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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2008 / Quick Hits

Quick Hits

by John Cole|  October 27, 200811:15 am| 40 Comments

This post is in: Election 2008, Politics

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1.) This explains the McCain campaign better than anything else.

2.) This explains why the Republicans, if the trust their instincts, will be a minority party for a long, long time.

3.) More fail from K-Lo’s House of Crazy.

4.) It is Monday, so you know what that means. Dozens of breathless right-whinge posts about Obama the socialist. As usual, they have NO EARTHLY FLIPPING IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

5.) Also, a smattering of Obama the terrorist.

6.) The left has idiots, too.

7.) The markets are stable despite overseas routs, so I think those estimating that around 8000 as the bottom may be right.

8.) Political ad fail. However, a minor quibble- they list this ad:

They then state:

“Experience,” gets the nod for its footage – perhaps a first in political history — of the candidate scooping up dog poop in her backyard. We’re still not sure what she was trying to say — maybe she was trying to secure the dog vote. Then again, we don’t pretend to understand Alaska politics.

The message was pretty clear, folks. Send her to congress, she has experience cleaning up shit. I kinda like the ad- it is funny, and most likely got people talking.

9.) Why interrogations should be videotaped. In case you are unaware, one of the things that Obama helped to enact in Illinois was just this type of legislation, which was initially opposed by police and prosecutors but then passed unanimously. Of course, Red State tells me Obama has no experience and cannot reach across the aisle.

10.) The best for last- Politic states this was the best ad of the season. It was ok, although I preferred Helter Skelter more:

Have at it.

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Reader Interactions

40Comments

  1. 1.

    Comrade Nixon Hailfire Palin

    October 27, 2008 at 11:24 am

    GOS claims touch-screen vote-flipping. Democracy demands paper — I hope the Obama admin makes this part of its house-cleaning.

  2. 2.

    Cris v.3.1

    October 27, 2008 at 11:26 am

    West Virgina voting machines are flipping votes from D to R. Is that what they mean by "Obama’s Appalachian problem?"

  3. 3.

    John Cole

    October 27, 2008 at 11:34 am

    I voted in WV, with a touch screen, it did not flip and there was a paper trail.

  4. 4.

    gopher2b

    October 27, 2008 at 11:36 am

    "Why interrogations should be videotaped. In case you are unaware, one of the things that Obama helped to enact in Illinois was just this type of legislation, which was initially opposed by police and prosecutors but then passed unanimously. Of course, Red State tells me Obama has no experience and cannot reach across the aisle."

    This was much needed legislation in Illinois since Chicago police were (at least perceived) beating up everyone. And, of course, the cops shouldn’t have oppose it because IF THEY WEREN’T DOING ANYTHING WRONG then they had nothing to fear. I know that’s one of you favorites, John.

  5. 5.

    cleek

    October 27, 2008 at 11:37 am

    i filled-in the little ovals using the pen on the string. my vote did not flip.

  6. 6.

    Brian J

    October 27, 2008 at 11:38 am

    I just watched both of Gravel’s ads. Helter Skelter was good in the sense that it was strange enough to get us to talk, but it was also unfocused. I don’t understand, for instance, the connection between Kennedy’s assassination and a revolution, at least not directly. The one he threw the rock was awesome, because there’s no apparent logic or message to it. It’s so incredibly random. It’s like a representation of that old Lewis Black joke about Superbowl commercials: "Three bears are sitting on a log. One goes home and hangs himself. BUY A BIKE!"

  7. 7.

    DragonScholar

    October 27, 2008 at 11:41 am

    Regarding the dow, I’d say wait and see – I do think high 7000’s are about the bottom, so around 8000 seems at reasonable to me as well. But it aint over yet – I expect overcorrections first.

  8. 8.

    bago

    October 27, 2008 at 11:53 am

    See, someone needs to take video evidence to prove it is not a calibration error.

    If the government is allowed to tap our phones, we can tap their voting machines.

  9. 9.

    TenguPhule

    October 27, 2008 at 11:54 am

    Regarding the dow, I’d say wait and see – I do think high 7000’s are about the bottom, so around 8000 seems at reasonable to me as well. But it aint over yet – I expect overcorrections first.

    If the Fed insists on sacrificing long term stability for short term rate cuts….I wouldn’t be so quick to call a bottom.

  10. 10.

    srv

    October 27, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    I just voted for Cindy Sheehan.

    But it just didn’t feel the same now that John is a Demorat.

    I wish I could harness that wave of Palin supporters as post-election trolls here. They got me all excited we’d see the good old days again, but now that they’ve scurried back under their rocks I feel used.

  11. 11.

    Napoleon

    October 27, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    John, you failed to mention that terrorist fist bumps

    are sweeping America.

  12. 12.

    Dennis - SGMM

    October 27, 2008 at 12:03 pm

    This explains why the Republicans, if the trust their instincts, will be a minority party for a long, long time.

    Jim Nuzzo, who was a senior White House aide to the first President Bush, is quoted in this article at the Telegraph.co.uk.
    Nuzzo told The Sunday Telegraph:

    "There’s going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

    Further on he states:

    "Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan."

    Purging the Republican party of every last moderate voice has my full support. Making "where did you stand on Palin?" the litmus test just about guarantees the Republicans at least a decade in the wilderness. It could happen. The narrative that "Palin could have saved the election but she was stabbed in the back," seems just tailor made for a party that has replaced introspection with blaming.

  13. 13.

    eyeball

    October 27, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    McCain’s to-do list — final week:

    Monday: Call Obama Marxist
    Tuesday: Call Obama Communist
    Wednesday: Call Obama Fascist
    Thursday: Call Obama Nazi
    Friday: Call Obama Islamo-Fascist-Commie-Nazi
    Saturday: Call Obama Pedophile
    Sunday: Call Obama "Osama bin-Biden"
    Monday; Call Obama "n****r"
    Tuesday: Call Obama Mr. President-elect

  14. 14.

    Laura W

    October 27, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Palin’s crowd chanting: "Vote McCain, use your brain!" this morn.
    McBrainiacs.
    Love it.
    Do they really want to play the IQ card?

  15. 15.

    Brian J

    October 27, 2008 at 12:20 pm

    John, you failed to mention that terrorist fist bumps

    are sweeping America.

    That picture is now my profile picture on Facebook. I just love it, not least of all because the kid in the picture looks kind of like me when I was that age.

  16. 16.

    Comrade Rick Massimo

    October 27, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    It’s awesome that conservative Republicans believe the future of the movement/party lies with pundits and commentators and not with people who (with the exception of Sarah Palin, who is from Alaska and is a moron) have ever, um, won any elections.

  17. 17.

    Punchy

    October 27, 2008 at 12:38 pm

    @Napoleon: It’s clear from that pic that Obama is a pedophile, the way he’s touching that your boy with his hand, smiling, bending over, with The Wall Street Journal in his hand as a lure to get the kid come over and touch him back.

  18. 18.

    ksmiami

    October 27, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    Is it just me or is McCain about the most unlikeable "presidential" candidate to run in recent history? I am not sure I can stand another week of his yellow teeth:

    Also, I was thinking of putting a You tube together of people who live in fake America. You know imponderables and all that – any input?

  19. 19.

    Tsulagi

    October 27, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    “The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

    Oh yeah, they really need to distill the stupid further. 100 proof just isn’t giving enough of a buzz. They need to get into at least Everclear territory.

    Hadn’t seen that Helter Skelter Gravel ad before. That was great. I’m thinking Gravel must have done road trips with HST.

  20. 20.

    Comrade Kevin

    October 27, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    "Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan."

    No, she’s the new Oswald Moseley, or, to use an American example, the new William Dudley Pelley.

  21. 21.

    Crusty Dem

    October 27, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    As a long-time market watcher, I’m amused that anyone thinks that 8000 is "bottom". Since the market, in it’s current incarnation, is nothing more than an over-sized Ponzi scheme, I feel pretty confident saying that there’s no good reason to bottom out below the classic standard P/E of ~12, if interest rates go up, it will drop below that. That would put the market at

  22. 22.

    Napoleon

    October 27, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    @Brian J:

    I made it my work computer wallpaper today and unless a better Obama picture comes along it will carry my through to 11/3 when I hope to replace it with a victory picture of him, Michelle and the family.

  23. 23.

    Krista

    October 27, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    I like what one of Klein’s commenters said on that photo, how it really has a sort of Norman Rockwell vibe to it, updated for 2008.

    I love it. I think it’s a good representation of the America that we want to see — modern, inclusive, informed and approachable.

  24. 24.

    jenniebee

    October 27, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    Things fall apart, and if the center cannot hold, what hope does this uneasy far-right-of-center coalition really have?

    The only real question is whether or not centrist Dems in full control of two branches of government will be enough of a common cause for the Republicans to patch up their big tent for another couple of years.

  25. 25.

    Ash Can

    October 27, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    @Dennis – SGMM:

    Purging the Republican party of every last moderate voice has my full support.

    Boy howdy. Although I think this whole imbroglio could play out very differently than the way geniuses like Jim Nuzzo envision it. He and the other Palin-Firsters have either forgotten or are ignoring the fact that the Republican base fractured along its decades-old fault lines during the primaries, and that Palin hasn’t excited "the base," but only a part of it — viz., the part that was voting for Huckabee and maybe Tancredo and Brownback as well. If she really were having all of the base seeing starbursts, she probably wouldn’t have placed a distant third in Newsweek’s recent poll of Republicans on who they’d like to see at the top of the ticket in 2012.

    Depending on who’s actually running the GOP at this point and whether or not they actually pay attention to the opinions of GOP voters (a big "if" given the top-down, authoritarian nature of the current GOP), the batshit-crazy faction may just end up screaming for purges from a dumpster in the alley after the prevailing Romneyesque faction has kicked it out the back door.

    PS: eyeball at #13 FTW.

  26. 26.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    October 27, 2008 at 1:25 pm

    @cleek: My pen had a feather on the end instead of a string, but I didn’t see my colored in bubbles change either. The nice people at the poll told me three times that I had to vote for President separately from voting for a straight party ticket (I’m in NC), plus I got a blue piece of paper with the same information written on in it in BIG print.
     
    Can I turn off the TV now?

  27. 27.

    Brian J

    October 27, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    My pen had a feather on the end instead of a string, but I didn’t see my colored in bubbles change either. The nice people at the poll told me three times that I had to vote for President separately from voting for a straight party ticket (I’m in NC), plus I got a blue piece of paper with the same information written on in it in BIG print.

    WTF? Was this a joke?

  28. 28.

    John

    October 27, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    Re the Left has idiots too…

    I have to give the Sarah Palin hanging gag a pass.

    Sorry, but there is a massive, massive difference than when somebody does this to an effigy of Obama.

    It’s not out of the ordinary to see politicians hung in effigy, but when your nation is a deeply, deeply racist state that didn’t actually let Black people ride near the front of the bus until something like 40 years ago, and you lynched Blacks by the thousands, you are obligated to be extra racially sensitive for at least a century.

    Sorry, but that’s just the way it goes.

  29. 29.

    Jeff

    October 27, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    The nuance of some of Obama’s answers are lost on a lot of wingnuts, but Bruce Schneier, a renowned security/crypto expert, acknowledges Obama’s thought process on security tradeoffs.

    Security is a trade-off, and that trade-off has to be made by someone with responsibility over all aspects of that trade-off.

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard a politician make this point so explicitly.

    Once again tactics versus strategy.

  30. 30.

    Blue Raven

    October 27, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    @srv:

    I just voted for Cindy Sheehan.

    And if you have even once used Sarah Palin’s lack of experience as part of your reasoning that voting for her is stupid, you just turned into a hypocrite right there. I really do find it extremely annoying that Sheehan is carpet-bagging into Pelosi’s district and deliberately trying to screw over the leadership of the HofR like this. Thankfully, Sheehan wouldn’t become Speaker if she pulls off the miracle upset of the election season, but Pelosi is better than that one-issue whiner will ever be regardless of Pelosi’s butt-kissing approach of late.

    No, I don’t like Cindy Sheehan on general principle. Anyone who claims to be hunger striking but is living on Jamba Juice and coffee smoothies is a liar and a stunt dummy. As an Irish-American, she should be ashamed to abuse the term. And that’s not just because of the IRA strikers. That’s a practice in Irish culture that likely predates St. Patrick.

  31. 31.

    wmd

    October 27, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    I totally got the shit scooping message in that ad. In fact I had friends take pictures of me loading a truck full of horse manure in between my ’94 and ’98 campaigns, thinking an image of me shoveling shit was a funny and self-deprecating image for any politician and the humor would be noticed.

  32. 32.

    Napoleon

    October 27, 2008 at 2:37 pm

    @Blue Raven:

    Of course Sheehan would only be one of something like 435 house members. If Palin should become POTUS if something happened to McCain she would be the only one. The US can survive a certain number of bumblers as back benchers in the Senate and House, it can not survive another disaster as President, not now.

  33. 33.

    Geoduck

    October 27, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    "Obama the socialist." (sigh..) If only…

  34. 34.

    srv

    October 27, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    And if you have even once used Sarah Palin’s lack of experience as part of your reasoning that voting for her is stupid, you just turned into a hypocrite right there.

    Cindy’s not running for VP.

    Any monkey could be a Representative, and any monkey would be better than the House "leadership" we’ve had for the last two years.

    Sheehan is running on a platform of single-payer health care, media reform, overturning all free trade agreements, repealing the Patriot Act, renewable energy, nationalizing oil and electricity, ending the War on Drugs, legalizing Cannabis (drug), ensuring all talks in the Middle East are fair to all parties, ending torture, closing Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Overseas commitment to cleaning up Superfund sites, ending deregulation, ending No Child Left Behind, legalizing gay marriage.

    We know what you support, as your hero is AWOL on all of that. Even prop8!

  35. 35.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    October 27, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    Palin’s crowd chanting: "Vote McCain, use your brain!" this morn. McBrainiacs.

    They’re following this guy’s lead:

    Link

  36. 36.

    dj spellchecka

    October 27, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    fred barnes has passed the palin litmus test….

    this is from today… i subscribed to the weekly standard newsletter for a good laugh each monday… and freddie comes thru… dig this….

    "In judging Palin, it comes down to who is more credible. Is it those who’ve worked with her, or know her, or have at least met and talked with her? Or those who haven’t? The answer is a no-brainer.

    Okay, I may be biased on the subject of Palin, having been impressed after spending nearly two hours with her on one occasion and an hour on another.

    My advice is ignore the critics who know far less about Palin than she does about foreign policy. A good example is Ken Adelman, who headed the arms control agency in the Reagan administration.

    Adelman recently endorsed Obama and said he "would not have hired [Palin] for even a mid-level post in the arms control agency."

    Well, I know both Palin and Adelman. And Ken, I’m sorry to tell you, but I think there are an awful lot of jobs in Washington that Palin would get before you.

    Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

    wtf????

    the jokes write themselves…..

    rusty

  37. 37.

    Jon H

    October 27, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    Comrade Kevin wrote: "No, she’s the new Oswald Moseley"

    I think you mean Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts.

  38. 38.

    Jon H

    October 27, 2008 at 10:09 pm

    " I think there are an awful lot of jobs in Washington that Palin would get before you"

    Most of which are advertised in Craigslist under ‘erotic services’.

  39. 39.

    Phoenix Woman

    October 27, 2008 at 11:24 pm

    McCain’s to-do list—final week:

    Monday: Call Obama Marxist
    Tuesday: Call Obama Communist
    Wednesday: Call Obama Fascist
    Thursday: Call Obama Nazi
    Friday: Call Obama Islamo-Fascist-Commie-Nazi
    Saturday: Call Obama Pedophile
    Sunday: Call Obama "Osama bin-Biden"
    Monday; Call Obama "n****r"
    Tuesday: Call Obama Mr. President-elect

    (sorry, had to see that again)

  40. 40.

    Delia

    October 27, 2008 at 11:37 pm

    Here are some people who should be national heroes. They walked off their job at the telemarketing center rather than do calls sliming Obama.

    From the first part of the story:

    Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.
    …
    Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."
    …
    Williams’ daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it’s located in Hobart, IN.

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