This is the Presidential Campaign Thread.

Barack Obama Vs. John McCain.

Edited November 6, 200817 yr by Toups

What the hell is "voting in blocks" Going by the implied definition on this board, which I assume to mean voting overwhelmingly for one party or another:

I think Evangelical Christians vote in blocks. I also think Jewish people traditionally vote in blocks. Conservatives seem to vote in blocks, liberals seem to vote in blocks. Union members tend to vote in blocks. Shame on them for exercising their constitutional rights in that fashion.

I personally see nothing wrong with African-Americans generally voting for Democrats. I see nothing wrong with African-Americans voting for liberals. And, in light of the fact that we have never had an African-American nominee for president, I would certainly expect African-Americans to overwhelmingly support Obama. You know, it seems to me that Sarah Palin (a WOMAN) was appointed in the hopes that women voted "in blocks" for one of their own in light of the fact that Republicans made no secret of the fact they thought Palin would attract "Hillary supporters." This expectation was in spite of the fact that Palin and Clinton agree on nothing. So I guess that Republicans either expect "block voting" or stereotype.

Who cares if groups vote in "blocks?"

Jess this is a great post.

I don't know what's wrong with me today but I'm just stuck in goof mode now and I can't seem to snap out of it.

Tina Fey should have plenty to work with on SNL. Who needed a moderator?

Palin on Fox News: Couric Annoyed Me

Sam Stein

Appearing on a friendlier news outlet, Gov. Sarah Palin said she was "annoyed" with the way Katie Couric handled their interview and complained that the CBS Evening News host failed to give her the opportunity to take a proverbial axe to Barack Obama.

In a portion of her sit-down with Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron, Palin claimed that Couric's questions -- which produced a series of staggeringly embarrassing responses -- put her in a lose-lose position.

"The Sarah Palin in those interviews was a little bit annoyed," she said. "It's like, man, no matter what you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too."

For the record, Couric asked her, among other things, what type of news sources she turns to for information, which Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with, why Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience, her opinion of the bailout package for Wall Street, and where she thought Vice President Dick Cheney erred. Which one of those questions was designed to trip her up (as opposed to, say, give viewers a better sense of her character and views) is tough to ascertain.

Later in her interview with Cameron, Palin offered a sense of what she thinks would have been a fairer set of questions. Unsurprisingly, they all would have provided her the opportunity to rail against Obama.

"In those Katie Couric interviews, I did feel that there were lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs. I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. Some of his comments that he's made about the war, that I think may, in my world, disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he has made about Afghanistan -- what we are doing there, supposedly just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless. I want to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that's also an indication of being outside the Washington elite, outside of the media elite also. I just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for."

Palin on Fox News: Couric Annoyed Me

Sam Stein

So her feelings were hurt because she couldn't answer a damn question?

Oy vey.

Hopefully this link works for anyone interested in the text of the bailout bill that passed:

http://banking.senate.gov/public/_files/la...YO08C32_xml.pdf

It went from 3 pages to 451 (450 and a third) pages.

So her feelings were hurt because she couldn't answer a damn question?

Oy vey.

It sounds like she's upset because Katie Couric didn't ask her stump speech questions.

She wanted to be able to point out what she finds negative about Barack Obama but what does that really say about her? She doesn't think he's qualified to be President and I think that whole thing about seeing Russia as foreign policy experience is alarming.....not to mention the fact that Putin doesn't really rear his head into Alaskan air space or whatever silly thing she said he does.

Then why didn't she say any of that? Did she need permission from KC to say any of this?

Childish.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/10/03/v...oment/#comments

VP Debate: The night’s most powerful moment

Then why didn't she say any of that? Did she need permission from KC to say any of this?

Childish.

IDK. I read all the newspapers and magazines and I can't name one. She didn't undo the damage last night. She just stopped it from getting worse. I'm glad there was only one VP debate and even though her story about being a mother of five and a special needs baby is touching....the most touching moment was Joe Biden choking up when he spoke about being a single dad.

How awesome.....we posted about the same moment at the same time.

IDK. I read all the newspapers and magazines and I can't name one. She didn't undo the damage last night. She just stopped it from getting worse. I'm glad there was only one VP debate and even though her story about being a mother of five and a special needs baby is touching....the most touching moment was Joe Biden choking up when he spoke about being a single dad.

Check out my last post.

And you see she couldn't say anything to really follow that up.

I didn't see all of the debate. Of portions that I saw, I thought Palin did well as a debater. She held her own. Her answers lacked substance. She continually reiterated the campaign message. Which is her job. I was turned off by the "down home, folksy " speak. I'm not one of the guys or the homies catching a brew at the bar, watching the game. (Which is how it made me feel). I think she re-energized the republican base, but said nothing new to capture independents. I do wonder how the repub base will react to her tolerance of gay civil unions.

Highest rated VP debate ever...by far..

Sarah Palin Show

69.9 million people watched.

Fox News gets it's highest ratings in the networks history..

FNC tops all cable news.

Edited October 3, 200817 yr by Casey008

Joe Biden’s Alternate Universe

I remember thinking WTF? When Biden said this last night. I'm glad someone did a little follow-up with this..

"The interesting and scary thing in these comments is that Biden’s fantasy doesn’t impact the pro-Obama people at all. This isn’t a gaffe, it’s a man simply making things up out of thin air.

Biden proved last night that he could quite literally say absolutely anything and no one would care."

Edited October 3, 200817 yr by Casey008

Fox News, GOP Tag-Team Obama With Voter Fraud Smear

Seth Colter Walls

Weeks out from election day, Fox News has begun devoting extensive coverage to a scandal alleging "deep ties" between Barack Obama and a "radical" group of election thieves. The segments have aired repeatedly on the network's morning show as well as on prime time programs like Hannity & Colmes.

On Friday morning, capping of a full week of coverage on the topic, the hosts of Fox & Friends introduced a segment on Obama and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) by saying:

"The community group ACORN under scrutiny for potential voter fraud issues and Barack Obama's long-term relationship with the radical group also coming more to light. But is the mainstream media keeping both under wraps?" [...]

"Briefly, we have been talking about ACORN, [which] has got a long and storied past involving voter fraud across the country... What is Barack Obama's connection to ACORN?"

The ball was the passed to Seton Motley from the conservative Media Research Center, who charged "three stages of connection" between Obama and ACORN. "He was a lawyer for the organization. He then served his years as a trainer of activists for the organization. And when he was named Chairman of the Board by terrorist William Ayers to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, they funneled money to, amongst many other places, ACORN. So there is three stages of relationship with them."

Hours after the segment aired, the Republican National Committee emailed out the segment and YouTube video to its list of reporters (its 18th email in two months referencing Obama and ACORN).

The Obama campaign already has an entry about the ACORN issue on its "Fight the Smears" website. Broadly, the campaign admits that Obama represented a coalition of groups that sued Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar in order to get him to implement the federal "Motor-Voter" voting access law. However, far from a "radical" collective, even the U.S. Department of Justice joined the raft of groups Obama helped represent in Illinois, and their collective challenge was successful.

So Obama aides say he wasn't "representing" ACORN individually, but as part of a larger coalition. And as ties go, this one isn't particularly deep or damning. It also happens to be the only alleged tie raised on Fox this week that is incontestably true.

As for the other two charges of ACORN ties, an Obama aide calls them complete fictions. "The Republican National Committee is using smoke and mirrors in an attempt to distract from John McCain's more of the same plans in a change election," said spokesman Ben LaBolt. "The fact is, Barack Obama was never an employee of ACORN, he never served as an ACORN organizer or an ACORN trainer. As an attorney, he successfully challenged Governor Edgar to enforce the federal Motor Voter law, making sure voting was as accessible for Illinois residents as the law required. With contorted logic, you can create a tenuous chain of links to connect anybody to anything. Just ask Kevin Bacon."

Seton Motley, reached at his Media Research Center office Friday afternoon, abruptly refused to engage in depth with the Obama camp's response to his Fox & Friends segment (after first saying "I'm all ears").

Asked whether he would similarly condemn the Justice Department for joining ACORN in the suit against Illinois, he said, "well, yes I would, but that's not the issue." Before the Obama spokesman's other charges could be detailed, Motley put the brakes on the conversation. "The name of our group is Media Research Center," he said, noting that the only purpose of his effort on Fox was to draw attention to a lack of stories on the matter. "I'm not going to be able to respond to challenges from the Obama campaign."

Instead, Motley recommended that any interested person check out Stanley Kurtz's long article from May in the National Review -- headlined "Inside Obama's Acorn."

But while Kurtz's piece is stuffed with innuendo and plausible-sounding arguments that ACORN and Obama share some broad political objectives, it notably does not prove that Obama ever worked for the group, helped them organize, knew about any instances of voter fraud, or condoned their controversial demonstration tactics.

In fact, the article sometimes suggests the opposite. "Does that mean Obama himself schooled Acorn volunteers in disruptive 'direct action?' Not necessarily," Kurtz judges. Pretty spicy stuff. Elsewhere, when trying to compare Obama's community organizing work to that of ACORN, Kurtz can only manage a weak equivalence: "Part of Obama's work, it would appear, was to organize demonstrations, much in the mold of radical groups like Acorn."

And though Kurtz marshals a lot of material about friends of Obama who are or were active in the group, he never provides any evidence that Obama "worked" or "organized" for them -- the key charges being repeated so often on Fox News this week.

However, it's likely that the strategy behind the smear is not to prove the charges alleged, but rather to have an excuse to mention key phrases like "community organizing," and "Bill Ayers." Judged by that standard, the ACORN attack is indeed a smash of a smear.

Edited October 3, 200817 yr by Wales2004

Fox News, GOP Tag-Team Obama With Voter Fraud Smear

Seth Colter Walls

Add this to the long list of questionable behavior from Obama that will be ignored by his supporters and the MSM..