Day: June 9, 2008

RNC Launches Lame Anti-Obama Site

Trish

Let the games begin, I suppose. The Republican National Committee has launched MeetBarackObama.com, a site with such features as:

  • The Rezko Judgement, which takes you to a YouTube video put together by no more objective a source than, yes, the RNC
  • Barack Obama’s Resume, which features another video produced by the RNC and deriding Obama’s experience.
  • A poll you where you choose which of the following is Obama’s greatest weakness: a) lack of political experience, b) he’s out of touch with the American family, or c) liberal policy positions. Now there’s a fairly worded poll if I ever saw one!
  • Can We Ask, a page to upload your own YouTube video of you asking a question of Obama. The first question is posed by Grover Norquist, or just “Grover” as it lists him in the credits. All of the remaining questions have been posed by men in Washington, D.C. or Arlington, Va. except possibly for the ones asked by someone named “Anonymous,” who has posted about half of them so far, and whom I suspect to be Karl Rove.
  • A time clock that counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds since Barack Obama last visited Iraq. Plus, there’s a downloadable widget so you can add the clock to your own right-wing web site.
  • “Newsfeed” which does not take you to actual news stories, but just to pages assembled by the RNC on topics like “Why Obama Must Go To Iraq,” “Sen. Hillary Clinton on Obama`s Rezko Connections,” “Obama Must Answer Questions so the American People Can Decide,” “DNC Committeeman and Top Clinton Adviser Harold Ickes on Barack Obama`s Electability” and more.
  • Many, many opportunities to donate to the Republican party and to join their email lists.

Visit if you must but it’s a bit of a snoozer. If this is the best they can do, our team should have a pretty easy time of it this fall.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Political elections are a good deal like marriages — there’s no accounting for anyone’s taste.

— Will Rogers (1879-1935) ) Cherokee-American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer and actor

The Electoral College Map Five Months Out

Jon Ponder


ABC News:

Dan Balz of the Washington Post reports the Obama campaign believes it will need to hold every state won by John Kerry in ’04 and then pick off a few states that have voted Republican in the past two elections in order to capture the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Balz writes, “The Kerry map gives Obama 252 electoral votes. To pick up the next 18 electoral votes, Obama will target Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. His list also includes Ohio, where he lost the primary to [Hillary] Clinton but which, in the 2006 midterms, shifted dramatically toward the Democrats.”

Not so fast — The McCain campaign believes the Arizona senator’s potential appeal to independents and some Democrats will shine the way to 270. If everything holds, Republicans and Democrats will set their sights clearly on the other’s terrain, writes Balz. “McCain and Obama offer a rare combination of nominees able to poach on the other party’s turf. Both have proven appeal to independents. McCain will target disgruntled Clinton supporters; Obama will target disaffected Republicans. Women, Latinos and, especially, white working-class voters will find themselves courted intensely by the two campaigns.

The advantage on the latter point goes to Obama, despite the fact that a new CBS poll found that 22 percent of Clinton supporters say they will vote for McCain instead of Obama. But as memories fade of the often vicious attacks on Clinton by Obama supporters — and the reality of a third Bush term under McCain sinks in — Clinton supporters will “come home” to the Democratic Party.

Poll: The Mood in Battleground State Ohio Does Not Favor GOP in November

Jon Ponder

The presidential race now is all about winning 270 votes in the Electoral College this November, and, as in 2000 and 2004, the battleground for that contest will likely come down to either Ohio or Florida. A recent poll of Ohio voters reveals general unhappiness with the status quo, which could help the campaign of Barack Obama:
McCain’s straight talk in Michigan — that the jobs lost there are not coming back — was not well received in Ohio.

Most political analysts agree that the candidate who wants to win the state’s critical 20 electoral votes must convince voters he has the best answers to reverse an alarming trend that has seen the Ohio lose nearly 200,000 jobs since President Bush took office in 2001.

McCain and Obama face separate challenges in convincing voters they can fix the economy. Neither can afford to write off the state. No Republican has been elected president without carrying Ohio and only two Democrats in the 20th century lost Ohio and won the White House — Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.

McCain’s reputation as a free trader may raise eyebrows among voters who blame trade for job losses.

“One thing John McCain is going to have to do is persuade the people of Ohio that he can be a free trader and… that is going to be a benefit for working class folks in Ohio,” said Christopher Duncan, chairman of the political science department at the University of Dayton.

It’s also not clear that McCain’s message to autoworkers in Michigan, where he lost the GOP primary to Mitt Romney, will play any better in Ohio. McCain’s straight talk in Michigan — that the jobs lost there are not coming back — was not well received, said Jennifer Duffy, a political analyst with the Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C.

Obama, who lost the Ohio primary to Hillary Clinton by more than 200,000 votes, stumbled in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states relating to the working and middle-class voters hurt most by the bad economy.

Here are the numbers:

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