s nomination late Tuesday night.
(…)
[D]uring 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.
Still, Obama and Lieberman seemed to be trying to keep the back-and-forth congenial as they both patted each other on the back during and after the exchange.
(…)
While Lieberman Wednesday declined to say whether he would continue acting as a surrogate for McCain in attacking Obama, he stated that he would not put his work in Congress in jeopardy by participating in the McCain campaign.
“Obviously I support Sen. McCain … but I can only do so much as long as it doesn’t interfere with what I’m doing here,” Lieberman said.
When asked whether his activities should bring his role as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee into question, Lieberman said he would leave that decision up to the Democratic Caucus. “That’s up to my colleagues,” he said.
Nobody puts Lieby in the corner!
I am very, very happy to see Obama finally taking on the Democrats’ sacred monster, Senator With-Us-On-Everything-But-The-War (and the judiciary, and torture, and choice, and who the next president should be, and…). As Kagro notes, Short Ride may finally be realizing that he won’t get a free ride as a McCain campaign surrogate.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:27am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Lieberman,
McCain,
Obama,
Politics,
Republicans
Raise your hands if you’re at all surprised. From the Obama campaign:
During a press conference today in Louisiana, Senator McCain was asked why he twice voted against creating a commission to investigate the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. McCain responded, “I have supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy.” However, Senator McCain has voted against such measures on multiple occasions. In response, Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan issued the following statement:
“Whether he simply wasn’t aware of his voting record again or he was intentionally misleading the people of Louisiana, John McCain certainly isn’t offering us ‘leadership you can believe in.’”
McCain Said He Supported “Every Investigation” Into the Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrina. During a press conference today in Louisiana, McCain was asked why he twice voted against creating a commission to investigate the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. McCain responded, “I have supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy.” [Fox News Channel, 6/4/08]
McCain Repeatedly Voted Against Establishing A Commission To Study The Response To Hurricane Katrina. In 2005 and 2006, McCain voted against proposals to establish a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local government response to Hurricane Katrina in U.S. Gulf Region. Both proposals were sponsored by Senator Clinton. [S. Amdt. 2716, Senate Vote 6, 2/2/06; S. Amdt. 1660, Senate Vote 229, 9/14/05]
I’m hoping that by November, “Straight Talk Express” will be nothing more than a punchline. I am very, very happy that the Obama campaign is attacking McCain’s honesty, and spotlighting his undying loyalty to The Worst President Ever.
Honesty and independence are the McCain brand, and without them he has nothing but anger and war and lobbyists. So if Obama can strip those positives away from him, he can pretty much forget about the Moderate/Independent/Undecided/Reagan Democrat vote. He’ll have to rely on Dubya’s Twenty-Eight-Percenters, and they don’t trust him much either.
June 4th, 2008 at 09:00pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Katrina,
McCain,
Republicans,
Wankers
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