2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread-Part 10.

[Diemen]

It could happen...it could always happen. But at the same time you'd have to have a pretty short memory to think these kinds of hysterical accusations about a Presidential candidate in the thick of election season are unprecedented.

Indeed. McCain of all people should remember, seeing as he was the victim of this a short 8 years ago, and now he's on the opposite end and seemingly has no qualms about it.

 

[Irvine511]

But there's real, physical danger in this.

i absolutely agree.

it is terrifying.

 

[Irvine511]

It could happen...it could always happen. But at the same time you'd have to have a pretty short memory to think these kinds of hysterical accusations about a Presidential candidate in the thick of election season are unprecedented.

but having a black presidential candidate is unprecedented.

 

[anitram]

Another Republican Congressman who doesn't like what he sees...

LaHood supports the McCain ticket, but doesn't like what he sees at some of the McCain-Palin rallies: When Barack Obama's name has been mentioned by Sarah Palin, there are shouts of "terrorist," and LaHood says Palin should put a stop to it.

"Look it," LaHood said. "This doesn't befit the office that she's running for. And frankly, people don't like it."

LaHood says it could backfire on the Republican ticket.

He says the names that Obama is being called, "Certainly don't reflect the character of the man."

 

[yolland]

but having a black presidential candidate is unprecedented.

Meaning therefore the hysterics are more likely to get violent? Maybe. But in the end it only takes one, and said ones tend to be unhinged to begin with. Are Obama's campaign offices being firebombed? His campaign workers attacked and beaten? Look, this is a morbid thing to fixate on.

 

[Irvine511]

Meaning therefore the hysterics are more likely to get violent? Maybe. But in the end it only takes one, and said ones tend to be unhinged to begin with. Are Obama's campaign offices being firebombed? His campaign workers attacked and beaten? Look, this is a morbid thing to fixate on.

yes, it is morbid. but i do think the hysterics are more likely to get violent, and given the fact that we don't see too many 72 year old white veterans dragged from the back of a pickup truck, i'd say that murderous violence directed towards blacks is far more likely. yes, the crazies went after the Kennedy brothers, so it's not so much that being white doesn't protect you from an assassination, but i think being black -- and, more importantly for today, having a Muslim-sounding name -- is far more likely to incite the crazies.

the tone of the rallies is very concerning.

 

[Utoo]

At last, McCain shows some real balls and takes a step toward earning the title of "honorable hero" that he claims to have:

YouTube - McCain Tries to Tame Flames He Earlier Fanned

different clip:
YouTube - McCain: "You Do Not Have To Be Scared" of Obama as President

MCCAIN IMPLORES SUPPORTERS TO BE 'RESPECTFUL'

McCain implores supporters to be 'respectful'
Posted: Friday, October 10, 2008 5:52 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: 2008, McCain

From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
McCain just called on his supporters to be respectful at his town hall.

"We want to fight, and I want to fight, but we will be respectful," McCain said to boos at first. "I want everyone to be respectful," he then said and people began to clap.

In response to a later question he added, "You can be respectful and point out facts," as he called on his supporters to point out facts to their neighbors but be respectful.

*** UPDATE *** McCain just added, "He is a decent person and a person who you do not have to be scared as president of the United States."

Now here's the thing: The crowd booed when McCain said this.

Is it too late? Has he planted a demon seed?

Better yet----Will he pull down his 'terrorist' commercials? Will he stop asking, "Who is Barack Obama?" Will Sarah Palin stop saying shit like "Barack Obama doesn't love our country"?

 

[Moser]

If John McCain is still the John McCain I believe in, then he would fire his campaign staff and ask Palin to step down. They are spreading an underlying tone of hate and bigotry, and it's getting desperately ugly. These dirty politics and lies the McCain campaign is spreading is effecting my respect for McCain and his honor.

We are one as a nation, but this election is making the fences between our neighbors taller.

 

[Utoo]

I would be so thrilled if, at the next debate, Obama directly asks McCain:

"Senator, do you believe that I am Muslim?

Do you believe that I am a terrorist?"


When McCain is obliged to say "No," it's game over.

 

[Diemen]

I wonder if Palin will back off her "palling around with terrorists" talk. I wonder if the outlandish negative ads will stop now that McCain has rediscovered the desire to run a respectful campaign.

I get the sneaking suspicion he's going to allow the negativity to continue through his campaign, but he will maintain the veneer of respect so that he can say "but it's not me saying these things - I'm being respectful!"

 

[diamond]

this election is feeling like Dole/Clinton 1996 redux.

<>

 

[Moser]

I would be so thrilled if, at the next debate, Obama directly asks McCain:

"Senator, do you believe that I am Muslim?

Do you believe that I am a terrorist?"


When McCain is obliged to say "No," it's game over.

McCain defended Obama today when a woman said she couldn't trust Obama because "he is an Arab". McCain took the microphone back and shaking his head said America should not be scared of Obama.

The crowd then booed McCain. What a fucked up world. to McCain for showing some kind of integrity.

AP Story: The Associated Press: McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

you know what scares me, the loonies that are showing up at McCain's rallys lately. Why are these people being drawn out? Is it because he is leaning so far to the right that it's drawing out or attracting the extreme right wing media? I mean who knows what these people will do next..

 

[Moser]

you know what scares me, the loonies that are showing up at McCain's rallys lately. Why are these people being drawn out? Is it because he is leaning so far to the right that it's drawing out or attracting the extreme right wing media? I mean who knows what these people will do next..

Because a lot of these people are uneducated hillj-acks that live in the boonies. They are close-knit communities that are afraid of their values and interests becoming irrelevant in a changing world.

I don't want to point fingers, but they are attracting the attention: mainly (but not all) white, rural, Christian Americans.

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

i know that... but what is drawing the hillbillies out the hills. Something is being said that is drawing their attention. Like I said it must be the far right media (christian too) that must be spewing some major crap. Can't be just the he's a muslim crap.

 

[Moser]

i know that... but what is drawing the hillbillies out the hills. Something is being said that is drawing their attention. Like I said it must be the far right media (christian too) that must be spewing some major crap. Can't be just the he's a muslim crap.

These McCain rallies aren't just political rallies to some of these people. To some of them its a "white true christian get-together". These people only believe what they want to believe. They can take facts, but they'd rather believe what they hear on a talk radio show or church and what not.

 

[sue4u2]

you know what scares me, the loonies that are showing up at McCain's rallys lately. Why are these people being drawn out? Is it because he is leaning so far to the right that it's drawing out or attracting the extreme right wing media? I mean who knows what these people will do next..

I've lived through a lifetime of what can happen next. A President shot and killed. A Presidential candidate shot and killed. (The Kennedys)
The leader of equal rights movenment - shot and killed (Martin Luther King, Jr.) Presidents Reagan & Ford were shot at. Even George Wallace was shot at and lived. And so many other's lives that have been destroyed fighting for the rights of all American's.

This is what someone will do next if McCain and Palin don't stop what they are doing. What McCain is doing now by saying "Obama is no one to fear" is too little too late. He and Palin have lit the fuse, cocked the gun and it's just a matter of time too see if anyone can get a shot off or blow them away.
They (McCain/Palin) need to be begging for forgiveness. It will be on their heads if something happens to Obama or his family.

 

[phillyfan26]

God, those clips are sickeningly disgusting. Good on McCain for saying they shouldn't be scared of Obama.

 

[yolland]

There are people like that everywhere, not just "in the hills." I think people with the wrong idea about what the Palin pick was meant to signal might be part of it.

I remember traveling back to my hometown in late summer '92 by bus, standing at a Greyhound station in Nashville and listening to a group of redneck types--who aren't usually very religious at all, by the way--swapping rumors about Bill and Hillary Clinton. I hear they shoot up then have mass orgies! Uh huh, I've met people who slept with BOTH of them! I heard they fuck animals too! She's a Communist and a lez-bee-yun and she got a black woman lover! I hear they gonna shut down all the media once they get in power! I was repulsed, but at the same time I was smirking in nauseous recognition, because I grew up with types like this around (which I guarantee most all of you did; it's just that your communities were too large for you to encounter them much), and I knew most of them wouldn't wind up voting anyway, and I also knew that many if not most of them didn't really believe most of what they were saying; it's that they're just primed enough to suspect deeply sinister and sordid things of 'libruls' that it titillates them to swap tall tales and whoop it up, kind of the same way some people absolutely have to buy the latest National Enquirer to read about Brad Catches Angie In Threesome, Walks Out With Kids!!! or Laura To Divorce W After Catching Him With Condi!!! even though they know it's almost certainly 100% false...but the idea that maybe it's 15% true is just too good to pass up.

That's not to say a small portion of them don't believe everything they're saying, and that you don't need to worry about that portion. When people whose grasp of the breadth of contemporary society is that poor are also very frightened or angry about their present circumstances, that can get toxic. But for better and for worse, most of them couldn't organize a damn thing to save their lives, like a sophisticated antigovernment militant cell, for example.

 

[sue4u2]

Because a lot of these people are uneducated hillj-acks that live in the boonies. They are close-knit communities that are afraid of their values and interests becoming irrelevant in a changing world.

I don't want to point fingers, but they are attracting the attention: mainly (but not all) white, rural, Christian Americans.

Don't kid yourself... I know too many well educated and not particularly rural people who live in my city and others. Income ranges doesn't seem to matter one way or the other. They have so many deep down prejudices that I can't even associate with them.
But white Christian American voters are more time's than not, going to vote republican.
Especially if that's the way their husbands or ministers vote..

I had someone tell me just yesterday why they were voting for McCain.
It was because they didn't want an all black cabinet.
"You must have had a really hard time with Bush's choice of Condolesa Rice and Colin Powell huh? She then told me she really didn't like talking politics because she has a mind of her own.
I told her a mind is a terrible thing to waste

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

this is true.^

I work with some well educated people here in maryland who are born and raised here. They too have so many deep down prejudices, and beliefs bashed into their heads by their church friends, family and others that they truly believe them. I like these people as human beings and we go to lunch every day but their thinking well I don't even try to start any kind of major political discussion cuz its pointless. They know i am a democrat and they keep their spewage to a minimum because I am around.

 

[yolland]

.

The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 9


GOP Renews Complaints Over Voter Registrations

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- As most states finalize voter rolls this week, Republican officials are reviving alarms about vote fraud. One of the biggest instances of suspicious registrations is here in New Mexico, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a preliminary investigation into 1400 potentially fraudulent voter registrations in the state's most populous county.

It's far from clear that the number of suspicious registrations is enough to affect the outcome of the presidential vote, even in tight states, elections officials say. They say enforcement efforts are likely to spot any big collections of fake registrations before votes are cast. What's more, a fake registration doesn't necessarily mean an ineligible vote is tallied. Officials say canvassers sometimes make up registered names to impress bosses or earn bonuses, but that doesn't result in anyone ineligible casting a vote.
.......................................
In Nevada on Tuesday, state election officials raided the offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as Acorn, after receiving information about falsified registration cards. "We have complaints every election that fraudulent registration forms are being turned in, and no one does anything about it. People have lost faith in the electoral process," said Democrat Ross Miller, Nevada's secretary of state.
.......................................
Maggie Toulouse Oliver, the clerk of Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, has turned over to law enforcement the 1400 voter-registration cards that raised suspicions of fraud. Ms. Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat overseeing her first presidential vote, says her office's review of cards works. "That's 1400 cards here sitting in a file; they're not entered into the system," she said. A mile from Ms. Oliver's office, Acorn operates a major New Mexico registration effort. Young workers there worked late one night this week preparing to submit registration forms. Acorn and other groups have registered nearly 80,000 new voters in a drive focused on the state's Democratic-leaning urban areas.

Acorn is a frequent target of Republican voter-fraud allegations, and it had workers in two states last year convicted of submitting fake registrations. Acorn says it works hard to root out bad apples. A sign at the organization's office here reads: "Anyone committing fraud will be reported to the Bureau of Elections, prosecuted and terminated immediately." Acorn's quality-control manager at the office, Bianca Brown, says employees check each application and have a call center attempt to confirm the information with applicants. She says such reviews caught a person who registered as Batman and another who has tried to register 70 times. Acorn says it has fired about 80 workers in New Mexico since December 2007 over potentially fraudulent registrations. New Mexico law requires Acorn to turn in all applications, no matter how suspicious-looking, within 48 hours. Elections officials do their own quality control on registrations, but Acorn officials say their own process helps the government save time.

The New York Times, Oct. 10


On Obama, Acorn and Voter Registration

Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign on Friday stepped up its efforts to tie Senator Barack Obama to a community organizing group that has been accused of involvement in problematic voter registrations in several hotly contested states, including Colorado, Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina. The group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, has long been a favorite target of conservatives. It made news this year when it was revealed that a brother of Acorn’s founder had embezzled almost $1 million from the organization but that Acorn had failed to disclose the theft for eight years.

“Barack Obama has made very inconsistent remarks about what his relationship with this organization is,” Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, said in a conference call. Mr. Davis said Mr. Obama had worked as Acorn’s lawyer and conducted training events for its leaders. He also noted a payment the Obama campaign made in February to an Acorn affiliate, Citizens Services Inc.
......................................................
“Rumors of Acorn’s voter fraud have been greatly exaggerated and to a large extent manufactured,” Bertha Lewis, the organization’s interim chief organizer, or chief executive, said Monday in a conference call to announce that the organization had registered 1.3 million people to vote. Ms. Lewis said it was Acorn itself that informed state officials about some questionable registrations collected by its employees that are now under investigation. Acorn said it had terminated the workers involved.

In 1995, Mr. Obama was on a team of lawyers that represented Acorn in a lawsuit to compel Illinois to comply with federal laws intended to enhance access to the polls. The team also represented Equip for Equality, a group that promotes the rights of the disabled, and four individuals. Mr. Davis said that as their lawyer, Mr. Obama had “an intimate relationship” with Acorn “against the State of Illinois and the federal government.” In fact, the Justice Department was on the same side as Acorn in the lawsuit, as were other organizations, including the League of Women Voters. Those plaintiffs won the case.

Mr. Davis urged reporters to question Mr. Obama about training sessions he had done for Acorn. “What were you teaching them?” Mr. Davis asked. “Were you teaching them how to evade the law?”

Lewis Goldberg, a spokesman for Acorn, said Mr. Obama conducted two leadership training sessions of roughly an hour each for Acorn’s Chicago affiliate over a three-year period in the late 1990s. He was not paid for that work, Mr. Goldberg said.

Even before Friday’s conference call, Republicans had made much of an $832,598 payment made in February by the Obama campaign to Citizens Services Inc., a consulting firm affiliated with Acorn. “This organization is not just related to but deeply ingrained in the Acorn organization, a front group for Acorn,” Mr. Davis said. The Obama campaign initially reported that the payment was for “staging, sound, lighting” and other advance work when it reported its expenditures with the Federal Election Commission. It filed amended reports in August and September to reflect that those payments were for get-out-the-vote efforts. Mr. Davis contended that the original filing was an effort to “hide the fact” that money was paid to Acorn. But F.E.C. officials have said such amended filings are common.

Citizens Services typically contracts with Acorn and its affiliates for work like that done for the Obama campaign. Mr. Goldberg, the Acorn spokesman, said that less than $80,000 of the Obama campaign’s payment to Citizens Services went to Acorn. Jeff Robinson, executive vice president of Citizens Services, did not return a call inquiring how the rest of the money was spent.

 

[Popmartijn]

I've never understood this whole registering process. Why isn't everyone (who's eligible to vote) automatically registered? On some governmental level they have to know who's living where. If the IRS can find you, why not the voting institute?

 

[cydewaze]

I've never understood this whole registering process. Why isn't everyone (who's eligible to vote) automatically registered? On some governmental level they have to know who's living where. If the IRS can find you, why not the voting institute?

The republicans generally try to limit the number of registered voters, since of course when the turnout is higher they don't do as well. It could also be argued that the democrats try to get everyone (and their dog, and their dead aunts and uncles) registered. We've had things like "motor voter" which automatically registers you to vote when you get your drivers license (which republicans also fought against) and there's even been some proposals to make voting day a national holiday, which hasn't made it very far either. The republicans have even been making a concerted effort to deny people voting rights who are legally entitled to do so.

The "official" line, of course, is that they want to make sure everyone who is registered is actually a live person who is eligible to vote, so that voting fraud is limited.

 

[Utoo]

- Automatic registration when you apply for a driver's license
- Voluntary registration for all eligible voters without driver's licenses
- Saturday & Sunday voting, or national holiday for Election Day


All things that really seem like they should be no-brainers in a democratic nation.

 

[indra]

or national holiday for Election Day

I used to work at GE and election day was one of our paid holidays. That was so cool.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

I'm surprised it's a weekday. Ours are always Saturdays.

 

[Diemen]

Mr. Davis urged reporters to question Mr. Obama about training sessions he had done for Acorn. “What were you teaching them?” Mr. Davis asked. “Were you teaching them how to evade the law?”

 

[Babydoll]

Obama doesn't have a drop of Arab blood in him. It's so stupid. I was infuriated when I saw that clip yesterday.

Does it imply that any Muslim can't be trusted? Does this mean anyone who is Muslim is automatically an Arab?

 

[sue4u2]

On some governmental level they have to know who's living where. If the IRS can find you, why not the voting institute?

The IRS can't necessarily find you. If it was that easy there would be no problem with tax evaders or illegal aliens. Neither can the census bureau when they come around to homes or families who don't disclose the number of people living in one's home or apartment or their real names. The business of getting around government probing is a thriving business in itself.