Campaign Updates and Media Headlines 9/12/08

than me"?

I love this job!

No, he was not telegraphing the end of his run. Look, I think Biden is wrong on just about everything (Iraq, Russia, the war on drugs, the bankruptcy bill), but I thought his answer on the Hillary Clinton question was classy and I was pleased to see him stand up for another Democrat. Something he has a history of doing, btw, his attacks on Rudy "verb, noun, 9/11" Guiliani were in part responding to Rudy's criticisms of Obama on his foreign policy experience. I also remember that right after Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama, Biden made a point of sitting with Clinton at the SoTU address.

So, I don't think we should be trying to get him off the ticket for defending a colleague, a friend, and a fellow Democrat. In fact, it's the first thing he's done that's made me think he might belong on the ticket. Which doesn't mean not selecting Hillary wasn't a huge mistake by Obama, just that I don't think Biden was saying that so much as defending her. Something I was happy to see.

For those who missed it, here's the exchange:

At a rally in Nashua, N.H., a man in the audience told Biden how glad he was that Obama picked him over Hillary, "not because she's a woman, but because, look at the things she did in the past."

"Make no mistake about this," Biden responded. "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she’s first rate, I mean that sincerely, she’s first rate, so let’s get that straight."

time or location, but, what things did Hillary do in the past that were so horrendous? I'm referring to the comment from the audience in NH.

Are they referring to her personal life when she stayed with Bill during the Ken Starr days? Maybe they're referring to her vote in support of the IWR. I guess I just don't see too much to dislike about her past unless, of course, you just don't like her.

I love this job!

I really am puzzled when friends and family say things like "she's not morale". Huh?

I love this job!

"... But in her 21 months as governor, Palin has taken few steps to advance culturally conservative causes. Instead, after she knocked off an incumbent amid an influence-peddling scandal linked to the oil industry, Palin pursued a populist agenda that toughened ethics rules and raised taxes on oil and gas companies.

And she did so while relying on Democratic votes in the Legislature.

"She has governed from the center," says Rebecca Braun, author of Alaska Budget Report, a non-partisan political newsletter. "She has in some small ways supported her religious views — for example, proposing money to continue the office of faith-based and community initiatives — but she has actually been conspicuously absent on social issues. She came in with a big oil and gas agenda, which really required Democratic allies to get through." ..." -- http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/el...

--Palin on ABC-- http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/...

I don't know where else to comment about this so I'm doing it here.

Krugman wrote a column today in which he lambasted the McCain campaign for broadcasting lie after lie about Obama, pointing out that as we learned with great sorrow from the Bush administration, how one campaigns often presages how one governs. He is correct about the ruthless and near-truth smut emanating from the McCain campaign, though the examples he used are not the best and can be too easily rebutted (if I can do that even while I'm reading them, they're too easy). Here's what he says:

...how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.

I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, and, in the case of the emerging Interior Department scandal, coke-snorting and bed-hopping proof to the contrary.

I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.

And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

So, think back on the primary, which was a family affair of sorts, how Obama ruthlessly smeared our finest and most successful Democrat since FDR as a racist and refused to even mention his name, let alone acknowledge the good he did during his eight years at the White House. And think about just how well that campaign was (or wasn't) run since Super Tuesday, in which Obama lost every truly meaningful real primary. Think about the skill and character of that man. Think about what still is yet to be revealed about him (to a mass audience, at least).

What we have here is a dilemma. Which scumbag is running a better campaign and which is the man of greater character?

The Bridge to Nowhere brouhaha is ludicrous and truly insignificant. Stop beating a dead moose. The Lipstick on a Pig dustup was a crude and clearly inartful gaffe on Obama's part. Does anyone doubt that were the shoe on the other foot that Obie very wan wouldn't jump on it with both hands shaking? I love Paul Krugman with a passion for the courageous and persistent voice he's given to Liberal Truths. But in this case he's just served to illustrate what we (and he, no doubt) already know. Our Own Teh Awesome candidate is the pig in this pokey race, and no amount of lipstick is going to change his visage.

or at least W. The Reverend Wright makes an appearance in Michigan ads. It's a good thing Obama has put that entire controversy "behind" him.

we all missed that one, i think--

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/... -- Iraq Cancels Six No-Bid Oil Contracts

...is now in the business of disenfranchising voters:

Ballot snafu endangers votes

By Jon Craig
jcraig@enquirer.com

About one-third of the absentee ballot applications received at the Hamilton
County Board of Elections have been ruled invalid because Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign printed a version of the form with an extra, unneeded box on it.

In a narrow interpretation of Ohio law, Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner says many of the McCain forms have not been completed properly. If the box stating the person is an eligible elector -- or qualified voter – is not checked, Brunner said, the application is no good.

Even though the box is unneeded, by not checking it voters are essentially admitting they’re not eligible, Brunner said.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll...

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Down ballet Dems need to change their unders (wasn't Obama supposed to be a "game changer" in a good way):

Battle for Congress Suddenly Looks Competitive
Democrats’ double-digit lead on the “generic ballot” slips to 3 points

by Lydia Saad
PRINCETON, NJ -- A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters' "generic ballot" preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110263/Battle...

How interesting.

I suppose it had nothing to do with the inability of pipelines to be protected or the fact that America is getting ready to change leadership.

Using the public information compiled on the Web site of the non-partisan group Legistorm, Murdock concludes that, on average, women in McCain's office are paid more than the men in McCain's office -- $1.04 for every dollar a man makes. Men in Obama's office make more than women do; female employees make 83 cents for every dollar made by male employees.

Murdock frames this as an issue of pay equity, but it's not really -- if anything, it's more a matter of a "glass ceiling."

(Or, at least, that's what feminist groups would likely be saying if the situations were reversed.)

Only one of Obama's five best-paid Senate staffers is a woman. Of McCain's five best-paid Senate staffers, three are women.

Of Obama's top 20 salaried Senate staffers, seven are women. Of McCain's top 20 salaried Senate staffers, 13 are women.

The Obama campaign does not dispute Murdock's figures (and neither does the McCain campaign), but Obama campaign spox Ben LaBolt argues that it's a much different situation on Obama's presidential campaign.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezrak... -- RESPONSE-CENTRIC --

"... It's struck me that the wonderful little riffs Obama does on these controversies are sort of how you'd respond if the world were run by Daily Show viewers. Obama is sly and irreverent and mocking and even a little noble. The expectation appears to be that enough of these replies and the media will start constructing a story around the cruelty and hollowness of McCain's campaign. It is an incredibly weird way to approach an institution that is, at base, stupid, simple, hungry for constantly-changing narratives, and utterly and proudly amoral. It's not going to happen. The dynamic of this election is that the media covers conflict and the McCain campaign gets up each morning and gives them a new conflict to cover. The Obama campaign does not, and thus the McCain campaign sets the agenda. ..." --

Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters’ “generic ballot” preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year.

That's because Republicans obstruct and Democrats simply obfuscate. And both are equally obnoxious and obdurate.

I never understood how when the Republicans held a slim majority in the Senate, the Democrats got rolled over on every single vote. Yet now when it's the other way around, the Republicans seem to be able to block any legislation at will. The FISA vote for me was the final straw, when the curtain was drawn back and the truth revealed. They were meant to look inept, powerless. But they really were playing us for suckers. They wanted it to look like it was all the Republicans' fault. Nah, it just was politics, played using American lives and dollars. And now the American public has now finally wised up.

My former party, too, OxyCon.