Today, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we begin the journey of hard work that will bring about the change we need.
Yes We Did!
Sarah Palin... well....she did not know she was being pranked, and she exhibited, again, her lack of foreign policy knowledge. Here's the link of the Canadians pranking her. It's pitiful:
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6162962
Who are they kidding? Will America buy the trickle down theory a 3rd time? In Ohio, Palin actually said that Alaska had more oil than Saudi Arabia. Unbelievable. And, of course, she thinks "Joe" is a licensed plumber trying to buy a business. And now, here is McCain, spewing untruths and fear in Florida, while the crowd is trying to chant negatives, stopping only at the prodding of those standing behind McCain on the stage, in the same key of deceit that he's been condusting for some time. The McCain/Palin campaign in one of negative fear and relentless smear.Tomorrow, let us take from them every smurk of deception, and give them nothing to celebrate their divisive electioneering.
Obama/Biden 08
BARACK THE VOTE!
While John McCain is staggering around and making untrue statements on CNN.com, I've decided to forward this email message because it speaks common sense.
Friends,
Tomorrow.
All of us.
You, me, and everyone we know.
Eight years is enough. Eight weeks was enough.
We have a chance to redeem this country, to prove we're better than this, that which Bush has made of us.
McCain is right about one thing: Barack Obama is the most liberal senator in the United States Senate. More liberal than Ted Kennedy. When was the last time you had a chance to send the MOST liberal senator to the White House? Trust me, it won't happen again in our lifetime.
Every vote is critical -- even in hard red states like Texas and Alabama; and true blue ones like New York, California and Michigan. Tomorrow, we need to create a massive popular vote that will give Obama a stunning mandate to return this country to we, the people. Let's write one for the history books and rocket Obama into the White House.
Expect trouble tomorrow. Stand your ground. Don't let some clerk turn you away. Make noise. Call the media if they won't let you vote. Let the Obama camp know. Check out his Voter Protection Center. Know where your polling place is. Be careful inside the voting booth. The ballot still reads like a Sudoku puzzle. Be prepared for long lines. That's ok, you know how to bring the party with you! Make new friends. Plot your local revolution. The 28-year rule of Republicans (and Democrats who act like Republicans) is over. The Reagan Era dies tomorrow night. My God, I truly thought it would never end.
There are over a million of you on my list. Each of you know 5 or 10 people who may not vote. Offer to drive them to the polls. If they live across the country, call them and tell them how much it means to you that they go vote for Obama. Take your co-workers to lunch -- and to vote. Be creative. Come up with ways to convince the undecided to get their decided on and go vote. Make it fun. Lead the horse to water.
60 seats in the Senate!
30-seat increase in the House!
President Obama!
It's in your hands. The Promised Land.
Yours,Michael MooreMichaelMoore.comMMFlint@aol.com
I'll just let you read it and hope the media report on it.
,
The 2008 campaign enters its final weekend with an advantage for Barack Obama in tone as well as substance: Likely voters are twice as apt to say John McCain has gone too far in criticizing Obama as to say Obama's crossed the line in taking on McCain.
It might be worth it for McCain if his criticisms were gaining traction -- but the latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll suggests otherwise.
Slightly more likely voters see a bigger risk that McCain would create too few government regulations than that Obama would create too many -- one of McCain's lines of argument. And 54 percent see Obama as a "safe" choice for president, deflecting another McCain thrust.
Click here for PDF with charts and questionnaire.
On issues, Obama continues to lead in trust to handle the economy and taxes -- the latter especially unusual for a Democrat -- and they run about evenly, 49-46 percent, in trust to handle a crisis, another area in which McCain has struggled to gain greater leverage.
Economic concerns are boosting Obama in some usually more-Republican groups; in vote preference he runs evenly with McCain, for example, among white men who cite the economy as the single most important issue in their choice.
As a result Obama trails among white men overall by 9 points -- a group John Kerry lost by 25.
Even with these advantages for Obama the two are running closely in some customary swing voter groups: among independents, 50-46 percent Obama-McCain; among white Catholics, 48-49 percent; among married women, 48-49 percent.
And movable voters, the small group -- now just 8 percent -- who haven't made up their minds for sure, split 31-34 percent, with the rest fully undecided.
Obama gains his overall advantage, 53-44 percent among likely voters, with help from the fact that more Democrats than Republicans are likely voters. Democrats account for 37 percent of likely voters in this ABC/Post poll, about their usual level in exit polls. Republicans account for 28 percent, well under their norm.
That differential is greater than in previous presidential elections since 1984, in which voters have been anywhere from evenly divided between the two parties to +4 points Democratic.
And political party identification was just +2 points Democratic in the latest midterm election in 2006.
WASHINGTON (AP) — That smiling guy walking down the street? Odds are he's a Barack Obama backer. The grouchy looking one? Don't ask, and don't necessarily count on him to vote on Tuesday, either.
More John McCain supporters feel glum about the presidential campaign while more of Obama's are charged up over it, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll released Saturday.
The survey shows McCain backers have become increasingly upset in recent weeks, a period that has seen Obama take a firm lead in many polls. One expert says the contrasting moods could affect how likely the two candidates' supporters are to vote on Election Day, possibly dampening McCain's turnout while boosting Obama's.
While 43 percent of the Democrat Obama's backers said they are excited over the campaign, just 13 percent of McCain's said so, according to the survey of adults, conducted by Knowledge Networks. Six in 10 Obama supporters said the race interests them, compared to four in 10 backing McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona.
On the flip side, 52 percent of McCain supporters said the campaign has left them frustrated, compared to 30 percent of Obama's. A quarter of McCain backers say they feel helpless, double the rate of those preferring Obama, the Illinois senator.
More McCain supporters also feel angry and bored, while Obama's are likelier to say they are proud and hopeful.
All of this is a bad sign for McCain, according to George E. Marcus, a political scientist from Williams College who has studied the role emotion plays in politics. Negative feelings about a campaign can discourage voters by making them less likely to go through what can be a painful process: Voting for someone who will lose.
"If I'm getting my head handed to me by a tennis player, my brain is saying, 'Do I want a second match? No,'" Marcus said. "Why do something that's going to lead to failure?"
Marcus said such emotions can be overcome by outside events, such as a campaign or neighbor urging a person to vote. There's also the danger exuberant Obama backers might decide not to vote because of overconfidence. The Obama and McCain organizations have combined to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for those very reasons.
Obama leads McCain among likely voters in the AP-Yahoo News poll, 51 percent to 43 percent.
Supporters of McCain cite a dislike for Obama, dissatisfaction with the campaign's tone and frustration with how news organizations have treated their candidate.
"Flat disgusted, how's that," said Billie Hart, 80, a Houston Republican backing McCain. "Because that's the way I feel about it. I don't like the individual."
Many Democrats say they're energized by a candidate they perceive as different from most politicians and who can make a real difference.
"Elections have always been so ho-hum,"said Kathleen Rockwell, 61, an Obama supporter from Redmond, Wash. This time, "I feel connected. And that feels good."
The AP-Yahoo! News poll, which has followed the same group of 2,000 people since last November, underscores how individuals have reacted to the campaign's currents. For many McCain supporters, it's not been a happy period.
Three in 10 McCain backers who report being frustrated now said in September they weren't. That is quadruple the number who became less frustrated.
At the same time, one in five McCain supporters are not interested in the campaign now who said they were in September. Half that number gained interest. By similar margins, McCain backers report becoming more angry, bored, overwhelmed and helpless and have become less excited, proud and hopeful.
"I'm real interested in having it over," said Michele Roos, 64, a McCain supporter from Newport News, Va.
Enthusiasm by Obama backers has largely stayed steady since September, though slightly more of them — 31 percent — now say the campaign makes them feel proud.
"I didn't like the candidates before," said Angelique Sims, 38, an Obama supporter from Shawnee, Okla. "I like his character. I like the things he represents. He represents my views."
A closer look at the numbers show how that emotions are playing out to Obama's advantage in several pivotal groups of voters.
Forty-eight percent of those under age 30 who support Obama say they are excited over the race, compared to just 21 percent of those young voters who back McCain. That age group has been a reservoir of strong support for the Democrat.
Just 44 percent of whites supporting the Republican say the campaign interests them, compared to 58 percent of whites and 72 percent of blacks supporting Obama.
At the same time, half of McCain supporters age 65 and up say they're frustrated, compared to three in 10 of Obama's older voters. Also saying they're frustrated are 53 percent of whites backing McCain — compared to 40 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks behind Obama.
The AP-Yahoo! News poll of 1,753 adults was conducted Oct. 17-27 and had an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Included were interviews with 803 Obama supporters and 703 McCain supporters, with error margins of plus or minus 3.5 and 3.7 points respectively.
The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.
———
AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.
It is sad that the elders who are in their 60's exhibit such a lack of wisdom. I really understand why the youth are slow to give them respect when they are at the Palin rallies starting chants of racial slurs about Barack that are false in their inference. The old, not the young, are harbors of America's rotten history, inwhich they carry it like an heirloom of honor. Read this from the NY times:
November 1, 2008, 10:31 am
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. – “John McCain! Not Hussein!”
So goes the latest popular chant on the campaign trail with Gov. Sarah Palin, demonstrated at a morning rally in central Florida.
Ms. Palin was midway through her stump speech when a group of supporters began shouting it in unison, drowned out a few seconds later as Ms. Palin talked over them.
A similar chant, “Vote McCain, not Hussein,” was heard at a campaign event for Ms. Palin in Williamsport, Pa., earlier this week.
Senator Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, a fact that some of his opponents say proves that he is a Muslim. Mr. Obama is, in fact, a Christian.
After the rally in Florida ended, two of the people leading the chant explained why they did so.
“Because it rhymes,” said Shirley Mitten, 64, a volunteer at a pregnancy center and a resident of Brooksville, Fla.
She said she does not know if Mr. Obama is a Muslim. “He says he’s not, but we have no way of knowing,” Ms. Mitten said.
Her husband, John A. Mitten, 64, took credit for starting the chant. “I was trying to get it going!” he said. “I just do not want Obama to be elected.”
Mr. Mitten said he could not trust Mr. Obama because of his past association with William Ayers, the 1960’s radical, and because of his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. He also pointed out that Mr. Obama’s father was a Muslim.
The middle name Hussein, he said, added to the suspicion. “I guess Obama was named after Saddam Hussein,” he said.
I found this wonderful article on Politico.com:
The Jimmy Smits interview
It’s an urban legend that actor Blair Underwood based his “L.A. Law” role of a hotshot black attorney on Barack Obama during the late 1980s. Underwood had been playing the part for years before he even met Obama, who was president of the Harvard Law Review at the time. But it is true that Jimmy Smits’ charismatic candidate character Matt Santos on “The West Wing” was inspired directly by the politician. Indeed, writer-producer Eli Attie even spoke to Obama adviser David Axelrod to pick up back story and other details for use in his scripts. The many parallels between “The West Wing’s” final season and the current presidential race have been widely noted. Like Obama, Santos is a former community organizer with a wife and two kids who enjoys grass-roots support, excels in soaring rhetoric about “hope,” yet lacks real congressional experience. His far older Republican rival, Arnie Vinick (Alan Alda), had a chilly relationship with conservatives in his own party and often engaged the press with “straight talk.” Indeed, “The West Wing” also predicted an October surprise of sorts, only it was a nuclear reactor meltdown instead of one on Wall Street that altered the race. Though the “West Wing” finale was more than two years ago and Smits moved on to a role as an assistant D.A. on the quirky cable drama “Dexter,” thoughts of Santos and his eerily prescient presidential quest still weigh on his mind. Less than a hundred hours before the election, Politico spoke with the actor, who had just returned from introducing Obama at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., rally that capped off the candidate’s groundbreaking half-hour infomercial. “I’m not a policy wonk — I’m somewhere between being undecided and a surrogate,” he says with a laugh when asked about his role in the real-life campaign. Politico: What went on behind the scenes in Fort Lauderdale? Smits: It was an important night for them. Shock and awe in a way. They had the half-hour thing and the live show and earlier a get-out-the-vote rally. The senator was in conversation with President Clinton in the staging area, and I was just impressed with how ... calm everything was. That’s always my big perception about him — the steadiness there. Sure, there’s the magic of luck and the timing of things, but it’s how he keeps his head above the fray that makes me feel he can really be a transformative figure.
Palin has lost what little mind she had. This confirms what Barack said about the McCain/Palin strategy, when America looks at the economy, they will loose. They are actually trying to pull a magic trick inwhich voters will not see their similarities to Bush's policies. Here, take a look:
October 30, 2008, 6:28 pm
ERIE, Pa. – Gov. Sarah Palin tried to change the subject from the economy to national security on Thursday, warning an audience of 7,000 not to vote based on economic concerns alone.
“In times of economic worry and hardship, the crisis that we’re in right now, sometimes it’s tempting to put those concerns aside on Election Day, national security issue, but we don’t have that luxury,” Ms. Palin said, adding that Senator Barack Obama intends to “soften the focus” in the closing days before the election.
“He’s hoping your mind won’t wander to the real challenges – national security – challenges that he is incapable of meeting. But in a time of choosing, we have to decide which man has proven that he can protect us from Osama bin Laden and from Al Qaeda.”
Ms. Palin spent the day burnishing her own national security credentials, meeting with a group of national security advisers that included former Gov. Tom Ridge; James Woolsey, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency; Rear Admiral Marsha Evans; Lieutenant General Carol Mutter; John Lehman, the 17th Secretary of the Navy; and Ambassador Rich Williamson, the special envoy to Sudan.
The meeting was closed to the press, but Ms. Palin spoke to a small group of students, alumni and reporters afterward, flanked by the advisers and four large American flags.
“It may be hard to spend much time worrying about great troubles in far-off places when you fear for your own job and the possible life insurance threats that we have, maybe losing that life insurance plan, health benefits, by losing a job, those things that you perhaps are worried about today,” she said. “It may be hard to spare much thought even for the most urgent matters of national security.”
Mr. Ridge, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, appeared to dutifully be back on message after saying last week that Senator John McCain might have been on the verge of winning Pennsylvania if he had chosen Mr. Ridge – not Ms. Palin – as his running mate.
This time, he noted his “three decades long” friendship with Mr. McCain and introduced Ms. Palin by asking the crowd to give a “very warm, northwest Pennsylvania welcome to the next vice president of the United States!”
It was the third time in a week that Ms. Palin has strayed from her standard stump speech and focused on a single policy issue. Last Friday, she spoke about special-needs children, and on Wednesday, she delivered a speech on energy security.
This is a truth that the GOP wants to keep silent. What are they affraid of?
October 30, 2008, 12:06 pm
More than 20 percent of American households watched Barack Obama’s 30-minute campaign commercial on Wednesday night, according to preliminary ratings.
In the top 56 local TV markets, the household rating for Mr. Obama’s message was 21.7, Nielsen said. The rating indicates the percentage of homes that watched the program. While it will be impossible to judge how many undecided voters the infomercial reached, Mr. Obama’s message clearly reverberated across the country, drawing more viewers than most prime time programs.
The commercial was particularly high-rated in several battleground states. According to Nielsen, 29 percent of households in the Philadelphia media market, 28 percent of households in the West Palm Beach/Ft. Pierce, Fl. media market, and 27.2 percent of households in the Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem, N.C. media market viewed the ad.
The ad was “big, glossy and almost unavoidable,” Jim Rutenberg observed Wednesday. The commercial was shown on four broadcast networks (Fox, NBC, CBS, and Univision) and four cable channels (MSNBC, BET, TV One, and NY1). BET and TV One were not included in Nielsen’s estimate.
“If Barack Obama fails to win the election, perhaps the networks should hire him to entertain viewers on Wednesday nights,” The Hollywood Reporter suggests. The household ratings for the ad “outperformed the usual programming in the time period.” ABC, the only one of the big four broadcasters that did not run the ad, wound up in fourth place among 18- to 49-year-old viewers.
When Ross Perot broadcast an Election Day message in 1996, the program was viewed by 16.8 percent of households, according to Nielsen.
More thorough viewership numbers will be released by Nielsen on Thursday afternoon.
Well, the typical has happened as it pertains to the powerful informercial by Barack Obama. The republicans said it was so so, but had to admit it was effective. The Dems and those of any integrity and itelligence found it moving, innovative, skillful, and the best run presidential campaign of the modern era. Here are a few of the sensible comments from politico.com:
The Obama half-hour production last night, regardless of the election’s outcome, reflects the best run presidential campaign of the modern era. Mark Hanna must be smiling down (or up) on the money-raising skill, ground operation, and ability to stay on message of the Obama
I found it surprisingly effective. As I argued in The Powers to Lead, the key soft power skills are emotional intelligence, vision, and communication. The program, including its live ending, showed Obama as presidential on all those dimensions -- echos of FDR and Ronald Reagan. Of course people perceive such ads through their pre-existing mental filters. I doubt it swayed many Republicans, but it may have affected some independents as well as energized Democrats.
The medium was the message: a diversity of people and families, including Obama’s family, explaining their problems and hearing solutions from a leader who looked presidential. Bill Richardson said toward the end that Obama brings people together, and we saw that on screen. A great mix of concern and hope, ideas and endorsements that covered every campaign message and wrapped them all in one inspiring and coherent package.
Here's the simplest measure of how this piece was effective: it reminded us what it's like to look forward to hearing from our President. What Obama has reinvented here is not the campaign ad but the fireside chat.
The Obama 30-minute program/ ad may be the finest political advertisement in modern American political history - and regardless of the outcome of the election, will be used as a textbook model for humanized, effective political messaging for years to come.
Obama raised the bar for discourse in this past week -- a totally positive, solutions-oriented half hour. Didn't criticize his opponent, didn't even mention him. How can McCain/Palin still continue with their petty, nasty attacks at everyone who's ever lived in Hyde Park? Is that how he wants his last campaign's week to be remembered?The little things I noticed: explicit references to major American corporations Wal-Mart, Ford and Google; the upper half of Oprah Winfrey's head; Bibles; amber waves of grain; the parade of Vice Presidential runners-up Claire McCaskill, Bearded Bill Richardson and Tim "The People's Eyebrow" Kaine; and, for once, a candidate referring to his website in a context that had nothing to do with money, but in connecting voters with information.
Was it effective? You bet! It was a great piece of television, flawlessly produced and paced beautifully. It reinforced every theme Obama wants to hit. Followed by a late-night rally in Florida, it makes it a very good day and night for Obama. Even if it does not get a huge cumulative audience for the money spent, it serves another big purpose. At this stage of a campaign, control of the message for each day is critical. Today and tomorrow, Obama controls the message.For McCain, the bad news is this: If you are behind with six days to go, you can't afford to lose two of them.
It was brilliant to end the half hour magazine-show style presentation by moving to a live closing. Realizing the show was suddenly live sent a jolt of electricity through the room in which I was watching; everyone sat up and gasped.
The live ending reflected back on the prior half hour: here was Obama, looking and sounding exactly as he did in the produced segment, and this was real, so what came before must haven been real, too. It also sent a very eloquent metamessage: that Obama could time the closing of his talk to tens of thousands of people so perfectly and seamlessly, gave the impression of control, discipline, and breathtaking competence that are exactly what is needed in a leader, especially now.
My son, 13, left his video games to watch it. If Obama achieves nothing else, I thank him for that. In fact, I hear that lots of people watched it with their families or with friends. More importantly, I hear they went out of their way to watch it with their families and friends, as opposed to stumbling across it while waiting for the World Series. Whatever side you're on, when you remind yourself that this was just a long ad, you must admit that this is beyond remarkable.
Here are some comments from CNN.com about the dishonest and hypocritical filth spewed by McCain and Palin:
Will someone please put a muzzle on Sarah Palin? Or better yet, suggest that she spend this upcoming weekend on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney!
Why are we not hearing anything in the news about Palin, her husband, and the Alaskan Independance Party? Why is that not being investigated along with other allegations? If she is so willing to fling out accusations as though they are truths, where is the truth about her? Anything she says about Obama can be answered because he has been vetted. She has not. Not in the least. We know nothing about her. She has not had time to be vetted properly. Out of everything that we have heard about we know answers only to troopergate. So the one thing we do know is that she abused her power and was unethical in her behavior. That is all I need to know. After the last eight years how can anyone think that she is acceptable? HOW?
HERE WE GO AGAIN…
IDIOT..I CRING EVERYTIME SHE OPENS HER MOUTH…
The McCain campaign and his rogue companion are pathetic. I know why he voted with Bush 90% of the time, he is every bit as dumb as Bush. What in the heck is a "redistributionist", sounds like something Bush would have said. The Rogue candidate' s political career is over she looks just like Joe Lieberman.
WHERE ARE PALIN'S PROMISED MEDICAL RECORDS? THEY PROMISED EARLY THIS WEEK. MORE LIES AND COVER UPS FROM THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN.
I am so disappointed to see this Man (McCain) stoop to such levels as to question the very freedom we have to disagree with people and still be able to work with and know them with out being implied as un-American. I see hints of racism in both McCain and Palin.
They are in my opinion displaying “Jim Crowish” behavior and they both disgust me to the depths of my soul.
I already voted for Obama
Someone needs to stuff a sock in this twits mouth!She is the one being investigated!What nerve.Hypocrite!I cannot wait to be rid of the republicans come November 4.
Canadian POV, your post sums it up beautifully! I just thought it deserved to be viewed once again:
Obaman has relationships with internationally respected scholars and the uneducated, unintelligent VP candidate tries to use that against him? What about her own affiliation with AIP? What about her abuse of power and the continuing (and expanding) investigation into her actions?
So, having Joe the fraudulent plumber by her side is supposed to give her legitimacy over a Harvard educated candidate.
She is so vile and relies only on divisive antics to fuel her blind ambition. The world doesn't need another Rovian Puppet.
I would have considered voting for…, but … Sorry this time…Mr. McCain - you just lost my vote because your pooooooooooor judgement — you picked the worst VP!!!
This is a wonderful story from CNN.com:
(CNN) -- Even before the current economic crisis, voters listed the economy as the top issue in the presidential election.In a CNN.com special report, Battleground Voters, we talked to voters in five battleground states -- Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio -- to find out how the economy would influence their choice for president.In the second of four parts, we talked to students, who say that while they're worried about making ends meet in college and jobs when they graduate, social issues matter, too.
BOULDER, Colorado: 'Fearful to go into our future'
Katie Ulrich says her college savings have run out and she's looking for new ways to pay for her education.
Katie Ulrich, a junior at the University of Colorado, is worried about paying for the next two years at college -- and the effect the economic downturn is having on her chances of getting a job after college.
While the 20-year-old native of Huntington Beach, California, has survived on savings her parents established for her at birth, the money has run out -- and that has her looking for new ways to get by financially.
"I've had enough to cover my first two years of college, but this year I have been having to apply for financial aid and loans and the same thing next year," she said.
She said it's hard getting a job because restaurants in Boulder -- and jobs on campus -- are cutting back on employees. Ulrich, who registered to vote in Colorado this year, voted in her first presidential election on October 21. Watch Daughtry perform for first-time voters »
While at first she wouldn't say who got her vote, Ulrich later said: "I hope Obama wins."
"The person who I voted for has a better plan of getting us out of this [economic] crisis that we're in, and so I took a lot of time to research... both the presidential candidates," she said.
She added: "I really hope we can get the economy turned around. I think it's hard right now as a student because it's fearful to go into our futures without the hope that our economy will be better. We all want job opportunities. We all want the chance to get to have a great future, and with this crisis it doesn't look good. Hopefully, we can get it turned around."
-- CNN's Ed Hornick
This was posted on 9/04/2008 by Joseph Romm and I thought it was worth revisiting because it shows the judgement and character of the McCain/Palin ticket.
Sarah Palin sounds authentic while lying through her teeth, seems decent while saying indecent things. And that, of course, is why the GOP faithful love her. But the most revealing lies in her big convention speech were on energy:
"Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already. But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines...build more nuclear plants...create jobs with clean coal...and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources. We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity, and produced by American workers."
LIE #1 shows chutzpah, I'll give her that much. Just two months ago, Palin said "I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can't drill our way out of our problem." Perhaps someone told the would-be energy expert that even billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens knows her July claim was absurd (see "Pork queen Palin is an earmark expert, NOT energy expert").
LIE #2 is that her "opponents" want to do "nothing at all." Aside from the fact that Obama is willing to compromise on offshore drilling (see "Since offshore oil is de minimis, why shouldn't Obama and the Dems make a deal? Part 1"), his energy plan is by far the most comprehensive one ever put forth by a candidate from a major party (see "A real energy plan for America: Efficiency now, 10% renewables by 2012, and one million plug-in hybrids by 2015").
LIE #3 is that "a McCain-Palin administration" would "move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources." Sorry, she and McCain are soulmate Luddites. She thinks "Alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent and would require more than 10 years to develop." McCain thinks "The truly clean technologies don't work",which is why he has consistently voted against renewables, even though, like Palin, he claims to support them (see "Why McCain hates renewables but pretends he loves them" and "Anti-wind McCain delivers climate remarks at foreign wind company").
LIE #4 -- perhaps the most revealing of all -- came when Palin said
To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of the world's energy supplies....
Not even close. Yes, if you live in a world where the only energy source is oil, then the Persian Gulf countries do produce 20% of the total world supply -- although it would be next to impossible for Iran to cut it all off. And kind of stupid, since they'd lose tens of billions of dollars in revenues themselves.
This is a strong case for the change we need in the Obama/Biden ticket.
GOP 'mavericks' have concerns with McCain
By ALEXANDER BURNS | 10/27/08 3:27 PM EDT
While John McCain’s often-touted maverick tendencies have frequently gotten him into trouble with conservatives in his party, in the waning weeks of the election it’s becoming clear that he’s also got a problem with another Republican constituency: his fellow GOP mavericks. In the past week alone, a handful of liberal, moderate and independent-leaning Republican officials have publicly announced they are supporting Barack Obama. Few of them are still important party figures —and at least one is no longer a member of the Republican Party—but even so, their public repudiation of McCain is a dispiriting blow since his record of breaking with party orthodoxy in many ways resembles their own.Over the summer, former Iowa Congressman and House Banking Committee Chairman James A. Leach, a liberal Republican who also lost his office in 2006, announced his support for Obama and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.And in September, Maryland Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, a moderate who was defeated in the Republican primary in his bid for reelection this year, told a Baltimore radio station he was backing the Obama-Biden presidential campaign.“I think they are prudent, they are knowledgeable,” Gilchrest explained. “We just can’t use four more years of the same kind of policy that’s somewhat hazardous which leads to recklessness.”"By failing to move to the center, he alienated a huge portion of Republicans who are disenchanted from the last eight years," said former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who left the Republican Party after losing reelection in 2006 and endorsed Obama in February.In the past week, the pace of the cross-party endorsements has picked up, with former and Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsing Obama on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on October 19 and former two-term Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson backing him on October 23.Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, an unorthodox politician who campaigned for Mitt Romney in last year’s Republican primaries, endorsed Obama Friday, praising him as a “once-in-a-lifetime candidate” and criticizing the GOP for “playing on an increasingly small field in the last couple of elections.”Two days later, former South Dakota Sen. Larry Pressler, who like McCain once served as a Senate Commerce Committee chairman, also endorsed Obama. “The Republican Party I knew in the 1970s is just all gone,” he said, explaining that he preferred Obama’s economic plan.Given the cast of political characters, it is hardly surprising that some of these figures endorsed a Democrat for president. All have broken with the Republican Party in the past on key votes or in public statements. Weld went so far as to resign his office as governor to accept a Clinton administration appointment, though his nomination foundered in the Senate.
I listened to a portion of McCain's speech, that was all I could take because the lies started giving me headaches, and now, he's taking a portion of Obama's advice about the hatchet verses the scapple. A portion of what he said was he would cut what was not working. That sounds familiar. Then, he went back to his negative words, scare tactics, and incoherent policies, trying to fool the public into believing that prosperity will trickle down to them if they just give the big companies a tax break and relief to the oil companies. I had to turn it off when he said that he's going to move the country in a new direction. What a joke. He may start making sense by Nov. 4, 2008, but, I'm going to vote for change, Obama/Biden, NOT McSame/Ailin.
I've been listening to Barack speaking in Ohio and he is in true form. Every word was an investment of hope with a volley of solutions that make sense. This man is a President in waiting. He is the definition of a great and honest leader with a character that all Americans can be proud of, a pride that could very well be mistaken for arrogance, but it will be just plain old-fashion American pride. This is what we need in these turbulent times.
LET'S BARACK THE VOTE!
