Palin a Threat, Not a Distraction
1. Sarah Palin is a mortal threat to the possibility of Obama winning, not a distraction. The reason is simple: if she can add a couple of points to McCain from defecting white women and the newly-energized right wing religious base without losing more independent votes, McCain pulls ahead in some key states.
The dangerous tendency of the Obama campaign and its Democratic surrogates is to not fight back, but treat Palin as a "distraction" from McCain, the economy, the issues they feel familiar with, etc.
If they assume that the Palin bubble will return to earth naturally, or that the mainstream media and Saturday Night Live will do the job for them, the Obama campaign is mistaken.
There needs to be a controlled message that treats Palin as an extension of McCain, not a bobble-head to be laughed at.
The message has to cut off independent and women's support for McCain-Palin and, if possible, divide some of the right-wingers. Not an easy task.
Perhaps the point is that we've already suffered eight years under a president Bush and vice-president Cheney who were, in Palin's words, so "wired in a way to be committed to the mission" that they could neither blink nor think. She and McCain, like Bush and Iraq, are faith-based missions that will crash on us.
An excellent editorial in Sunday's NY Times makes the connection from McCain to Palin in terms that will reach independent and moderate voters. It should be quoted and widely circulated. The choice of an unqualified candidate to be a heartbeat from the presidency of a 72 year old man with four melanomas "was shockingly irresponsible," the Times said.
I think we can see in McCain-Palin a kind of faith-based extremism that reminds us of Bush and, even more, the persona of Gen. Custer.
We have seen where righteous faith-based politics goes in the Supreme Court decisions, corruption scandals, the official lies, and the unnecessary wars of the past eight years, all carried out in the name of what both McCain and Palin now call "God's plan."
2. The McCain-Palin foreign policy is a mortal threat to America from the same neoconservatives who brought us Iraq wrapped in lies. Her neocon speechwriters had the audacity to repeat the 2002 claim that Iraq was behind 9/11. She told her son's Iraq-bound troops that "you'll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans." [NYT, 9/14] This was the original lie of Bush's war.
We cannot give the Republicans an advantage with their false clams of "victory in sight." We have to emphasize the three-trillion dollar cost of the war, and we have to connect the war to the price of oil. Democratic consultants should stop compartmentalizing the economy like it was 1992 all over again.
This is apparently not the advice of the biggest Democratic heavyweights like Bill Clinton and James Carville who tend to revert to "it's the economy, stupid." But it's not 1992. It's the 9/11 era, the Iraq War era, the War on Terrorism era -- and also the middle of the worse economic and energy crisis in memory. The issues are tied together. Not enough people will vote on "lunch bucket" issues if they think McCain-Palin will protect them from terrorists, but they might vote against McCain-Palin if they think they are being lied to again.
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Tom, I thought you'd like my post on Alernet's "why we vote repubilcan".
SUBJECT: I Saw The Part About Children Lied To Their Death for Oil Addiction Media, Right?
This paradigm infects, if not completes, America and worse. Roveadope stains our hopes as thoroughly as our international standing. He should be in custody.
Instead he etch-a-skeches another electoral college, this time on the lamb of congressional contempt while the participatory democracy burns like wells ablaze on new years eve.
The shorter telecom-immunity candidate's silence on this can be understood. The taller's is a whole other bag of piss.
The unequivically unbridled electoral college media economy vitiated the hope of the people's impeachment at every turn. Where is either party's credability after kissing the ring of the lame shucks administration? Thats why people vote Rebublkin. Racism needs financing too.
And that is even if they do. The nation's forever hero, The Excellant Congresswoman from Ohio, Mrs. Ella Bullings-Cummings(maybe), took her precious life to the end fighting for the chain of custody of the voting machines. Maybe something like a deciding state having had their machines to the workers house the night prior? Come on. This is yet another reason for Rebublcan "victories". May her story finally teach us.
Then there is the supreme count. We used to have a court of law. Funny.
2012 warchests will again top anything conceived to point more knavery then this college straight down our children's throats.
With Democrats like Hayden and Lieberman who needs enemies? I supported you Thom Hayden. But you have become just another bitter, jealous, white-male baby boomer whose time to lead has past. I disagree with regard to Palin. She has excited the women in the democratic base - as reflected n the 66 million raised last moth. Unlike you the Obama campaign never forgot its community organizing roots and has signed up more democrats to vote than any other campaign in history. These new voters are not among poll samples.
Obama said this would always be a tight race.
Advice to Hayden- rather than criticize Obama:
Why don't you help shame the MSM into covering the ISSUES?
Why don't you help organize people of your generation and their children in swing states?
Why aren't you part of the solution?
I voted you in every race you you were on my ballot in California - YOU OWE ME.
It's over. It's really over. Issues? Voting Record? Since when did ANY of those matter to American people? They've got a 'tough guy' and a 'mom'.
It's over.
Sadly, America has grown to like people like Bush who have no real talent. Both McCain and Palin are lightweights, with no real plans for cleaning up Bush's horrible mess. But the overweight white Walmart crowd, and the lethal combination of the NASCAR crowd and the millions of Religious freaks who believe their "Girl Sarah" is on a Mision from God, make an impossible task tor Obama and Biden to overcome. America of course is the real loser here, but as long as their Girl gets into the white house that's all that matters. So its sadly over for any hope of getting an intelligent thoughtful person with good plans for cleaning up Bush's mess into the oval office. Our only chance is a complete meltdown for these two misfits during the debates.
The Republicans like to stress the idea that the US has not been attacked since 9/11, praise be to them. However, in terms of the "war on terror", we are an occupied nation. Our economy, our politics, virtually everything is controlled by fear and we live in a reactionary society. To combat the perceived enemy and calm the population, the Bush administration started a fit-for-TV war and told us to "go shopping". Now we are bogged down in the wrong place and today is being called "Black Monday" on Wall Street. The ratio of US troops killed compared to actual terrorists is about 4000 to 3 and our reputation around the world is in the sewer since we adopted our new 14th-century justice system. Even Russia is back, emboldened by our decline and China, India and other emerging nations are rushing in to fill the void. True, we have not been attacked, but it's not because we are any safer.
You left out the statistic (I heard guesstimated at 100 to 1) of number of terrorists we create for every terrorist we kill. "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." ~ Peter Ustinov.
Terrorists R US.
I'm sick of the word terrorist, it's just an easy way to kill or imprison people without a fair hearing or discredit them from being able to disagree with you. Teachers are terrorists now too, and librarians, and Greenpeace, and animal rights activists. It's how you do away with freedom of speech, and reason, and common sense. It's how you do away with every Bill of Rights guarantee that our democracy depended on. It's how you shoot yourself in the foot, in the head, in the heart. We are devalued and discredited and bleeding out our soul.
Palin is MORE LIES, MORE OF THE SAME... The MSM is still running her saying that She did not take the Bridge to Nowhere......ABSOLUTELY NONE of them is prefacing that with the fact that she TOOK THE MONEY AND SPENT IT ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE...
These are there Sound Bytes.. McCain is 'Forgiven and Saved' (humble like uriah heep) and Sarah personifies Reform....
They are banking that this and the fact that Barack is black will do it for them....Rove is behind all of this, he is just trying to position McCain to spin the Bipartisan bullshit going forward....
Maybe this financial meltdown will make a difference, I am betting they will still go for McCain because of the way the MSM replays McCain and Palin Points... This is free and deceptive advertising for them, but Jane and Joe Blow Beer guy does not have the time - with the jobs, kids, and worrying about their jobs and financial security... The idea that McCain would 'reform' Wall Street is the biggest joke since George Bush put Colin Powell in the hot seat at the UN...
tom you are very right
she's not a mere distraction. according to the british Telegraph (whose reporters are actually serious about vetting her, as opposed to American MSM) she is a carefully hand-picked manchurian candidate meant to ensure the legacy of the most extremists of the neocons. Here's the article (be advised, it's a chilling read)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/sarahpalin/2827217/Neoconservatives-plan-Project-Sarah-Palin-to-shape-future-American-foreign-policy.html
Tom! There is a MANIFESTO circulating online, signed by OVER 130,000 WOMEN who tell us WHY they would NEVER vote for Sarah Palin. IF that is the case, then she HAS been a HUGE DISTRACTION! HOWEVER, to attack or belittle her based on membership in the NRA, motherhood, or church affiliation would be a TREMENDOUS mistake. The cornerstone of the 'new Republican party'-a party of unending WAR is that we MUST have a cadre of MOTHERS who will produce CHILDREN who will go to WAR FOR THEIR COUNTRY FIRST AND IN THE NAME OF GOD! "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche"-remember that one? The fact that the Governor of Alaska (I TRY not to mention that name more than ONCE per post) 'cheerfully' subscribes to the 'dirty politics' of the last eight years and the Republican 'plan' set out by Richard Nixon et.al. these many years ago-makes 'It's the Economy, stupid' even MORE of a mantra for the Dems. What is causing this 'teetering', this 'recession', this 'new Depression'? THE WAR. We CAN and MUST talk about the WAR, but we can do so in DOMESTIC ECONOMIC TERMS! 1968-We had 'guns and butter'. New advances were made on several 'fronts' domestically. 2008-We have PLENTY of guns, but absolutely NO butter.' And are we 'safer'? Heck NO!
Are we 'stronger'? HECK NO! ARE WE BETTER OFF? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I have a half a dozen Obama t-shirts, one says Obama girl, but none say White Woman for Obama, but I'd buy one if I saw one.
There is only one message we need to heed and that is: Work your butt off for this campaign. Give 'til it hurts! If your state has a chance, stay home and work, if it is a shoe in, or doesn't have a prayer, then get in your car, with your friends and go to the nearest swin state. I welcome one and all here in NC! NC will go blue, let's try for dark blue!
Yomegirl: I really admire your fighting spirit. But I feel all your efforts may fail; if for no other reason that voting isn't mandatory in the US. It is mandatory in 'The land down under'. I've always thought that once an Australian is forced to vote, there's a chance he/she will think. Well I'm here now, so I may as well vote properly. Sure they can mark the ballot paper as for the donkey vote, or vote informally, but compared with America, on a per capita basis, we have a huge voting public. Also, how can people really criticize a President, if they couldn't even be bother getting out of bed and voting themselves?
I think (much as I dislike the woman's lies) it is time to redraft Hillary Clinton. Obama's minders have crucified him by not allowing him to fight Ms Klondyke Klogs on an equal footing. Whereas Hillary would have no qualms about attacking her. I guess it takes a pit-bull to fight a pit-bull.
Cheers, and good luck
Venise
They need to make two ads.
One concerning her signing legislation that demanded that rape victims of her small town buy their own rape kits.
The second would link her to her love of hunting wolves from airplanes. A truly horrific and brutal atrocity that even most hunters find barbaric.
Both of these issues transcend partisanship. I truly believe that these two issues would turn the Palin bubble into an anchor that will sink McCain's campaign.
Agreed. Here is the Defenders of Wildlife commercial that shows the aerial killing of wolves. I've circulated the web site as widely as I could.
http://action.defenders.org/site/R?i=TJvq1L_3aSQV6au4kwRR9g
I saw it. Once. I can't stand to watch it again. And this is what Sarah Palin supports!
Strategy-wise, if I had money to donate, I'd send it to Defenders of Wildlife so they could keep running that ad. I believe it's universally disgusting to humane people, regardless of politics. And regardless of who wins, this should be a topic of outrage.
I could see Sarah Palin leading a sect but not our country. Its so sad Americans have fallen for her. Religion and sex are powerful drugs.
Conservatives and fundamentalists from any religious group-- be they christian, jew, or moslem-- use god in all their dirty dealings to start wars in his name-- TRUTH BE TOLD-- JESUS WAS A PACIFIST--
Do you honestly think Bill Clinton and James Carville's current advice shouldn't be taken with a very large grain of salt? I mean, seriously.
I agree, and here's why.
John McCain can't draw a crowd to save his life. Sarah Palin, however, brings in the bodies. She has excited the base, she is the reason McCain has swelled in the polls.
Obama doesn't need to destroy Palin, he only needs to make voters feel disillusioned about her. The voters need to realize that she isn't what they want her to be. Get her to the point where she can't draw a crowd either.
Because let's be honest. No one really likes John McCain. The surge of support is for her, not him.
If you are a Mother.....you were not required to have any experience at it before you had your first child and I bet you think you are a good mother.
True, but I had a good role model who taught me and showed me, by example, how to think for myself and not be swayed by a flash in the pan.
burndtdan: Your second paragraph is absolutely spot on.
And it's important that we not be derisive to people who may have been attracted to her initially (not that way). Case in point "Does John McCain think women are so stupid that..." Surrogates and bloggers (etc.) I'd dial that one way back.
Time's too short, people. Outside of comedy shows, the issue is not being funny or feeling superior. And it's not about cheap shock value either. (I'd keep the wolf thing in reserve for at least a week and think very carefully about the tone of that ad if you decide to use it.)
The rape kit thing, yes, can go now.
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