It's Your Choice Too - Vote November 4th

I'll certainly have more to say before then. But this new ad illustrates just what the stakes are.



If you need a reason to consider the consequences of sitting this one out, regardless of how long the lines or cold the weather, just remember this is the choice.

General Powell's Patriotic Grace

Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama today was so measured, so diplomatic, so graceful that I hope it gets played on many blogs and gets seen by Americans - and the rest of the world - over and over again. It is a beautiful example of what Peggy Noonan has labeled "patriotic grace."

Without ever insulting John McCain, a man for whom General Powell obviously has a great deal of respect and admiration, he managed to make a strong and stirring endorsement of Senator Obama. I am sure that General Powell has seen a great deal in the Republican Party during this election cycle that has disappointed him deeply. Yet with great dignity he stayed on the high road and spoke about what he admired in John McCain and gave well thought out reasons why at this juncture in history he is endorsing Barack Obama instead.

I'll let the video speak for itself.



This is what political involvment at its best looks like. This is what patriotism looks like. And I'm sure this is why most of us got involved to start with. But somewhere along the way our idealism got replaced with ideology and the desire to win at all costs. I think that is true of both sides. General Colin Powell's endorsement is a call to get back to what is the best in us regardless of party affiliation or ideological belief. It's a call to concentrate on what unites us rather than what divides us.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't have spirited debates on policy or that we should shrink from airing honest differences. But where did the basic respect go? There once was the concept of "the loyal opposition" which is very different from the hated enemy. We need to get back to that basic if we want to keep a democracy.

GOP Top Worst Hits - Hatred on Parade

Today, Brave New Films and The Color of Change unveiled this new video, a compilation of the GOP's worst hits. It's a collage of the collected anger currently appearing at Republican rallies, especially when Sarah Palin speaks. It's sad to see the depths of hatred and anger to which the Republican Party is sinking these days. H/t to Huffington Post for the video and for more commentary on it.

With Friends Like These, McCain Doesn't Need Democrats To Ridicule Him

When The Old Reliables Fail The GOP

According to Tim Egan, who writes a New York Times blog, the evangelical vote is still somewhat up for grabs - and in Colorado Springs, which he dubs the "Vatican of evangelical political power," no less. According to Egan, some evangelical voters are thinking of doing the unthinkable and what once would have been considered heretical. Some are planning to break party ranks and vote for Barack Obama.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — I didn’t hook up people to electronic monitoring devices, nothing to measure leg trickles and blood-sugar spikes in response to off-key talking points.

I had no magic maps, no demographic weighting formulas. I simply went to the heart of one of the fastest-growing, most Republican counties in the land — as red as rib-eye steak on the e-coli side of raw — and wandered aimlessly, like John McCain in Tuesday’s debate.

Here in Colorado Springs — the Vatican of evangelical political power, home to the Air Force Academy and a community where optimism usually matches the sunrise glow at the base of Pikes Peak – you can see what will happen in less than a month.

My friends: it’s not good for Senator McCain.

Among those Egan has spoken to who are thinking of crossing party lines in this election are Jan Martin, a small business owner, city council member, and lifelong Republican. She just can't sit by and watch the business she devoted her lifetime to build and her personal savings melt away in the economic downturn.

But even more telling is that a few pastors of conservative churches are toning down the partisanship this year and simply encouraging their parishoners to vote - without recommending which party they should vote for.

“The financial crisis is point number one,” said Pastor Brady Boyd, head of New Life Church, 250,000 square feet of concentrated Christianity. “These attacks against the candidates are just irrelevant right now. Why are you all attacking one another when we’re dying out here?”

And here

“The only advice I give is pray, fast and vote, and that can be for any political party,” he said.

This year, the church hasn’t even heard from the McCain campaign. “What’s happening to us is less allegiance to the Republican party, and more to our core principles,” he said.

Which gets us to the second message to come from Colorado Springs: on election day, there will be no repeat of 2004, when people woke up to the surprise that “moral values” was the leading issue of the campaign, according to exit polls.

Down the road, Focus on the Family is still in a bit a of dither over what to do about John McCain. James Dobson, the founder of what is essentially a political action committee for evangelicals, had said earlier this year he would never vote for McCain. Never. Not under any circumstances.

Now he’s changed his mind. Sort of.

“While I said I will not endorse either candidate this year, I can say I’m now supporting John McCain,” he said in his October newsletter. However, “the senator continues to embrace issues that concern me.”

Dobson, to be sure, won't vote for or recommend Obama or remain even vaguely neutral. But he's boxed himself in by his earlier statement so now he has to sound lukewarm. And that may depress his flock from voting in the numbers he has delivered in the past.

Still, I remain skeptical about the evangelical vote. I doubt Democrats will ever truly win it because there just are too many hurdles, in terms of social wedge issues to overcome. No party can be all things to all people. But there seems to be a small movement of young evangelicals away from those divisive social issues. And among that group, concern for the environment and social justice are at least as important as abortion and homosexuality.

Here's Egan's summary.

Abortion? Homosexuals? Bill Ayers?

“To be focused on those things at a time when people are hurting would really be to the detriment of families,” said Boyd.

Obama will not win Colorado Springs. John Kerry got just 32 percent of the vote in this county in 2004. But if Obama gets 40 percent – which is what Democrats expect based on the surge of newly registered voters and independents who are following Jan Martin’s path – he will win this state, and the election.

That leaves the circus of Sarah Palin and the sad specter of a snarling John McCain fading as they embrace the slippery bonds of the last century.

How frustrating it must be that the right's old reliables of guns, gays and God might be neutralized and failing them now.

Presidential Temperment

UPDATE: More on John McCain's temper from Huffington Post. And the original article on this incident from Michael Kinsley. Yes, that's the same Michael Kinsley who was literally taken to the woodshed by bloggers earlier this year for an article he wrote for Time Magazine on why liberals love McCain. Kinsley seemed to practically have a crush on the former straight talker because he was allowed to be one of the kewl kids on the bus. My how Michael Kinsley has changed his tune - more MSM buyer's remorse about McCain?

Just as there is something called a "judicial temperment," which is one of the major characteristics mentioned when the Senate confirms a Supreme Court nominee, or even when a member of one of the lower courts is picked, it's important to consider the presidential temperment. After all, the person we choose will be leader of the free world and the only true world power left. This person will be called upon to meet with foreign leaders and conduct diplomacy. And he will also be the person with his finger "on the button."

John McCain's famous temper and his erratic behavior have been on public display throughout the campaign. But here's an explicit video that demonstrates what others who know him have to say about his lack of presidential temperment.



For more videos on John McCain's temper go to RK.

Don't Know Much About the Economy

Well, the rest of Barack Obama's response to John McCain's politics of distraction, where his top strategists admit that if they actually talk about the economy, McCain would lose, is here. To learn more about McCain's role in the Keating scandal and how it impacts his understanding of the current mortage industry and banking meltdown, check it out.

Oops, They Are Mentioning the Keating Five Scandal

Hmm, apparently I spoke too soon in my previous post - somebody is mentioning the Keating Five and not a moment too soon. It's actually more relevant than whether Obama had a passing political acquaintance with a former sixties radical, whose reprensible actions occurred when Obama was only eight years old. McCain actually was involved in the Keating Five scandal that led to a meltdown of the Savings and Loan industry. This wasn't guilt by association but an example of McCain's lack of judgment, recklessness and commitment to extreme deregulation. And although he was sorry that his actions crossed the border into corruption, the truth is that the poor judgment, lack of understanding of economic policy and same dedication to fighting sensible regulations hasn't changed a bit.

Barack Obama Fires Back

I'm not sure it's strong enough. But Barack Obama has always favored the steady, calm approach rather than full throated attack. So far, he's ahead, so who am I to argue? But me, I'd explore more about McCain's association to John Singlaub and the World Anti-Communist League. Oh and has anybody mentioned Keating Five lately? But like I said, that's just me. Maybe Obama is right about not doing overkill :)



Like I asked yesteday, does McCain actually want to go down this road of smears, guilt by association, and character assassination?

Adventures in Guilt by Association

Just yesterday the Washington Post reported that the McCain campaign planned to go sharply negative and attack Obama's character by reviving tales about his supposed associations with former Weatherman radical William Ayres and corrupt Chicago businessman Tony Rezko. Of course, Obama's associations with both those men were casual and passing at best. Quite frankly there is nobody at that level who hasn't made mistakes or doesn't have a skeleton or two in their closet, yes, including Mr. McCain.

In fact, both the the charges of connections between Obama and either Rezko or Ayres have been widely reported as being over blown. But desperate times call for desperate moves and since John McCain can't come up with a coherent and credible economic plan that would reassure voters, all his campaign can do is hope to change the conversation by silly and diversionary attacks. At a time when the public is looking for answers to real problems that are affecting their pocket books, their homes, their dreams, all McCain can do is sling mud and hope it diverts people's attention from their real difficulties. But given his own shaky associations is this really the route he wants to take?



For more information and a great discussion on the World Anti-Communist League, the neo-Nazi organization that Paul Begala mentioned, go here.

And here is more from Paul Begala:

And I think Governor Palin here is making a strategic mistake. This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign. You know, you can go back, I have written a book about McCain, I had a dozen researchers go through him, I didn't even put this in the book. But John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization, it was the U.S. Council for World Freedom, it was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran contra scandal. It was an ultra conservative, right-wing group. The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League - the parent organization - which ADL said "has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites."

In addition, even Douglas K. Daniel, a writer and editor with the Washington bureau of Associated Press, dressed down Sarah Palin, on Huffington Post, for her remarks acusing Barack Obama of "palling around with a terrorist." Daniel even called Palin out for the subtly racist subtext of her remarks.

Like I said, does the McCain campaign actually want to go this route when that is merely the tip of the iceberg for their own candidates?

The Sarah Palin Plan for Acing the Debates

UPDATE: The McCain campaign just admitted that Sarah Palin misstated Sen. John McCain's position on homeowner protections during the debate last night.

Sarah Palin got her facts wrong in Thursday's debate with Joe Biden when discussing where John McCain stands on new protections for homeowners facing foreclosures.

The Alaska governor incorrectly made it sound like McCain supports giving bankruptcy judges the power to rewrite mortgage payment terms on first homes.

He doesn't.

The McCain campaign confirms to ABC News that Palin misstated McCain's position.

"No, that is what is called the cramdowns, which is so objectionable that Obama didn't even want it jammed into the stabilization bill," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers when asked if McCain supports giving bankruptcy judges the power to re-adjust the interest rate and principal to help people stay in their homes.

Palin's mistake came when the debate's moderator asked her if Biden was right in thinking that she and McCain oppose giving bankruptcy judges this new power.

I will have more in depth analysis of the debate over the weekend. For now, here's a great chart, courtesy of Daily Kos, that pretty well describes Sarah Palin's tactics for acing last night's debate.

Somehow, judging by a quick round up of last night's instant poll results, I don't think it worked. At best, Palin got a boost in favorables because she's a cute, spunky hockey mom. What's not to like? But she didn't convince anybody she's ready to be a heartbeat away from a 72 year old president, whose had serious health problems.

Palin Not Ready For Primetime So McCain Seeks Debate Delay

Update II: Wonkette chimes in with this.

Here is a brilliant switcheroo! John McCain proposes delaying his debate if he has not singlehandedly resolved America’s financial crisis by tomorrow, so that way he and Barack Obama can debate next Thursday — the night when Sarah Palin and Joe Biden were set to debate. And then once they’ve rescheduled the Palin/Biden debate, John McCain can pull another crazy stunt — announcing his own daughter is fake pregnant, maybe, or firing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or refusing to appear in public in anything but a glittering leotard — and everyone will forget all about this Palin nut and how she withers under intense questioning by Katie freaking Couric. John McCain will personally bomb North Korea in an ancient fighter plane with a Muppet as his co-pilot before he allows Sarah Palin to debate anything besides a goldfish. A dead goldfish.

UPDATE: The Anonymous Liberal pretty much came to the same conclusion as me and does a brilliant job of explaining his line of reasoning. As he points out, Palin's statement that without the bailout this country is headed into another Great Depression might be true but was something no politician should have said publicly. It could become self-fulfilling prophecy and further panic skitterish markets. Also, it practically forces McCain into having to vote for the bailout package. And Palin also should have been better prepped about her running mate's record on the the Commerce Committee. Instead, we now have a sound byte from her where the take home message is that McCain did little to support any regulatory action that might have prevented the meltdown. All this would have received far more airplay had McCain not made a dramatic move to deflect attention from it. BTW, it appears Andrew Sullivan agrees with Anonymous Liberal's analyis.

The chattering class pretty much agrees that John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and postpone the Friday night debate is a desperate political ploy because his poll numbers are falling and he is not prepared to debate the economy one to one with Barack Obama.

But I suspect the real reason for John McCain's grandstanding about suspending his campaign and postponing the debate has less to do with his own unreadiness or inability than with his running mate simply not being up to speed yet. It's actually her debate they are trying move off the radar. Let's face it, every time they take Sarah Palin even slightly outside the bubble and let her talk to a real journalist, she proves she's just not ready for prime time.

Even in her one on one with Katie Couric, in which Couric promised to eschew gotcha questions, Palin was not up to muster. Just watch.



Palin is perky, she's cute as a button, and about as dumb as one. She couldn't find one example of her running mate having supported any regulation of the financial markets in his 26 year career. Surely the reformer and well known maverick stood up to banking interests at least once or twice. But Palin wasn't even prepared to defend his record. So, the McCain campaign knows it can't let her go up against Joe Biden who is brilliant and a master debater.

ABC has confirmed that the McCain campaign is now suggesting that his debate with Barack Obama be moved to the October 2 time slot in which Palin and Biden were to go head to head. And the vice presidential debate would then be postponed to an unspecified time. I bet the McCain camp is hoping to get lucky and run the clock down without Palin ever having to meet Joe Biden.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and because of McCain's reckless judgment in picking this particular running mate, his campaign is pretty desperate now. The dominoes keep falling.

John McCain Cancels on Dave Letterman

H/t to Huffington Post. This is funny!



Also, claims that the McCain campaign is actually cancelled have been greatly exaggerated, as RK shows with this post. John McCain may be racing back to Washington (ok with a slight detour to the Katie Couric show, as the video shows) but his ground game in Virginia certainly has not been suspended. As Dave Letterman said, "this smells."

McCain Suspends Campaign and Asks for Postponement of Debate: Obama Refuses

UPDATE: The public is not buying McCain's use of the economic crisis to postpone the debate. According to SurveyUSA, 50 percent want to see the debate go on as scheduled, 36 percent believe the debate should occur but the focus should change from foreign policy to the economy, and only 10 percent want to see it postponed.

John McCain has sent shock waves across the media with his announcement that he is suspending his campaign to focus on finding a legislative solution to the economic crisis. He has also asked for this Friday's debate to be canceled. Republicans across the blogosphere, of course, are marching it lock step with McCain's campaign and citing this as evidence that John McCain puts country before politics. It's a brilliant gamble.

It's also not so brilliant horse hockey as skeptical Democrats are pointing out (here, here, here, and here).

One of the salient points, according to TPM, is that Obama actually approached McCain and made the first gesture.

From Obama spokesperson Bill Burton:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

The truth is that if John McCain were serious and if this were anything more than a political stunt, he would have issued a joint statement with Barack Obama suspending both campaigns. This is one more desperate Hail Mary pass. The man can read a poll. Once again, when he's down in the numbers, McCain will make an erratic decision.

More troubling is why you need to suspend your campaign to take a vote? In an age of blackberries, computers, 24/7 news cycles, and electronic communication why can't he multi-task? Does McCain actually think that once he's in the White House he'll get to deal with one crisis at a time in a leisurely fashion? Actually, the crises come fast and furious and you don't get to pick and choose which one to deal with and when. But more important than all this is the fact that Americans really deserve a full debate on the issues precisely because there is a crisis. Voters - no make that citizens - deserve to see each candidate, to hear what each one has to say, to take the measure of each one to see which is the more presidential in demeanor and temperament. CNN once again nails it:

Campbell Brown Demands McCain Campaign "Free Sarah Palin"

Basically Campbell Brown has turned the tables on the McCain campaign and accused them of being the sexists by not trusting their VP candidate to handle the rough and tumble of media interviews and coverage. Indeed, as Brown cleverly points out, it's Sarah Palin who is getting special treatment. Specifically, she's being shielded like a hot house flower who would wilt under the withering treatment of reporters - you know, the exact same treatment that John McCain, himself; Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and even Hillary Clinton receive as candidates.

Campbell Brown calls upon the McCain campaign to free Sarah Palin and let her show her stuff. I agree!

Latest Obama Ad: Honor

H/t to Huffington Post

Sarah Palin is W Light

I watched Sarah Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson on Friday night. She didn’t’ do badly. She didn’t do well. Her performance was mostly confident and self-assured but she hesitated at crucial moments when questioned about the Bush doctrine or when Gibson pressed her about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it. As he pointed out the various discrepancies in her statements, she either glossed over them or sought to change the topic. All in all a skilled performance that managed to side skirt her deficiencies to all but the most critical eye. Expect no major melt downs from this canny politician. An occasional flub here or there, which even the most polished might trip up on.

But her self-assured performance left me with an eerie feeling of déjà vu. What other self-confident small state governor, in his first run for the presidency, was also too cocky to know what he didn’t know going into office?

Maureen Dowd, of all people, nails it here.

The really scary part of the Palin interview was how much she seemed like W. in 2000, and not just the way she pronounced nu-cue-lar. She had the same flimsy but tenacious adeptness at saying nothing, the same generalities and platitudes, the same restrained resentment at being pressed to be specific, as though specific is the province of silly eggheads, not people who clear brush at the ranch or shoot moose on the tundra.

Just as W. once could not name the General-General running Pakistan, so Palin took a position on Pakistan that McCain had derided as naïve when Obama took it.

I’m not really a big fan of Dowd’s but I think she’s really spot on in this column with this observation:

She tried to finesse her previous church comments about Iraq, asking worshipers to pray “that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.” Earnestly repeating after her tutors, she said she had meant to echo Abraham Lincoln, that in war we must pray that we are on God’s side rather than that he is on ours. But her original comments sounded more W. than Abe — taking your policy and ideology and giving it the hallowed mantle of a mission from God.

So, now you have it. Sarah Palin is even more like George Bush than John McSame is.

John McCain the Unmaverick Unmasked on the View

Ok, I promise you I'll be back with an actual well-written, thoroughly researched and sourced diary over the weekend. For your information, I've been putting my good where it will do the most - volunteering with the Obama campaign. My offer still stands - come to the Obama Headquarters at 11184 Lee Highway, Fairfax City, VA 22030 (at Jermantown Road). (703) 383-0259. on Sundays from 3 to 6 p.m. and I'll be there at the front desk. You can say hello, yell at me, or whatever just as long as you also volunteer some time phone banking, entering data (it's easy - I've done it) or canvassing. For canvassing you actually have to get there earlier. Here's the schedule.

It's 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 12 noon on Sundays.

In addition, I've been helping a few nights a week with setting up the schedule for those volunteering to do data entry. And I have a day job. So if I've been neglecting my blog it's all in a good cause. I've determined that the practical, though sometimes less flashy skills, are probably the most valuable. So, I've been throwing up lots of videos and links to other sites rather than doing original work. My apologies and I promise I'll try to juggle it all. But I'll probably be back to a full writing schedule some time after the elections. I'm long on thoughts but short on time.

Anyway, here's a great video of the ladies of The View, especially Barbara Walters, and their somewhat skeptical reception to John McCain's claim that Sarah Palin will be a reformer and a maverick. H/t to RK for this.




And now the debunking:

On Friday, when McCain introduced her as his running mate, she said she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending," the legislative technique used to slip projects into appropriations bills without rigorous congressional review

But under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget, according to the website of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Palin has recently been publicly critical of requests made in past years by Stevens and others for $223 million in federal funds for a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Gravina Island, calling it "the Bridge to Nowhere," a derogatory label critics attached to the project.

As a candidate for governor in 2006, she backed funding for the bridge.

After her election, however, she killed the project, saying she would use the federal funds for other purposes.

As mayor of the small city of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin appears to have made use of the system she now decries, hiring a Washington lobbyist, Steven Silver, to represent the town. Years ago, Silver worked as an aide to Stevens.

By now every major newspaper has had a columnist or editorial debunking Palin's claim to be a maverick and reformer. All she really is is an empty suit, although one that could win a bathing suit contest in a beauty pageant. But she's not ready for prime time and you have to question the cynicism and poor judgment of John McCain for plucking her from Alaska and setting her on a national stage.

I'll have more of a round up on McCain and his own faux claims to be a maverick this weekend.

Mavericks - Or More of the Same from McSame?

John McCain's Unpresidential Demeanor

John McCain has long been dogged by his reputation for having an explosive temper. In fact, I wrote about this back in July. Now Aznew, on RK, also has an post questionning McCain's fitness to be president given his problem holding his tongue.

According to Aznew's diary, with a link to a report in a McClatcy news story, McCain even clashed with Dolores Alfond, the chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen and Women, at a Senate hearing in 1992. Here's a brief description from McClatchy, and reported by Aznew, of what happened.

Back in Washington, families of POW_MIAs said they have seen McCain's wrath repeatedly. Some families charged that McCain hadn't been aggressive enough about pursuing their lost relatives and has been reluctant to release relevant documents. McCain himself was a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years during the Vietnam War.
In 1992, McCain sparred with Dolores Alfond, the chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen and Women, at a Senate hearing. McCain's prosecutor-like questioning of Alfond - available on YouTube - left her in tears.

Four years later, at her group's Washington conference, about 25 members went to a Senate office building, hoping to meet with McCain. As they stood in the hall, McCain and an aide walked by.

Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.

As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.

"McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.

And here's the actual video of the exchange.



At very best, he's rude and dismissive of people who were working desperately to find their loved ones who were POWs and MIAs in Vietnam. Ms. Alfond looked heartbroken.

Given that McCain would rather run on character and personality than issues, something stated by his campaign manager, Rick Davis, let's indeed look at McCain's personality. He often appears to be a bully to those with less power than him.