Day: October 7, 2008

Plenty of Rules, But Where’s the Debate?

Buck Banks

debate, vi, to discuss opposing reasons; argue. (from Webster’s New World College Dictionary — you know, the one the Associated Press uses)

If you’re expecting a debate tonight from the presidential candidates’ town hall-style meeting, you’ve got another think coming. The Chicago Sun-Times lays out the ground rules:

Tuesday’s match-up at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., will be moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw, with the questions to be culled from a group of 100 to 150 uncommitted likely voters in the audience and another one-third to come via the Internet. The Gallup Organization — as in past debates like this — has the job of making sure the questioners reflect the demographic makeup of the nation.

Brokaw selects the questions to ask from written queries submitted prior to the debate, according to the “contract.”

An audience member will not be allowed to switch questions. Under the deal, the moderator may not ask followups or make comments. The person who asks the question will not be allowed a follow-up either, and his or her microphone will be turned off after the question is read. A camera shot will only be shown of the person asking — not reacting.

While there will be director’s chairs (with backs and foot rests), McCain and Obama will be allowed to stand — but they can’t roam past their “designated area” to be marked on the stage. McCain and Obama are not supposed to ask each other direct questions.

I suppose I’ll watch the thing, but I don’t expect much, certainly not something that I would call a “debate.”

Crowd at Palin Rally Hurled Racial Epithets at African-American on News Crew

Jon Ponder

Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi’s depiction of Sarah Palin at the GOP Convention as “Gidget addressing the Reichstag” is becoming more apt by the minute. Earlier, Trish wrote about Palin’s incitement of verbal violence at a rally in Clearwater, Fla., when a Republican voter in the crowd shouted, “Kill him,” apparently in reference to Barack Obama.

Now the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank says the anger among the GOP rank and file in Clearwater was also directed toward reporters covering the event generally, and an African American sound man in particular:

Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

Given the racist bent of their base, and leaving aside their constant lying about Barack Obama, his associations and his record, John McCain and Sarah Palin are playing with rhetorical fire.

Alaskan Secessionist Leader, Whose Conferences Palin Attended, Declares His Hatred of America

Trish

Thanks to whoever posted this on Jabberwonk — every American needs to see exactly who these nutcase, America-hating, Alaskan fruitcakes are before listening to even one more word from Sarah Palin or John McCain.

Joe Vogler, the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party, whose conventions Palin attended throughout the ’90s and ’00s:

The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred of the United States government…You renounce allegiance and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life, to Alaska. That’s how I do. I am an Alaskan, you see.”

Where is Palin’s denouncement, her condemnation of these statements? She needs to start explaining or better yet, just go back to Alaska and stay there.

Poll: The Early Line 10/07

Buck Banks

Obama-Biden 46%
McCain-Palin 44%
Undecided 9%

— The race has tightened in the last day. After trailing by 5-7 pts. for the last 10 days, McCain is now just 2 pts. behind Obama.

–One potential reason: Obama’s one-time lead on the question of who’d best handle the economy has evaporated. Today, Obama and McCain are tied at 42%. Independent voters favor McCain on the economy by an 8 pt. margin (42-34%).

–Even so, among the 62% of voters who picked the economy as their #1 issue, Obama leads McCain by 9 pts. – 49-40%.

Palin Appeals to Mob Instincts During Her Rallies

Trish
Palin’s next rally?

Sarah Palin continues to voice her life-threatening talking points on the trail in Florida, apparently unconcerned that she could be inciting an attack on Barack Obama.

“I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America, as the greatest source for good in this world,” she told thousands of supporters gathered at Coachman Park in downtown Clearwater. “There’s a pattern here of a left-wing agenda that is packaged and prettied up to look like mainstream policies.”

We read this stuff and roll our eyes, but some in Palin’s crowds have been heard to yell, “Kill him!” when Sarah talks about her fear of Obama. Such cries are met with quiet acceptance by the candidate. To Palin, it’s just another day of whoring for McCain. But for Obama and his family, it could be much more.

Painting Obama as a terrorist to be vanquished is exactly what McCain has in mind, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

To Palin, it’s just another day of whoring for McCain. But for Obama and his family, it could be much more.

The campaign encouraged reporters to focus on the part of her speech where she hit Obama for associating with ’60s radical Will Ayers, a founder of the organization Weather Underground that bombed buildings in the 1970s.

Palin raised the Ayers subject immediately after saying she wished the media would focus on substantive issues that matter to average Americans: Obama “is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country,” said Palin, citing a New York Times article this weekend that concluded Obama and Ayers “do not appear to have been close” though their paths crossed several times.

With recent polls showing Obama opening leads in battleground states including Florida, the McCain campaign is ramping up its attacks to make the election a referendum on Obama.

Palin signaled there is more to come.

“Florida, you know that you’re going to have to hang on to your hats because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough,” Palin said.

What next? Dousing a big cross on the stage with gasoline, tossing on a match, and claiming Obama raped her?