Month: April 2008
Campaign Report from North Carolina
A friend in Wilmington sent this report on what’s happening in the Tarheel state as we slouch toward the primary:
O.K. newspapers in Raleigh and Wilmington have picked up on theme of Obama not being around much. Hillary and Bill energized and everywhere. Hillary’s TV ads on economy are sharper than his which are somewhat unfocused. But as the Raleigh paper said in an editorial, the truth is he’s concentrating on Indiana because it’s a closer race (mind you they are condemning him for this, saying North Carolina is a big state and shouldn’t be ignored, blah, blah).
So Obama sneaks into the state Monday night for a Chapel Hill speech before heading back to Indiana on Tuesday. Bill Clinton’s in town here again for a big military thing on the battleship in town. Essentially, Bill and Hillary are running around the mid-sized blue-collar cities; Barack shows up at various universities. Both shore up their base; she is undoubtedly cutting into his lead.
But Barack is probably doing the right thing by showing up at gas stations in Indiana. Thirty-eight percent of the registered democratic voters in Carolina are black; he ain’t going to lose that vote and he won’t lose this state even if he is the title of a Ralph Ellison book, so he may as well concentrate on Indiana. If he wins both primaries our pant-suited friend should have plenty of time on her hands to go back to her true love: duck hunting in Scranton.
Fortunately, the N.C. Republican party is making a mistake with the Wright adds. It appeals to Republicans, but gives Obama the edge in the victim outrage department that is essential to the Democrats very being.
Plus, his biggest advantage can be summed up in two words: Open Primary
Thanks to M.D. for the update.
UPDATE: Note that our friend from N.C. appears to be a little confused over the nature of the North Carolina primary, as was one of our commenters. North Carolina’s primary is closed, which means that only voters who have declared a party affiliation can vote. Independents (or fence-sitters, as Trish calls us) cannot vote in North Carolina’s primary. Oh, and they might have done away with the poll tax, but I’m not sure about that. — Buck
Mainstream Media: Yes, Our Heads are In Fact Straight Up Our Asses
The biggest stories on ABC…
…and CNN
I guess it was a slow news day, and that’s why the MSM is focused on Barack Obama and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. There just wasn’t any good competition. Let’s see…
Actual news stories today, from Reuters:
Baghdad Green Zone blasted under cover of storm
Militants bombarded Baghdad’s Green Zone with rockets on Sunday, taking advantage of the cover of a blinding dust storm to launch one of the heaviest strikes in weeks on the fortified compound…
Reuters correspondents heard the missiles whistling overhead and exploding inside the heavily fortified government and diplomatic compound on the west side of the Tigris River in Baghdad…
Karzai escapes assassination bid
Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt on Sunday from an assassination attempt by Taliban fighters who fired guns and rockets at an official celebration near the presidential palace in Kabul.
Fiancee says police acquittal like another death
The fiancee of an unarmed man who was killed in a hail of 50 police bullets said on Saturday the acquittal of three officers charged in his death was like “they killed Sean all over again.”
“That’s what it felt like to us,” said Nicole Paultre Bell in her first public comments about Friday’s verdict…
California wildfire forces 1,000 to evacuate
A wildfire that began along a popular hiking trail forced 1,000 people to evacuate their homes in the hills northeast of Los Angeles on Sunday, officials said.
Middle class taps nest eggs to keep homes
Trapped by rising mortgage payments and falling house values, a growing number of squeezed middle-class homeowners are tapping into their treasured retirement nest eggs to ward off foreclosure…
Apart from being a fresh sign that the housing crisis has spread up the U.S. income ladder, tapping tax-deferred savings accounts like 401(k) plans could have profound effects on taxpayer welfare, social security and employment patterns, economists and financial advisers said.
Yeah, looking at the lightweight competition, I can understand why CNN and ABC had to just churn up some crap with “Obama” in either the headline or the lede. I mean, what else was there to really engage the public? Since the public, is, you know, anything but bitter at being played and manipulated and underestimated by the Bush administration for eight years.
Lupica on Clinton: She Can’t Win and She Won’t Quit
The woman with the planNew York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica’s sportswriter background is showing but he makes more sense than most of the strictly political pundits.
Through it all, Clinton continues to run on the idea that she is ready “day one” to be President, when she wasn’t ready on day one for a rookie like Obama.
…She is supposed to be the one with the great sweeping plan for America, and she didn’t have one for Obama. Now she is where she is and so is her campaign.
So the Democrats don’t run against John McCain or against the ruling party that has given us this President, the biggest lightweight and most unpopular of anybody’s lifetime. The Democrats don’t run against record disapproval ratings for a Republican President and record foreclosures and record oil and gas prices…They continue to run against each other. The campaign is about the campaign.
The Democrats continue to run against each other. The campaign is about the campaign.…This system was tailor-made for her by Terry McAuliffe when he was running the Democratic National Committee, before he became Clinton’s boy cheerleader. She had the name, the money, she was favored everywhere; the whole thing was supposed to be like a first-round knockout.
But the candidate who was supposed to have all the answers didn’t have an answer for Obama.
Now she talks about “who would be the best candidate against McCain,” as if only the superdelegates should get to decide, as if she wants this to be selection by committee. As if this is the NCAA basketball tournament.
So they slouch toward Indiana and North Carolina. She can’t win, and won’t quit. Maybe in two weeks. Clearly she and her finger-wagging husband, who makes Richard Nixon look like a model of grace as an ex-President, still can’t believe it ever came to this.
You are allowed to be as cynical as you want about Obama, and ask the same question Clinton asks about why he can’t put her away, even though a much better question is why she didn’t put him away at the start of this.
Will the Democratic Candidate Go Broke Before the General Election?
The Democratic primary, or as many refer to it, our long national nightmare, will be remembered for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest — literally — is the amount of money spent.
John McCain continues to be the main beneficiary of this wasting of Democratic bucks
Obama and Clinton have spent a combined $110 million on TV ads to this point; we’ve had a race that’s literally gone on since last summer for ad spending,” said Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group…
“We’re beyond what has been record spending in previous presidential nomination campaigns. John Kerry spent close to $20 million to get the nomination four years ago. Barack Obama’s already approaching $70 million.”
$50 million more than four years ago? In the primary? But wait, it’s not over yet.
Meanwhile, John McCain continues to be the main beneficiary of this wasting of Democratic bucks. The big question is, will Clinton or Obama be able to keep going back to their respective wells of financing? At some point — and $4 per gallon gas might be that point — people just run out of extra money.
Tell Sen. Liddy Dole to Stop Despicable N.C. GOP Ad Featuring Rev. Jeremiah Wright
The North Carolina Republican Party appears to have jumped its track. They have ignored demands from John McCain and the Republican National Committee that they stop running the now-famous Swiftboat-style ad linking Barack Obama and two Democratic candidates for governor, Bev Perdue and Richard Moore, to controversial statements of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor.
At some point soon, Sen. Dole’s silence about the ad will morph into an endorsement.
Here is a transcript of the ad copy:
“Narrator: For twenty years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor.
Jeremiah Wright: And then wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no. Not God Bless America, God (censored) America.
Narrator: Now Bev Perdue and Richard Moore endorse Barack Obama. They should know better. He’s just too extreme for North Carolina
Chairman Linda Daves: The North Carolina Republican Party sponsored this ad opposing Bev Perdue and Richard Moore for North Carolina Governor.”
Besides falsely insinuating that Obama endorsed Wright’s statements and making a specious connection between the Wright controversy and Perdue and Moore, close observers of Tar Heel politics suggest the imagery in the ad may also present a subtle racist message — an advertising tactic routinely employed by former Sen. Jesse Helms.
The most senior Republican in the state is Sen. Liddy Dole, who occupies the seat once held by Helms, and who has been silent on the ad. At some point soon, her silence will morph into an endorsement.
Go HERE to sign the petition demanding the Sen. Dole tell the NC GOP to stop running the ad.
Update: Two of the biggest stations in the state — WSOC in Charlotte and WRAL in Raleigh — have refused to run the ad, according to the Charlotte Observer:
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate to be on our air,” said Joe Pomilla, general manager for WSOC-TV. “I think it’s offensive, and I’m not real comfortable with the implications around race.”
…Pomilla said the issue isn’t about limiting debate.
“There are other values that come into play. Ethics come into play,” he said, “and you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.”
Jim Hefner, WRAL’s vice president and general manager, called the ad “inflammatory” and said his station has turned down ads from conservative and liberal groups, including MoveOn.org.
“We’re not just an ATM machine,” Hefner said. “We’re going to make decisions, and it’s not going to be a popular decision with all folks.”
McCain Spiritual Adviser Recants Earlier Statement That God Damned New Orleans with Katrina
John McCain’s spiritual adviser, John Hagee, has apparently gotten the word from on high and has now recanted his assertions that Katrina was God’s curse on New Orleans because it hosted an annual gay event:
“Ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise.”
— Hagee
“As a believing Christian, I see the hand of God in everything that happens here on earth, both the blessings and the curses. But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise. No matter what the cause of the storm, my heart goes out to all who suffered in this terrible tragedy. There but for the grace of God go any one of us.”
Hagee first declared that God damned New Orleans in September 2006:
“I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.†He later added, “I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.â€
Just last week Hagee reaffirmed this assertion:
HAGEE: The topic of that day was cursing and blessing. Moses taught in the book of Deuteronomy that everything in life is either a blessing or a curse. There are days that things happen that at the time look like a curse. In the passing of time, they may become what appears to be a blessing. An illustration is Joseph, when he was sold into slavery it looked like a curse, it looked like the worse day of his life. When his brothers came into Egypt looking for food, what looked like a bad day 13 years before turned out to be a blessed day. What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God, in time if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it’s called a curse.
The timing of Hagee’s statement on April 22 was embarrassing for McCain because it pulled focus from his campaign stop in New Orleans two days later.
Hagee is best known for espousing the belief that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon referred to in the Book of Revelation.
Hey John McCain, God Called. He Wants His Reputation Back
Looks like John McCain has only been born once. Rut-roh.
John McCain’s pastor ends his sermons with an altar call, beckoning any stirred souls to the front of his 3,500-seat “worship center” to publicly dedicate their lives to Jesus Christ. In McCain’s 15 years of attending Dan Yeary’s North Phoenix Baptist Church, the pastor says, the Arizona senator has never made that walk.
“All I can tell you is that John and I have had some interesting conversations” about faith, said Yeary, a 69-year- old Texan. “And we’ll have more.”
Anti-American: Limbaugh Calls for Rioting at Democratic Convention
Has Rush Limbaugh had a drug relapse? That’s the only plausible explanation — other than blind contempt for the rule of law — for his call on Wednesday for rioting at the Democratic Convention in Denver this summer:
“Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect Democrats.”
— Rush Limbaugh
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is sparking controversy again after he made comments that appear to call for riots in Denver during the Democratic National Convention this summer.
He said the riots would ensure a Democrat is not elected as president, and his listeners have a responsibility to make sure it happens.
“Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect Democrats,” Limbaugh said during Wednesday’s radio broadcast. He then went on to say that’s the best thing that could happen to the country…
Several callers called in to the radio show to denounce Limbaugh’s comments, when he later stated, “I am not inspiring or inciting riots, I am dreaming of riots in Denver.”
Limbaugh said with massive riots in Denver, which he called part of “Operation Chaos,” the people on the far left would look bad.
“There won’t be riots at our convention,” Limbaugh said of the Republican National Convention. “We don’t riot. We don’t burn our cars. We don’t burn down our houses. We don’t kill our children. We don’t do half the things the American left does.”
Rightwingers certainly rioted in Miami during the 2000 recount, of course. And if by “killing children” Limbaugh was referring to abortions, there is no doubt that Republican women have had abortions when they felt they needed them. And the idea that all arsonists who burn down their own homes are Democrats is clearly just the opoids talking.
Last Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared that “the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists.†He and Limbaugh ignore the fact that it is rightwing terrorists like American terrorists Timothy McVeigh, Eric Robert Rudolph, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the Klu Klux Klan, abortion clinic bombers and the rest, who have wreaked the most havoc on the country.
Limbaugh’s comments are potentially dangerous because no one takes him — except for the very dimwitted “Dittoheads” who might well heed his call and show up in Denver at the end of August ready to cause violence.
