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Campaign Updates and Media Headlines 9/18/08

Caro's picture
Submitted by Caro on Thu, 09/18/2008 - 3:45pm
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campaign

Picking Winners by the Popularity of Paraphernalia (New York Times)
Longtime pollsters will tell you that predicting elections is a complex science built on years of population analysis and heady math. But according to CafePress.com, it is simply a matter of throw pillows.

Not just any throw pillows but ones with folksy political slogans like “Hockey Moms for McCain Palin.” Or T-shirts that say “Obama is my Homeboy,” or infant jumpers with groan-worthy puns like “O-baaa-ma” over a picture of a cuddly sheep. Could sales of such items predict who will be elected president? CafePress.com — a site that lets people upload their designs and then prints them on items — says yes, they can…

It turns out that sales of Kittens for Clinton T-shirts are perhaps no less reliable than Gallup polls. For example, sales of Barack Obama merchandise first surpassed Hillary Clinton items in late January, just weeks before the Illinois senator took the lead in the polls. And merchandise for the Obama-Biden ticket was outselling McCain-Palin items until the Republican National Convention ended in September. Sales for both are now neck and neck, much as the candidates are in the polls.

Gallup: Obama back in the lead (Hot off the Trail, McClatchy)
For the first time since the Republican convention, Barack Obama is preferred over McCain in Gallup's daily tracking poll. The difference isn't statistically significant, 47 to 45 percent, but it's consistent with the Ipsos/McClatchy poll released last night, which found the race tied 45-45, but that those who favor McCain are squishier in their support than those who favor Obama.

Battleground Not Much Bigger Than 2004 (Political Wire)
Just out from the Wisconsin Advertising Project: "Despite much talk about an expanded playing field, by and large, states receiving advertising in 2008 look similar to the states targeted in the 2004 presidential campaign. The Obama campaign aired ads in seventeen states from September 6-13, while the McCain campaign aired ads in fifteen of those same states."
So much for that 57-state strategy.—Caro

How Fact-Checking Took Center Stage in the 2008 Campaign (Editor & Publisher)
The fact-checkers have gone wild in the past two weeks, but even before Barack Obama and John McCain were officially selected for the final leg in the race for the White House, political editors and reporters had done some soul-searching, leading many to a new commitment to studying, and maybe correcting, the record when needed.
I didn’t notice any reduction in lies, did you? The only thing different about this election is that bunches of lies are coming from the DEMOCRATS for the first time.—Caro

Click here for more political and media news headlines.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

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a little night musing's picture
Submitted by a little night ... on

This all seems to be coming via the NY Post.

The timing seems... hmmm...

amberglow's picture
Submitted by amberglow on

--the apartments, the vacation house, now this...

It's either the GOP and Roger Stone and those people (who got Spitzer booted)--or Obama and Congress, who don't want him in charge of such a powerful post as Ways and Means.

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

Oh, Axelrod would never work with Roger Stone.....

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

amberglow's picture
Submitted by amberglow on

that i really don't want to believe.

in terms of immediate impact, i'd say it was Obama/Pelosi/etc, because he's so powerful moneywise, and way more liberal than them in every possible way.

but in terms of longterm impact, this is a good time for the GOP to get rid of him since he always has made trouble for them and their cronies for decades, and they'd get a pushover and far more amenable if Pelosi picked someone now. Like with Spitzer--Paterson is far less aggressive and not at all interested in hurting fatcats/righting wrongs the way Spitzer was.

amberglow's picture
Submitted by amberglow on

both members of Ways and Means--did they promise Lewis it? He'd be a willing puppet.

Or could they leapfrog seniority and make Emanuel head? is that possible?

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/members.asp

(they definitely wouldn't make Levin head, and everyone other Dem on it is not as known as those 3)

gyrfalcon's picture
Submitted by gyrfalcon on

WTF? John Lewis is nobody's puppet, for God's sake. Where'd that idea come from?

As for Emanuel, he'd have to give up a good deal of his partisan leadership, so-called, if he took on W&M, and I can't see that happening. It's like Hillary on the SC, just not his thing.

And Carl Levin is is a Senator, not a Congressman. I've never even heard of Sander Levin, the House member on the comittee. Is he related?

If some "they" is going after Rangel, it's just for the sake of going after him, consequences be damned.

amberglow's picture
Submitted by amberglow on

reward for switching from Hillary to Obama, is what i was thinking--and he's not a troublemaker like Rangel is.

Would Emanuel really have to give anything else up? Why? He's wildly ambitious and needs chairmanship of something, i'd say.

Sander Levin has been around for decades (he has seniority i think, which means he may be next in line if Rangel is pushed out) and runs the Trade subcommittee inside Ways and Means -- he's also more liberal than Pelosi/Hoyer/Obama like Rangel is, but he's also not a troublemaker or someone who acts out or runs off at the mouth -- he's Carl Levin's brother -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sander_M._L...

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