Prez Starting to Take Gloves Off In Campaign Ad

President Obama has begun to unleash some of the ammunition his campaign has to combat Romney in November.  Get ready, it's starting to feel a little like campaign season and this is just the tip of the iceberg.  By that I mean, I think the President's campaign has more where this came from and is going to sit on it and roll it out piecemeal.  By the way, the statements in this advertisement are all fair game, in my opinion.  Let's see what Romney counters with.

Campaign or Vacation

Unless you've been on a remote island with no means of communication then you've probably heard that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley lost the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to Republican candidate Scott Brown in a special election.

How could a Republican win in mega-blue state, ultra-Democratic Massachusetts?

In the political campaign play book I don't think going on a week long vacation within 1 month of election day is recommended. Who would GO ON VACATION with an election for a U.S. Senate seat, you're supposedly trying to win, literally only weeks away? Martha Coakley would and did go vacation. Oh by the way, Coakley had a double digit lead in the polls before the ill advised vacation.

Also not found in the political campaign play book is the strategy of bad mouthing an admired statewide sports figure. Who would say that Curt Schilling is a Yankees fan, even if it was intended as a joke? Martha Coakley would and did. Moreover, she also made the Schilling-Yankees joke less than a month before the election. That would be like Kay Bailey Hutchison joking about Roger Staubach being an Eagles fan.

Furthermore, it's probably not a good idea to make fun of your opponent because he decided it would be a good idea to shake hands with voters outside Fenway Park.

So after losing the election what does team Coakley do? What every losing campaign seems to do these days, start pointing fingers at others. In this case the Coakley campaign started blaming the D.C. Democrats and White House for not helping out enough and thus causing the predicted Coakley loss BEFORE ELECTION DAY!

So let me get this straight, candidate Coakley goes on vacation for a week right before the election, makes fun of a local sports hero and lost to a guy that posed nude. Then, her campaign tries to throw the blame for the loss on out-of-town/out-of-state Dems? One definition of vacation is as follows:

vacation : an act or instance of vacating.

Coakley vacated her responsibility as a candidate when she and her campaign believed their own press and looked at the poll numbers and decided that it would be OK for her to take a break from trying to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Maybe those in glass vacation houses shouldn't throw stones at D.C.

On My Reading List: Game Change

The book Game Change by New York magazine's John Heilemann and Time Magazine's Mark Halperin is out. I have not read it. Yet. It's on my reading list though. And other's have read it. Below are just some of the reported revelations in Game Change:

- the most reported revelation: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid privately said that America was ready for Obama to be a presidential candidate because he was a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

- Regarding McCain's vetting of Palin: No one from the McCain campaign travelled to Alaska to interview Palin's husband or any of her political oppenents prior to McCain picking her as his VP running. I wonder if McCain wishes his campaign had vetted her just a little more. Remember, some things about Palin came to light after McCain picked her as his running mate. Matt Lauer asked McCain about his campaign's poor vetting of Palin on the Today show, it got kinda testy:


- On John Edwards: More than a couple people, including an at times distraught Mrs. Edwards, knew about John Edward's extra-marital affair early on during the primaries. I wonder if some of them knew before Iowa. If so, I wonder if Hillary wishes those that knew about the affair had said something before the Iowa caucuses.

- Regarding the Clintons and Teddy Kennedy: Bill Clinton, in trying to persuade Ted Kennedy to support Hillary, told Kennedy that a couple of years ago Obama would have been getting them coffee, angering Kennedy.

- About Palin: Palin didn't know why there is a North and South Korea.

- About Bill Clinton: Looks like Slick Willy had another affair in 2006. Hillary's campaign braced for the affair to come to light but, as we all know, it never did.

Man oh man, there's so much more. I can't wait to read the book. I'm not even being sarcastic, I really, really want to read the book.

"Twilight" vs. Palin

The movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Palin have been dominating the news cycle here recently. Which one do you think I'm going to write about?

If you picked Twilight you're wrong.

Past thoughts regarding Palin seem especially applicable now given Palin's book tour.

Check out my post from June of this year regarding what type of person/politician Palin appeared/appears to be.

Keep in mind the fact checking that has been done regarding Palin's (and her ghostwriter's) book and who she is critical of in the book.

And if that's not enough check out ThinkProgress.com's (via Fark.com/politics) post about who Palin would consider running with on a dream ticket in 2012. I'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Ben Gleck. Yeah, I just got the chills, laughed and threw up in my mouth all at the same time too.

Part 3: Cheney, Soul Reaper - Cheney Endorses Kay Bailey

Click here for part 4 of Soul Reaper.

Part 2: Cheney, Soul Reaper - Cheney Endorses Kay Bailey

Click here for part 3 of Soul Reaper.

Believe It Or Not It's Election Day...

...kind of, sort of, well it is but, it's just not nearly as sexy as say the last time we had the polls open last November. There are some Texas contitutional amendments up for consideration and, if you live in Dallas, Texas like me, some Dallas Independent School District board seats up for election, namely seats 1, 3 and 9.

I'll be honest, I've been busy and dropped the ball on getting on top of the issues related to the constitutional amendments or informing myself about the candidates for the school board seats. However, below are some helpful links:

Want to know where to vote (in Dallas County)? Click here.

Also, League of Womens Voters of Dallas has a site with links to pages related to today's election/vote.

The Dallas Morning News, of course, weighed in on the constitutional amendments up for consideration as well as the DISD District Seats up for grabs.

And Pegasus News went down the amendments also.

Happy voting!

Who's Slick Rick Gonna Fire Next?

Gov. Perry talking strategy with his campaign team:

In case you missed it Gov. Perry essentially fired some committee members that were investigating a death penalty case he signed off on. The committee was about to hear from an expert that was likely to say the person executed was innocent. Now the committee's investigation into the death penalty  case has been delayed indefinitely.

What are the things in Perry's hair above? Click here and here for the background of the "Hair Aliens."

Click here for part 4 of the ongoing saga of the Hair Aliens.

About 1 Year Later: A Not So Subtle Reminder...

... of how far we've come and and the road left to travel.

I dare you to watch all the videos below. I double-dog dare you.

The below was posted here about a year ago by yours truly. I'm posting it again. I don't think that those persons featured below have changed their viewpoints, beliefs or convictions about what they believe is real/true. It's scary. It should be. Folks that hear this crap from friends or family should tell them they're morons or, at the very least wrong. Moreover, maybe, at the very least, we should be aware and worried about people like this, I know I am...

from the original post from about a year ago:
Mindy Green (featured in the first clip) is going to vote, does that scare anyone else besides me? It shouldn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican or Independent, the type of ignorance displayed by some the people in the below clips should be combated at every turn by everyone.

Yes We Can, Probably, Maybe...

Perry Paranoia!!!!!!!

Inspired by this story...


Click here for part 3 of the ongoing saga of the Hair Aliens.

Governor Patterson, Comedian?

The real Governor David Patterson, who is legally blind, of New York issued a pretty good line regarding pressure from his own party not to run in the 2010 gubernatorial race on one of the Sunday morning political talking heads shows. The real Gov. Patterson is not to be confused with the fake Gov. Patterson...
...as featured on SNL (the below is wrong on many levels but it still cracks me up, I'm sorry):


Side Note: A couple new original political cartoons will be forthcoming later on in the week.

Invasion of the Hair Aliens!

The above is at best absurd and at worst (probably) just plain dumb. It is what it is.

Want to know more about how/why my brain came up with the above? 
OK, you've read so far... It was inspired, in part by the twitter feed I read about (and now follow) a while back GovPerrysHair. Essentially, according to the twitter feed, Perry's hair has a mind of its own. That, for some reason made me wonder about who or what might control Perry's hair. Thus, the "Hair Aliens". Next, I thought of the quote from Dune, "he who controls the spice controls the universe." And that's how I came up with the cartoon. At least in reference to the Hair Aliens. Otherwise, Perry just looks like he takes too much time on his hair, thus the endorsement at the bottom. And yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how I got to the Hair Aliens and Dune quote.

More or less from the Hair Aliens in the future?

Click here for more of the ongoing saga of the Hair Aliens.

"You're A Great Crowd!..."

"...I'll Be Here Until You Vote Me Out!" -

fake quote from Governor / comedian Rick Perry

In case you didn't hear, Gov. Perry made a joke about the recession.

Apparently, according to Gov. Perry it's OK to joke about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The recession is no laughing matter to Texans and Americans suffering the affects of the the economic downturn. People have lost their jobs. Companies have gone out business. And, yes, that is happening in Texas too. Perry again demonstrated his remarkable ability to discount, marginalize and make jokes at the expense ordinary people and voters.

Side Note / Question: Are we looking at a "the lesser of two evils" decision for governor in Texas between Perry and Sen. Hutchison? And is Sen. Hutchison really the lesser? At least she's against toll roads everywhere, all the time. That's about all I know regarding the differences between the two, otherwise I need to educate myself on where Hutchison stands on different issues.

And I am just now educating myself on the Democrats running for the nomination. Any insight into the Dem candidates would be appreciated. Is there already a "front runner"? Are they going to be another sacrificial lamb put up for the slaughter?

Article Critical of Palin = GOP Infighting

Update: There's already fallout from Purdum's Vanity Fair article about Palin inside the beltway among GOP operatives as detailed in this Politico.com article. This seems to be more of the GOP circular firing squad that convened immediatly after the presidential election last year.

Somewhere, Rahm Emanuel is smiling.

What Type of Person/Politican Is Palin?

Palin doesn't do interviews with the non-Fox-news-media, at least not since some not-so-great interviews she did during the campaign. Nevertheless, in a fascinating article about Palin from Vanity Fair, Todd S. Purdum takes a shot at giving us some insight into the Palin political playbook. To paraphrase from the article in part: she is polarizing, she takes things personally and can be vindictive, she seems to take pride in her own lack of experience and her own ignorance on certain topics and lastly, you are either with her or against her.

The article made me think of her this way: to some voters out there I'm sure she's the type of lady they'd want to have a beer with, maybe even go hunting with. Remind you of anyone, maybe a recent, former governor of Texas?

Lieberman's Lucky the Dems Don't Operate Like the Corleone Family

Or alternate title, "I know it was you Fredo (Joe), you broke my heart."

Or second alternate title, "Tell Mike(Barrack) it was only business. I always liked him." (Tessio/Lieberman to Hagen/Biden)

Lieberman declared himself an "Independent" some years ago and defeated the Democratic nominee for Senate from his state. Then, he supported the Republican nominee for president this year. He not only endorsed McCain but campaigned for him. He not only campaigned for him but spoke at the Republican convention. He had promised to only be supportive of his friend McCain and not speak negatively about Obama. But, he ended up going negative on Obama. This is a former Democratic nominee for vice president that turned his back on his former party and its nominee this time.

So, what do the Democrats do to punish Lieberman for pulling a Benedict Arnold? What would Michael Corleone do? Well, we know what Michael did to Tessio and his own brother when they betrayed the family. I'm not saying the mafia and political parties operate the same way (they kind of do except without the violence/killing and it's legal) but, when a political figure goes against their party or their former party one would expect there to be some type of consequence, especially when the betrayed party just won both chambers of the Congress and the White House. What would Karl Rove do? But, the question that really matters is what did the Dems do in response to Lieberman jumping ship? Would they kick him out of their voting caucus? Take away his chairmanship and committee seats? Exile him to the wasteland of a Senator truly without a party?

Nope. The Dems did pretty much nothing. A slap on the wrist. They took away one committee seat and let him keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. That's all. And Obama led the charge to let bygones be bygones. Why? Maybe because the Dems are nice and really like Lieberman. No, that's not it. It may be because the Dems are so close to that magical 60 vote filibuster buster in the Senate they can taste it. So if they have to make nice with Lieberman to get closer to 60 they will and they did. The Dems did take away a committee seat to begin to satisfy those who wanted political blood. Now they just have to hope Franken pulls out a miracle in Minnesota or bank on turning some moderate Senate Republicans to their side on key votes to overcome any filibuster. For Lieberman though, he essentially got away with political murder because the situation allowed him to. Had the Dems only been at about 50-55 seats in the Senate he may have ended up taking a political swim with the fishes for betraying his former Democratic policitcal "family".

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15712.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=6277042

A Terrible Campaign (for McCain)

Or, alternate title: Post Mortem

In 2000 I thought McCain was going to win the Republican nomination after New Hampshire. Then, McCain fell victim to Rove's, "dark arts," tactics (see this blog, post # 8) and lost the 2000 nomination to W. In 2008 he won the nomination and was leading in the polls immediately after his convention. But, after the economic crisis hit McCain and his camp never had an overall theme to his campaign or consistent talking points. Whereas, Senator Obama had his theme down, namely, "Change" and talking points such as "middle class tax cuts," "McCain equals Bush," "McCain is out of touch".

Why McCain lost can be summed up with the below talking points/attacks/missteps by McCain, Palin and Republicans generally, in no particular order. Keep in mind that all of these points/attacks/missteps were made after the Republican convention.

1)elite(s)

2) Ayers

3) Joe six-pack

4) Joe the Plumber

5) liberal

6) socialist

7) communist

8) inexperienced

9) we're for change

10) Bridge to Nowhere

11) Alaska Independence Party

12) reform

13) pork barrel spending

14) Barack Hussein Obama

15) country first

16) un-American

17) real America

18) Khalidi

19) national security

20) for the bailout

21) McCain got the first version of the bailout passed

22) the first version of the bailout is voted down

23) the bailout was a bad idea

24) maverick

25) fundamentals of the economy are strong

26) suspend the campaign

27) postpone the debate

28) economy in crisis

29) Obama will raise taxes

30) how many houses does McCain own

31) Palin/Couric interview

32) Gibson interview

33) Palin's clothes

34) the prank call

35) "that one"

36) air quotes regarding a mother's health

37) Reverend Wright

38) "my fellow prisoners"

40) at a rally McCain asks Joe the Plumber to stand up, Joe's not there

41) Palin is a "diva" (from a source in the McCain campaign)

42) Palin is a "whack job" (from a source in the McCain campaign)

43) Palin is going rouge

44) Palin 2012

45) Palin

46) Cheney endorsement the weekend before the election

That's alot. There are more but, that's all I could think of off the top of my head, please, let me know if you think of any others. A campaign cannot win with even a handful of the above much less all of them. Obama could essentially sit back and let McCain's campaign implode, each day was seemingly a different talking point/attack/misstep resulting in a disjointed, muddled and rudderless campaign.

Oh, and by the way, Obama ran an almost gaffe-less campaign after the Dem convention (with two big expceptions, Obama "spreading the wealth" and Biden's assurance of an "international crisis" to test Obama's mettle). And the economy (stupid) hurt McCain (especially the way he handled it) and helped Obama.

Sidenotes: Why didn't McCain learn from Hillary

How Hillary Clinton lost:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1738331,00.html

And McCain didn't learn from Hillary

What if McCain had hit hard on Wright?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15191.html

McCain's pastors would have been talked about:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/22/mccain-rejects-hagee-endo_n_103143.html

McCain on War

Or, alternate title, USA, love it or leave it

McCain continues to speak of "winning" the war in Iraq. What "winning" means to McCain has not been explained by him or his campaign, he just says he knows how to "win" and he'll bring the troops home after we have "won" the Iraq war. I'm not even going to go into the whole, "Mission Accomplished" speech by W. years and years ago on the aircraft carrier which seemed to be a declaration of victory, or that W. and McCain predicted we'd go in, be greeted as liberators and then get out. Or that the case made for war, WMD's, was misrepresented to Congress and the American public. Let's just look at just some facets of McCain's views on war generally.

Read the below article for some insight into what McCain's idea of winning a war might mean.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/12/mccain/

The McCain idea of winning a war is outdated and inapplicable in Iraq, outdated because we have not employed such tactics as described by him since arguably Korea but definitely not since WWII and inapplicable because the current Republican administration is already in talks to withdraw from Iraq, a withdraw that is eerily similar to what Obama has been advocating for 20 months. So again, what does McCain mean when he says he is going to "win" the war in Iraq?

Lastly, McCain's disregard for dissent at home with U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding the use of force abroad, is alarming to say the least. McCain seems to think that domestic disagreement with a war is "irresponsible," and no constraints should be placed on how the war is prosecuted. What is alarming is McCain's lack of respect for "irresponsible," disagreement at home. Domestic public discourse regarding the validity and execution of armed conflict being termed irresponsible is fundamentally contrary our rights of freedom of expression. McCain apparently would disagree.

Side note: Palin was prank called by two French-Canadian radio dj's, one of the dj's pretended to be French President Sarkozy. Who is running Palin's staff? This was not Palin's fault. But it's further proof that this campaign is not being run very smoothly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4aHL12vtEM

Palin's "Socialist" Alaska?

Or, alternate title: (Once Again)Why Throw Stones From a Glass House?

We've already established that if Obama is a socialist so is McCain because both advocate a progressive tax policy, just to varying degrees. (See this blog, post 20)

But what about Palin? Let's look at the following quote:

"And Alaska—we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. ... It's to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans." --Sarah Palin, explaining the windfall profits tax that she imposed on the oil industry in Alaska as a mechanism for ensuring that Alaskans share in the wealth generated by oil companies. New Yorker interview, Sept. 2008

Each citizen in Alaska opens their mail box and gets a check for over $3,000.00 from the government of Alaska, no questions asked, no work done by the Alaskan for the payment. Alaska gets that money from taxing oil companies. Whoops. I think that may be considered spreading the wealth around. Is it socialism? (See this blog, post 20 for a definition of 'socialism') Does it matter? Because if you asked Palin to define socialism she'd probably give a "Couric-type" answer. Lastly, this again demonstrates the erratic/maverick, different day, different attack, a campaign with no clear message or theme. And again, they're throwing stones from glass houses.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_gourevitch?yrail

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/03/081103taco_talk_hertzberg