US 08 Presidential Campaign General Discussion Thread #8

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another timely contribution from the desk of mr <>:

Jesus and the Democrat

A Republican in a wheelchair entered a restaurant one afternoon and
asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. The Republican looked across
the restaurant and asked, 'Is that Jesus sitting over there?'
The waitress nodded 'yes,' so the Republican requested that she
give Jesus a cup of coffee, on him.

The next patron to come in was a Libertarian with a hunched back. He
shuffled over to a booth, painfully sat down, and asked the waitress
for a cup of hot tea. He also glanced across the restaurant and
asked, 'Is that Jesus over there?'
The waitress nodded, so the Libertarian asked her to give Jesus a
cup of hot tea, 'My treat.'
The third patron to come into the restaurant was a Democrat on
crutches. He hobbled over to a booth, sat down and hollered, 'Hey
there, honey! How's about getting' me a cold glass of Miller
Light?' He, too, looked across the restaurant and asked, 'Is that
God's boy over there?'
The waitress once more nodded, so the Democrat directed her to give
Jesus a cold glass of beer. 'On my bill,' he said.
As Jesus got up to leave, he passed by the Republican, touched him
and said, 'For your kindness, you are healed.'

The Republican felt the strength come back into his legs, got up,
and danced a jig out the door.
Jesus also passed by the Libertarian, touched him and said, 'For
your kindness, you are healed.

The Libertarian felt his back straightening up, and he raised his
hands, praised the Lord and did a series of back flips out the door.

Then Jesus walked towards the Democrat. The Democrat jumped up and
yelled, 'Don't touch me .. I'm collecting disability.'
 
^ The problem with that joke is that the Republican wouldn't have offered Jesus a coffee. He would've given it to God and hoped that it would trickle down.
 
Utoo said:
^ The problem with that joke is that the Republican wouldn't have offered Jesus a coffee. He would've given it to God and hoped that it would trickle down.
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oh%20snap.jpg
 
Utoo said:
The latter statement is true only because Iraq has a government with no history at all. The future and safety of the country, the region, and its oil have not been determined--and it would be folly for one to believe that they have.
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The fact remains, Kuwait and the rest of the Persian Gulf currently is far safer than it was when Saddam was in power. The largest threat to Persian Gulf Oil supply has been removed. Yes, the current government of Iraq has only been in place a few years, but it is already far different from Saddam's regime. There currently is no Iraqi entity in Iraq that has the ability to threaten Persian Gulf Oil Supply as Saddam's regime did.
 
McCain Has the Advantage Over Obama in Post-Convention Polls
September 16, 2008 02:49 PM ET | Michael Barone | Permanent Link


The post-convention national polls mostly show John McCain with a small lead over Barack Obama. But what's been happening in the states? I've been looking at the post-convention state polls at realclearpolitics.com, pollster.com, and fivethirtyeight.com and find some significant differences from pre-convention polls. They tend to suggest that the battlefield is shifting, with more states within McCain's reach and fewer within Obama's.

Some caution is in order: We're talking about only one or two polls in some states but as many as eight in ultracritical Ohio. I haven't included the Zogby Internet polls in my analysis. I've rounded off the averages in each state to full percentages (and rounded 0.5s downwards for both candidates), and I'm reporting the difference between the McCain percentage and Obama percentage. Here's my analysis:

The big industrial states. Michigan and Pennsylvania are Obama +2, Ohio is McCain +3. In each case, McCain is 1 point better than Bush's final percentage against Kerry in each state. An old rule of American politics is that economic distress moves voters toward Democrats. Michigan, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania are in economic distress. But they haven't moved toward the Democratic nominee, as compared with 2004. The old rule isn't operating. Here's another possible rule. When voters see that tax increases aren't producing a better economy, they don't move toward a Democratic nominee who is proposing higher taxes, even though he says they'll hit only the rich. In Michigan, the Democrats (with a few turncoat Republicans) raised taxes in 2007; in Ohio, the Republicans (with some Democratic support) raised taxes before 2006. Those tax increases haven't helped those states' economies, not so as you'd notice, though they've helped members of public employees unions. McCain was running much worse than this in pre-convention polls in Pennsylvania and somewhat worse in Michigan. His convention bounce gives him a good chance to win the electoral votes of Pennsylvania (21) and Michigan (17), while leaving him in pretty good shape in Ohio (20).

The new marginals. Obama has been running consistently better than John Kerry or Al Gore in Colorado and Virginia, states that have had comparatively vibrant economies and have also seen influxes of young voters, who tend to be heavily pro-Obama. Just look at all those singles rental apartments and loft-like condos in Arlington and Alexandria and LoDo in Denver. Colorado comes out of the conventions as +1 Obama, Virginia as +1 McCain. In both cases, the average is depressed by one poll that shows the state going the other way. Colorado (9 electoral votes) and Virginia (13) are still very hotly contested ground.

The northern tier. The Obama campaign had hoped to be competitive in some northern tier states: the Dakotas, Montana, and Alaska. Pre-convention polls provided some reasonable basis for this hope. Post-convention polls don't. Alaska, unsurprisingly, is McCain-Palin +27. Montana is McCain +11, North Dakota McCain +14, South Dakota +17. More importantly, Minnesota is just Obama +1, Wisconsin Obama +3, Washington Obama +4, Oregon Obama +7. So scratch 12 electoral votes as plausible Obama targets and add 38 electoral votes as plausible McCain targets (or, excluding Oregon, 31 electoral votes). This is a big change, and it remains to be seen if later polls will show these states to be as close as the relatively few polls we've seen so far do.

The western odd ducks. Nevada is McCain +2. New Mexico, in a shift from pre-convention polls, is McCain +2 (but that's only one poll). These states were seriously contested in 2000 and 2004 and look to be again in 2008.

The South. Florida is McCain +5; it was Bush +5 in 2004. North Carolina is McCain +11; it was Bush +12 in 2004 (despite the presence on the Democratic ticket of the now happily forgotten John Edwards). But two North Carolina polls show McCain way ahead (+17 and +20); two others show him, as did most pre-convention polls, narrowly ahead (+3 and +4). I have more respect for the polling firms showing the big McCain margins, but this state still bears watching. Georgia, where Obama has sent scads of organizers, is McCain +16.

The Northeast. One poll shows New Hampshire Obama +6 (Zogby Interactive has McCain ahead there): inconclusive. Three polls show New Jersey as Obama +6; it was Kerry +7 in 2004. Astonishingly, one poll shows New York as Obama +5, but this is Siena, which seems to have a lot more undecideds than other New York polls, which have shown Obama well above 50 percent. The New Jersey and New York numbers may tempt the McCain campaign to start advertising on New York City media. I suspect this is a temptation that will and should be resisted, for the time being.

There are a lot of states with no post-convention polls, including interesting ones like Indiana and (if only because of its 55 electoral votes) California. My overall conclusion is that the playing field has shifted in favor of McCain. He seems competitive now, where he arguably wasn't before the conventions, in Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes), Wisconsin (10), Minnesota (10), Washington (11), and maybe Oregon (7): a total of 59 electoral votes, all carried by John Kerry and Al Gore. Obama no longer seems competitive in North Dakota (3), Montana (3), and Alaska (3): a total of 9 electoral votes.

Or to look at it another way, from Bush's 2004 electoral vote total of 286, you now have to subtract Iowa (7), which is Obama +12 in the latest Des Moines Register poll, and maybe Colorado (9), Virginia (13), and New Mexico (5), which gets the Republican total down to 252. Or to 247, if you include Nevada (5). But in the northern tier there are 63 more electoral votes within reasonable reach of McCain in the northern tier and New Hampshire. And maybe he wants to start looking at New Jersey (15). I see Obama as competitive or leading in states with 338 electoral votes (granting him the 27 in Florida, which looks to me increasingly unlikely). I see McCain as competitive or leading in states with 342 electoral votes. Advantage shifting toward McCain.
Click to expand...

McCain Has the Advantage Over Obama in Post-Convention Polls - Michael Barone (usnews.com)
 
"A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan."

...the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

My initial reaction was "yeeeeeeeeeeesh." That's quite a bit of an understatement, though.
 
(CNN) — Top McCain-Palin official Carly Fiorina is facing criticism from some within the campaign for a day of what they call "very Biden-like" comments, after the former Hewlett-Packard CEO told two separate interviewers that neither member of the Republican ticket would be capable of running a company.

Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden is noted for his off-the-cuff gaffes.

Asked by a St. Louis radio station whether she thought Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin could run a company like Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina responded: "No, I don't.

“But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things."

Asked about that remark on MSNBC, she made the same unprompted assessment of the GOP presidential nominee. "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

She also said she did not believe Democrats Barack Obama or Joe Biden had the right business background either.

But with the economy center stage in the campaign, the words that gave Democrats easy fodder to attack the Republican ticket.

A top McCain official contacted by CNN said, on condition on anonymity, "No big deal, but not how you get on the surrogate all-star team. Very Biden-like."

“This campaign source said Fiorina would be discouraged from additional media interviews.

Another top campaign adviser was far less diplomatic.

"Carly will now disappear," this source said. "Senator McCain was furious." Asked to define "disappear," this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while – but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party’s joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.

Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have been canceled.

A third source said "it was another bad day for her, and important people are mad because the timing is horrible… But I would not necessarily buy the Siberia storyline."

Fiorina has forced the campaign off message before. In July, she told reporters women often express frustration over the fact many health insurance plans cover Viagra but not birth control medication.

"Let me give you a real, live example, which I've been hearing a lot about from women. There are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won't cover birth control medication. Those women would like a choice," she said.

It was a topic McCain wasn’t as keen to talk about. "I certainly do not want to discuss that issue," he said, when reporters asked if he shared that view.” That comment, and the pause that preceded it, captured headlines for days.
 
Cafferty: Obama: Race a factor?
Posted: 01:59 PM ET

From CNN's Jack Cafferty

Race is arguably the biggest issue in this election, and it's one that nobody's talking about.

The differences between Barack Obama and John McCain couldn't be more well-defined. Obama wants to change Washington. McCain is a part of Washington and a part of the Bush legacy. Yet the polls remain close. Doesn't make sense…unless it's race.

Time magazine's Michael Grunwald says race is the elephant in the room. He says Barack Obama needs to tread lightly as he fights back against the McCain-Palin campaign attacks.
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don't people who are allegedly smart like cafferty understand that comments like this will only go to drive people away from obama? are there people in this country who won't vote for obama because he's black? yes. but there's a much larger group that doesn't give a crap that he's black, are honestly undecided, and will be quite offended by the implication that if they don't vote for obama they're somehow racist. that idea in and of it's self is a racist.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
don't people who are allegedly smart like cafferty understand that comments like this will only go to drive people away from obama? are there people in this country who won't vote for obama because he's black? yes. but there's a much larger group that doesn't give a crap that he's black, are honestly undecided, and will be quite offended by the implication that if they don't vote for obama they're somehow racist. that idea in and of it's self is a racist.
Click to expand...



i disagree. i think people don't want to be told that they are racist, but that doesn't make them not racist.

look at the Rev. Wright freak out. why? because it was an angry black man speaking in front of cheering black people. if you made him and the church white, you wouldn't have nearly the same uproar.

there's no image that's quite feared by some white people as that of the angry black man. Obama talks about this in his book. it's why he doesn't get "angry" or hit McCain "hard." it's because he knows that whites in many parts of the country reflexively freak out when blacks raise their voices.
 
Here's some more polling commentary from FiveThirtyEight.com:

Today's Polls, 9/16

Although the national tracking polls are trending upward for Obama, this set of state polling is a strong one for John McCain:



Ohio, certainly, is a Lean McCain state now. It has been polled extensively over the past week, and all polls but Quinnipiac show McCain with a lead in the neighborhood of 3-4 points. As we're getting into electoral crunch time, the key dynamic to watch is the performance of the three or four tipping point states like Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado, both relative to one another and relative to the national popular vote estimate. Presently, Ohio is polling slightly behind Obama's national numbers, whereas Colorado is polling a point or so ahead. If this dynamic continues, then Ohio will gradually become less important, placing more emphasis on either Obama's IA/NM/CO parlay, or perhaps Virginia, which is one state where he's had some favorable polling of late.

Looking quickly through the rest of the numbers, this set of Rasmussen polling is fairly poor for Obama, although some of that is caused by the fact that Rasmussen just re-weighted its party ID targets, producing a shift of a point or so toward John McCain. (Rasmussen's re-weightings may well be perfectly valid -- my goal is merely to provide context here).

Meanwhile, polling in the New York/New Jersey region has shown some bounce for John McCain. It's probably too late for the McCain campaign to devote serious resources to New Jersey, but it might make fo an interesting target if they did. Then again, most of these polls overlapped with 9/11, and it's possible that there's some sort of 9/11 effect in the region.
 
Irvine511 said:
i disagree. i think people don't want to be told that they are racist, but that doesn't make them not racist.

look at the Rev. Wright freak out. why? because it was an angry black man speaking in front of cheering black people. if you made him and the church white, you wouldn't have nearly the same uproar.

there's no image that's quite feared by some white people as that of the angry black man. Obama talks about this in his book. it's why he doesn't get "angry" or hit McCain "hard." it's because he knows that whites in many parts of the country reflexively freak out when blacks raise their voices.
Click to expand...

i agree with you on a lot of that. but there are a large number of free thinking moderates who could swing in either direction who would be offended at the assertion that if they don't vote for obama they're racist.
 
The problem, as I see it, is there may very well be a ceiling that Obama cannot rise above when it comes to public support due to his race. I do not like thinking this, but, if there is a point that he cannot rise above, he may very well have trouble come election day.
 
Dreadsox said:
The problem, as I see it, is there may very well be a ceiling that Obama cannot rise above when it comes to public support due to his race. I do not like thinking this, but, if there is a point that he cannot rise above, he may very well have trouble come election day.
Click to expand...



i agree.

i think that as Palin continue to lose her new car smell, we're going to get more ads with ever more racial subtext.

i do think there's still a lot of racism in the country. not crazy KKK type racism, probably more "racial resentment" is a better way to put it.
 
Dreadsox said:
The problem, as I see it, is there may very well be a ceiling that Obama cannot rise above when it comes to public support due to his race. I do not like thinking this, but, if there is a point that he cannot rise above, he may very well have trouble come election day.
Click to expand...


This has been my concern since day one... Conservatives keep saying "he should be way up in the polls", I think this is one of the factors why he'll never take that overwhelming lead.
 
Clinton fundraiser backs McCain over Obama

By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A top Hillary Rodham Clinton fundraiser threw her support behind Republican John McCain on Wednesday, saying he will lead the country in a centrist fashion and accusing the Democrats of becoming too extreme.

"I believe that Barack Obama, with MoveOn.org and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, has taken the Democratic Party — and they will continue to — too far to the left," Lynn Forester de Rothschild said. "I'm not comfortable there."

Rothschild is also a member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee. She said she would be stepping down from her position on the committee but will not switch political parties.

She praised McCain for working with Democrats to pass legislation and for standing up to President Bush on the Iraq war.

"I just ask, who has Barack Obama ever stood up to? And that troubles me a lot," she said.

Rothschild also disputed Obama's argument that a McCain administration would be an extension of Bush's presidency. Democrats cite McCain's own account of having voted in support of Bush's policies 90 percent of the time.

She said the Arizona senator has broken with Bush to support funding for stem-cell research and to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

"It is the classic cheap shot. Just not true," she said.

Rothschild said she was also excited by the prospect of a woman being in the White House, even though she and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin disagree on issues. The Alaska governor opposes abortion except in the case of a threat to the mother's life. Rothschild said she supports abortion rights.

"I believe that the McCain-Palin government will be a centrist government," Rothschild said. "It's not going to be an ideological government."

Rothschild is a member of the DNC's Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York. She was one of Clinton's top fundraisers, bringing in more than $100,000 for her presidential campaign. She built a multimillion-dollar telecommunications company before marrying international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.

Rothschild said she has not discussed her support for McCain with Clinton.

"I'm sure she is not pleased with what I'm doing today," she said. "But you know what? I have to do what I believe in."
Click to expand...

Clinton fundraiser backs McCain over Obama - Yahoo! News
 
Matthew Yglesias ? Rothschilds Against Elitism

Rothschilds Against Elitism

Irony truly is dead as Lynn Forester de Rothschild endorses John McCain on anti-elitism grounds:

“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

On an unrelated note, the stakes have rarely been higher in an election for extremely rich people than they are in this one. Barack Obama’s tax proposals don’t raise a ton of new net revenue and, as a consequence, have tended to be viewed as pretty moderate. But one reason they don’t raise all that much net revenue is that he’s offering large tax cuts to the majority of people and those offset the substantial tax hike he’s proposing on the rich. Justin Wolfers has a good chart on this:

The difference for middle class taxpayers here is real, but for people making above the national median income (which is to say most people who are working full-time) it tends to be a pretty small difference. But for people earning below the national median the gap is a lot bigger and for extremely high earners the gap is huge. These facts haven’t gotten much play, but if you’re making over $600,000 a year and especially if you’re making over $2.8 million a year you have an extremely strong incentive to back McCain.
 
Ta-Nehisi Coates (September 17, 2008) - She is who we thought she was

Matt, examining Lady de Rothchilds defection to McCain, notes that irony must be truly dead. "Lady" de Rothchilds main reason for not endorsing McCain? Obama is an elitist. More accurately elitism is dead. When a gazillionaire who insists on being IDed as "Lady" can call a black dude from the South Side, whose mother had him as a teenager an elitist, the word has no meaning.
 
So, a wealthy upper class elitist with a surname that readily identifies her as a wealthy upper class elitist, backs McCain.

This can only be good for Obama, frankly.
 
Utoo said:
Cutting taxes on big business didn't "grow" jobs, either.
Click to expand...

Thankfully Senator Obama has continued to backpedal on his tax policies since the general election campaign started. The article below mentions income tax but he has also moderated on capital gains taxes lately.

WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush's tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.

Nevertheless, Obama has no plans to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond their expiration date, as Republican John McCain advocates. Instead, Obama wants to push for his promised tax cuts for the middle class, he said in a broadcast interview aired Sunday.

"Even if we're still in a recession, I'm going to go through with my tax cuts," Obama said. "That's my priority."

What about increasing taxes on the wealthy?

"I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now," Obama said on "This Week" on ABC. "The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we're fragile."
Click to expand...

Obama: Recession Could Delay Rescinding Bush Tax Cuts
 
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