Democracy for Utah - 2008 Presidential Election

McCain, muddled thoughts, and mudslinging

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:41:48 -0600

H.Hertzberg in The New Yorker on Aug 4:

Obama gained nothing in the polls during his nearly flawless, arguably triumphant grand tour. Still..., one would have to be an awful grouch not to be gratified by the sight of a sea of delighted Europeans waving American flags instead of burning them....
Back at home, one such grouch had ample reason to be grouchy. McCain's luck last week was as bad as Obama's was good. McCain rode in a golf cart with Bush senior; Obama rode in a helicopter with General David Petraeus. Obama got a big kiss from the new President of France, a dashing conservative with an exotic background and an unusual name; McCain stood athwart the cheese aisle of a sumpermarket, complaining....But McCain had no right to accuse [Obama], not once but repeatedly last week, of being willing to have his country "lose a war" if it would win him an election. That was shocking; that was unworthy. Obama drained a 3-point shot; McCain committed a 3-shot foul. The game is getting physical.

McCain's real problem is GOP ideas

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:21:03 -0600

Greg Anrig (author of The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing) says today's conservatives are facing a major dilemma (WaPo):

That choice is whether to stick with rhetoric and policies wedded to free markets, limited government and bellicose unilateralism, or to endorse a more robust role for the public sector at home while relying more on diplomacy and international institutions abroad. Either way, conservative Republicans seem destined to have a much harder time winning elections for the foreseeable future. Just ask McCain how much fun he's having. [...]

Shifting course won't be easy, either. Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, a pair of conservative authors decades younger than Gingrich and Norquist, argue in their new, much-hyped book "Grand New Party" that the time has come to "move beyond the Reagan legacy and the mindset of the current Republican power structure." They suggest plenty of proposals that many progressives would support, including a fairly ambitious and expensive national health-care plan, subsidies for entry-level jobs and more investment in infrastructure.

But while Douthat and Salam deserve credit for alerting fellow conservatives to the perils of staying the course, their embrace of a relatively activist government — if adopted by the broader movement — would shift political battles to a playing field on which progressives have a much stronger footing.

Anrig concludes that conservatives are basically damned if they do change and damned if they don't. Well, that's the problem you face when you've tied your political brand to ideas that don't work.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SENATOR OBAMA!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:49:02 -0600

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. PRESIDENT!!

Barack's birthday is today.
Send him a best wishes gift at utah4obama.org
or on the Obama site of your choice!!

McCain no longer getting 'a pass' from reporters on the bus

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:13:46 -0600

Howard Kurtz in the WaPo:

When [reporter Steve] Kraske said that McCain presumably wasn't ruling out a [Social Security] payroll tax hike, McCain interrupted: "That's presuming wrong." When the reporter rephrased the question, McCain said: "If you want to keep asking me over and over again, you're welcome to."

It was a brief moment of friction that highlighted how the captain of the Straight Talk Express is having a bumpier ride with journalists than when he ran for president eight years ago. The popular image of the campaign — McCain bantering with national journalists in the back of his bus — has, in practice, all but vanished. [...]

McCain adviser Steve Duprey, a former chairman of New Hampshire's Republican Party, says "he'd love to be back on the bus, driving around with eight or 10 of you, and just riffing. In New Hampshire, if he'd say something that wasn't artfully phrased, there was more of a flow — he could revise something, or say let's talk about baseball. He'd get a pass. But in the age of blogs, there's always someone who makes a big deal out of it."

So apparently McCain's been making dumb statements for years, but his media fan club let him "revise" his mistakes instead of reporting on them.

Here we go again with a fake 'ranch'

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:24:35 -0600

George W. Bush has never ridden a horse in his life. His activities at his Crawford "ranch" consist of wrangling brush, fishing, and riding his bike. Yet the "liberal media" have always played along with Bush's faux cowboy persona.

Now McCain's doing it too, and once again the major news outlets are being good little enablers (The Washington Independent):

For months, the media has been reporting that Sen. John McCain spends weekends at his "Arizona ranch," where he can be with his family, visit with close friends or occasionally entertain possible vice presidential contenders.

The steady reference to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's "Arizona ranch" projects a powerful image of the American cowboy that has long played an important role in presidential politics. The description of McCain's sliver of Arizona's outback as a "ranch," however, is misleading at best. And, perhaps inadvertently, it allows McCain to obscure his carpetbagger role in Arizona politics with a veneer of American mythology. [...]

The property is located in a "subdivision" where there is no cattle roping, branding or herding of heifers. Far from a ranch, McCain's getaway is really nothing more than a retreat. But the retired Navy captain and surge advocate certainly doesn't want the media stating that McCain went to his "Arizona retreat" for the weekend, lest that conjure up images of French cowardice.

It's a $1.7-million house surrounded by 20 acres of land. I think that's called an "estate."

Evangelical leaders to McCain: Don't pick Mitt

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:05:32 -0600

Please, please pick Mitt! (Moonie Times):

Prominent evangelical leaders are warning Sen. John McCain against picking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, saying their troops will abandon the Republican ticket on Election Day if that happens.

They say Mr. Romney lacks trust on issues such as outlawing abortion and opposing same-sex marriage and because he is a Mormon. Opposition is particularly powerful among those who supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican presidential primaries earlier this year. [...]

The Rev. Rob McCoy, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, Calif., who speaks at evangelical events across the country, told The Washington Times, "I will vote for McCain unless he does one thing. You know what that is? If he puts Romney on the ticket as veep."

Word used most often to describe McCain: old

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:54:25 -0600

I forgot to blog this tidbit from an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll earlier this month:

The top 10 answers people volunteered when asked to describe presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Monday. [...]

John McCain:

1. Old, 19 percent
2. Military service, 9 percent
3. Record, qualifications, 8 percent
4. Bush, 7 percent
5. Strength, 7 percent

[...]

Barack Obama:

1. Outsider, change, 20 percent
2. Lack of experience, 13 percent
3. Dishonest, 9 percent
4. Inspiring, 8 percent
5. Liberal, 6 percent

This poll is pretty amazing considering that neither Obama nor his surrogates nor any other Democratic bigwigs have been talking about McCain's age. But apparently it's still a concern for a lot of folks.

What does McCain know about military leadership?

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:40:02 -0600

Digby:

So McCain has gone from a heroic prisoner of war who survived to tell the tale to someone who "knows how to win wars." But then, why not? Bush was hailed as the second coming of Winston Churchill because he made a speech that included the word "axis" in it, so why not?

McCain is getting crispy. He attacked Obama in a really ugly way by saying that he's willing to "lose a war to win an election" and now he's telling everyone he knows how to win them. This is delusional. Codpiece delusional. McCain has never "won" a war.

This is what Wes Clark was talking about and why they staged a full-on fainting party. McCain is running as a military leader — but he isn't one. He's a politician who was in a war as a young man and was captured by the enemy. It was heroic service, but it wasn't leadership. And yet the myth of military leadership is the foundation of his claim to the presidency.

TIME: McCain is a 'long shot'

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:42:43 -0600

A rare glimpse of political reality from the corporate media (TIME):

Oh, let's just admit it: John McCain is a long shot. He's got a heroic personal story, and being white has never hurt a presidential candidate, but on paper 2008 just doesn't look like his year. And considering what's happening off paper, it might be time to ask the question the horse-race-loving media are never supposed to ask: Is McCain a no-shot?

Last week, the McCain campaign's case against Barack Obama went something like this: He's irresponsible when it comes to Iraq, naive when it comes to Iran, and a big-government liberal when it comes to the economy. But now Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has more or less endorsed Obama's plan to withdraw from Iraq, forcing McCain to argue that Maliki didn't really mean it, and even the Bush administration has accepted a "time horizon" for withdrawal, if not a precise "timetable." The Bush administration has also engaged in some diplomatic outreach with Iran, just as Obama has recommended, a severe blow to McCain's efforts to portray Obama's willingness to talk as appeasement. And on the economy, a TIME/Rockefeller Foundation poll found that 82% of the country supports

McCain receives $1,930 a month from program he calls a 'disgrace'

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:35:47 -0600

San Francisco Business Times:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program "a disgrace," the Associated Press reports.

"I'm receiving benefits," McCain told campaign reporters, but added, "the system is broken."

In 2007, he received benefits of $23,157 from Social Security, approximately $1,930 a month. The maximum monthly benefit under Social Security is $2,185. [...]

In 2006, McCain's wife Cindy earned $6 million, and has a net worth of approximately $100 million.

Why Obama's win means big trouble for the GOP

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:52:45 -0600

Just go read thereisnospoon at Daily Kos.

In come Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — a black man and a woman vying fiercely for the presidency and making history in the process. Obama triumphs. And looming on the GOP's horizon is its worst nightmare: the possibility that a majority of Americans might vote for an African-American for president. And not just vote for one, but get used to one. Americans might become accustomed to the idea of an African-American family living in the White House and being its public face to the world. That in the process, Americans might actually make leaps and bounds forward on the issue of race and thereby remove the most effective wedge in the Republican toolbox for decades.

And then all Republicans would have left is their deeply unpopular drive to abolish the New Deal. It would, in short, spell utter doom for the Republicans outside of the deep South and certain pockets of the Midwest.

Responses to the New Yorker's "satirical" anti-Obama cover

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:37:56 -0600

BagNewsNotes:

Tom Toles of the Washington Post:

David Horsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

How to pretend you care about the presidential election

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:45:38 -0600

The Onion News Network provides some tips for the less politically informed members of our citizenry:

Obama campaign focusing on congressional seats, not just the White House

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:06:45 -0600

Politico from June 25:

[Deputy campaign manager Steve] Hildebrand's plans underscore the unusual scope and ambition of Obama's campaign, which can relatively cheaply extend its massive volunteer and technological resources into states which won't necessarily produce electoral votes.

In Texas, for instance, Obama's three dozen offices were overrun with volunteers during the primary; the campaign's challenge is, in part, to find something useful to do with all that free labor. But, while Hildebrand said Obama is unlikely to pay for television advertising outside a core of about 15 states the candidate thinks he can win, he will spend some money on staff. Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, reportedly told donors in Houston that he would send 15 staffers to Texas, and the campaign has committed to having some staff on the ground in all 50 states. [...]

A "new president alone isn't enough," Obama wrote in a message sent to the DSCC's e-mail list. "I've served long enough in the U.S. Senate to know that Washington must change, and I also know that big changes don't happen without big Senate majorities — and right now, Democrats occupy only 49 seats."

Obama campaign supports anti-FISA group on Obama's own website

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:34:04 -0600

You might have heard that a few thousand Obama supporters have created a group on Obama's own campaign website to ask him to vote against the Democrats' latest travesty of a FISA bill (NYTimes):

The group, created on Wednesday [June 25], has more than 8,000 members, and recently passed the group "Women for Obama." (On Monday morning, there were barely 4,000 members of the anti-FISA group.) [...]

The entire episode shows the potential complications of an open site becoming an enabler of criticism from ardent supporters, let alone from opponents in disguise, so-called "concern trolls." But the campaign said it wouldn't have it any other way.

In an e-mail message, Tommy Vietor, an Obama campaign spokesperson, wrote: "This campaign has an extraordinary group of committed supporters, and we greatly appreciate their willingness to share their time and ideas with us. We believe that an open dialogue is an important part of any campaign, and are happy that my.barackobama.com has become a vehicle for that conversation."

The member count for the anti-FISA-bill group is now 11,759. Click here to join the group.

And a follow-up from The Nation:

Even conservative bloggers are impressed that the Obama campaign provides an open platform for supporters to organize against the candidate's position. "Rather than react in accordance with the practices of most campaigns by shutting and muffling dissent," observed the GOP blog The Next Right, "Obama is providing dissidents (many of whom are supporters of his) the opportunity to organize on his campaign web-site." The blog contrasted the approach to top-down campaigns on the right. "Can you imagine a Bush campaign reacting like this? I can't."