The opening shots in the circular firing squad can be found here. Enjoy.
(Image via)
This post is in: Election 2008, Republican Stupidity
The opening shots in the circular firing squad can be found here. Enjoy.
(Image via)
by John Cole| 41 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Republican Stupidity, Clown Shoes
About voter fraud:
John McCain paid $175,000 of campaign money to a Republican operative accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, it has emerged.
As the McCain camp attempts to tie Barack Obama to claims of registration irregularities by the activist group ACORN, campaign finance records detailing the payment to the firm of Nathan Sproul, investigated several times for fraud, threatens to derail that argument.
The documents show that a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the Republican National Committee and the California Republican Party, made the payment to Lincoln Strategy, of which Mr Sproul is the managing partner, for the purposes of “voter registration”.
Mr Sproul has been investigated on numerous occasions for preventing Democrats from voting, destroying registration forms and leading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to leach the Democratic vote.
You could probably hear the primal scream as you read that- “B-B-B-B-UT WHAT ABOUT ACORN!!?!!”
Blow it out your hindquarters, wingnuts. Only one arrest this election cycle for fraud, and it just so happens to be a guy paid by the McCain/Palin campaign. Funny that. Presumably these crimes were only committed in the pro-America parts of America.
by John Cole| 19 Comments
This post is in: Cat Blogging
Apparently there are some Tunch imitators out there. Here are two of them:
I suppose you think they are fat, too.
This post is in: Election 2008, Previous Site Maintenance
Ponder the beauty of this whilst you wait for something more substantial to come along:
Update: The graphic, for those who cannot see it, shows the race between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin in Georgia. Saxby Chambliss leads Jim Martin approximately 45.5% – 45.0%.
by Tim F| 117 Comments
This post is in: Media, Republican Stupidity
What the hell happened to Pat Buchanan? He used to speak awkward truths that other Republicans kept to themselves. By contrast, tonight was just embarrassing, like somebody replaced my usual coffee with Sean Hannity. Either Buchanan genuinely loves Sarah Palin or else he has some deep-seated problem with Barack Obama that he’s not coming to terms with. I think we can rule out choice #1.
This post is in: Election 2008, Clown Shoes
Reading the NY Times magazine piece on the McCain campaign, and when this election is over and done with, Steve Schmidt is not going to look good. Going through the article, almost every piece of fail was birthed and nursed into maturity by Schmidt, starting with this gem:
The smartest bit of political wisdom he ever heard was dispensed by George W. Bush one spring day at the White House residence in 2004…
With that as your starting point, you can see where this baby is heading. Some snippets:
Scene by scene, McCain failed to deliver the performance that had been promised. Of course, this was no mere movie. America was in crisis. Perhaps with the Bush theory in mind, Steve Schmidt had advised McCain to “go in all the way” on the financial crisis so as to reveal his candidate’s true character.
***“For better or for worse, our campaign has been fought from tactic to tactic,” one senior adviser glumly acknowledged to me in early October, just after Schmidt received authorization from McCain to unleash a new wave of ads attacking Obama’s character. “So this is the new tactic.”
***“Well, going forward, that’s what you should say,” Schmidt replied. He encouraged McCain to denounce the Democrats for advocating a withdrawal of troops — a kind of surrender in the face of victory. Thus did Schmidt initiate the No Surrender Tour late in the summer of 2007, a push through the early primary states that saw John McCain surrounded by war veterans while he lashed out at weak-kneed war critics.
***Regardless, this summer Schmidt sought to convince his voluble candidate that the press was no longer his friend. By July, a curtain was literally drawn to separate McCain from the reporters traveling on his plane. He no longer mingled with them, and press conferences were drastically curtailed.
***Eventually, it was Schmidt who blurted out the epiphany concerning Obama. “Face it, gentlemen,” he said. “He’s being treated like a celebrity.”
The others grasped the concept — a celebrity like J-Lo! or Britney! — and exultation overtook the room.
***Then for a half-hour or so, the group reviewed names that had been bandied about in the past: Gov. Tim Pawlenty (of Minnesota) and Gov. Charlie Christ (of Florida); the former governors Tom Ridge (Pennsylvania) and Mitt Romney (Massachusetts); Senator Joe Lieberman (Connecticut); and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York). From a branding standpoint, they wondered, what message would each of these candidates send about John McCain? McInturff’s polling data suggested that none of these candidates brought significantly more to the ticket than any other.
“What about Sarah Palin?” Schmidt asked.
And on and on and on it goes, with one person’s fingerprints on every single piece of fail. And that is just from the first few pages of the nine page story.
Really, read the whole thing. It terrifies me that there is still a chance these guys could win.
And by the way- Sarah Palin was not vetted one tiny bit. They had no clue what they were getting into, and someone could make a hell of a blog post by going back and chronicling the right-wing noise machine and blogger pushback in which they asserted she was thoroughly vetted, because this piece just blows that BS out of the water.
This post is in: Election 2008
Just turned on Hardball and heard Matthews note that the Republican party has not won a Presidential election without a Bush or Nixon on the ticket since 1928, and that reminded me that I forgot to mention that I voted today. I will be traveling on the 4th, so I figured I might as well go in and get it over with.
I am of mixed minds on early voting. While I really like the idea of making voting more available to everyone, and I understand that people’s schedules in the modern era make it difficult to vote on a specific day, there is still a part of me that really enjoys waking up on election day, having my coffee, going to my polling station and hanging around talking to people while waiting for my turn to vote. Not to sound all syrupy, but it just feels like a profoundly American thing to do, and I think the practice of voting is good for the country. It is one day to do your civic duty. It should be something people look forward to doing and treasure, and part of me thinks that early voting strips away some of that sense of community.
At any rate, the early voting in our area is set up in an old Wal-Mart on the other side of town, and the whole thing was quick and painless. I was in and out in under ten minutes. There was a steady stream of voters the entire time I was there, and I think there is going to be massive turn-out this election.
Other than Obama, I voted for the Mountain Party candidate Jesse Johnson for Governor. He does not have a chance in hell of winning, and Manchin is polling around 75% to win, so I figured I would encourage a third-party candidate. We need more parties, not fewer.
Down ticket there were not many competitive races, and my mother and I both refuse to vote for someone running unopposed, so there really were not many races to choose. A couple local races had candidates from both parties, but most of the folks were Democrats running unopposed. WV will probably go to McCain, but otherwise it is going to be a Democratic month in November.
I never imagined I would vote for a Democrat for President, but it sure was fun. Still waiting on the check from Soros and the virgins, damnit.
*** Update ***
Why, Oliver? Why?