Year: 2008

Florida GOP Fundraiser Sends Email Joke about Killing Barack and Michelle Obama

Jon Ponder

This is bad on so many levels — and it certainly should neutralize John McCain’s fake outrage of being compared to George Wallace by Civil Rights hero, Rep. John Lewis:

Al Austin, a longtime, high-level Republican fundraiser from Tampa, today sent to his list of political contacts an e-mail containing a joke that refers to the assassination of Barack Obama…

The joke concerns a group of schoolchildren discussing the definition of “tragedy” as opposed to “great loss” or “accident.” The punch line comes when one child says that if an airplane carrying Obama and his wife, Michelle, “was struck by a ‘friendly fire’ missile and blown to smithereens,” the event might be a tragedy “because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss, and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either.”

Austin acknowledged sending the e-mail to his list of political contacts but said he forwarded it without fully reading it and didn’t know what it said. That list included at least two reporters.

Austin, a prominent real estate developer long known as one of the state’s leading Republican campaign fundraisers, has served in recent years as finance chairman for both the national and state Republican parties.

On top of everything else, the joke is not funny. More evidence, if any were needed, that conservatives are born without the sense of humor gene.

Poll: The Early Line

Buck Banks

Obama/Biden 49%
McCain/Palin 41%
Undec 7%

– Obama is carrying nearly twice as many as GOPers as McCain is Dems. In the latest Diageo/Hotline tracking poll, 11% of GOPers support Obama while McCain takes just 6% of Dems.

– Obama is now leading McCain 52-34% on who LVs prefer to handle the economy; among Indies, he’s up even more, 49-28%.

– 62% of LVs believe the economy is the most important issue facing the U.S.

Today’s Diageo/Hotline tracking poll, conducted 10/12-14 by FD, surveyed 823 LVs and has a margin of error of +/- 3.4%. Party ID Breakdown for the sample is 41%D, 37%R, 18%I.

Palin’s Ambition-Fueled Rift With McCain Raises New Questions about Rove’s Role

Jon Ponder

A report in the Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London suggests that John McCain and Sarah Palin are on the outs:
If McCain wins, Vice Pres. Palin will owe her position just a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency to Rove. If McCain loses, Rove will once again be the “brain” masterminding the ascendancy of the GOP’s next rising star.

With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.

McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting “pitbull in lipstick,” against Senator Barack Obama. Cries of “terrorist” and “kill him” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.

Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honourable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character — and likely to lose him the election.

Not only is McCain unhappy with the tenor of Palin’s attacks on Obama, the Times says he has prevented her from going after Obama on his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Palin is disgruntled with the leadership of the campaign, the paper says. She objected to the decision to withdraw from Michigan, and her advice to McCain to “take the gloves off” in the second debate was ignored.

A “leading Republican consultant” tells the Times that the source of friction between McCain and Palin is Palin’s ambitions:

“Sarah Palin is no fool. She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”

Palin would prefer to be vice president, no doubt, but even if her ticket loses, she is in position to come up a winner. She will leapfrog the GOP old-boy hierarchy to become both the party’s leader during Obama’s first term and the odds-on favorite to be the GOP nominee in 2012.

The fact that a pol with such eerie similarities to George Bush — a meagerly gifted energy-state governor with a stunted intellect and a Christian nationalist ideology — has been maneuvered into position to become the nation’s next top Republican raises questions anew about Karl Rove’s role in Palin’s selection.

Can it be an accident that at the moment Bush is slouching back to Texas, Rove, the symbiot, finds a new host — an empty-headed pol who is every bit as craven, incurious and, most importantly, malleable as Bush? It makes sense on the surface: Making kings (or queens) is what kingmakers do.

Among those who believe there is truth behind the rumors in August that Role played puppet master in Palin’s selection is Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi:

[…]

Poll: Wrong Track, 89% – Right Track, 7%

Jon Ponder

This is astoundingly low:

In the face of economic upheaval in the United States, a record 89 percent of Americans now say the country has pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track while just 7 percent of Americans say the country is going in the right direction, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

While strong majorities of all demographic groups agree that the country is headed in the wrong direction, there are some who are less inclined to be of the same opinion. Republicans and those supporting Senator John McCain are more likely to say things in the country are going well than are Democrats and those supporting Senator Barack Obama.

Americans in lower income brackets and those who consider themselves part of the working class are more negative about the direction of the country.

Given the stunning lack of confidence in the status quo, it is a miracle that John McCain, the candidate seeking to perpetuate Bush administration policies, is still polling in the high 40s.

Obama Advertising Inside Video Game

Buck Banks

obama-on-xbox-360.jpgFrom the Way Cool Department, GigaOm is reporting that Barack Obama’s campaign has taken out a billboard ad inside the online Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise:

“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told [GigOm] via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games. “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

Poll: The Early Line 10/14

Buck Banks

Obama/Biden 48%
McCain/Palin 42%
Undec 7%

– Obama maintained his 48-42% lead from yesterday’s release. The WH contest also remains largely status quo among men, while women (including white women) appear to be breaking more towards Obama.

– Among all men, Obama leads by 1% — exactly his margin one week ago, in the survey completed 10/6. Among women, however, Obama’s lead has grown from 3% to 12% over the same period.

– The same trends are evident among whites. McCain today leads white men by 11% — exactly his margin one week ago. Among white women, however, the GOP nominee’s advantage has fallen from 12% to 6%.

Today’s Diageo/Hotline tracking poll, conducted 10/11-13 by FD, surveyed 829 LVs and has a margin of error of +/- 3.4%. Party ID Breakdown for the sample is 41%D, 37%R, 18%I.

Obama Pulling Ahead in Ohio; Palin Dragging McCain Down

Trish

A weekly survey of Ohio voters by Rasmussen Reports shows Obama taking his first small lead in that state.

42% of Ohioans would not be at all comfortable with Palin as vice president

The latest Fox News/Rasmussen Reports telephone poll in the state finds Obama leading 49% to 47%.

This is the first poll where Obama has been ahead since tracking of the race began in February. McCain has led by a single percentage points for the past three weeks…

The crashing of the Bush unregulated, deficit-based economy is one factor in Obama’s positioning, along with the candidates’ debate performances and vice presidential selections. Ohioans just aren’t that into Sarah Palin.

Just 29% of voters say they would not be at all comfortable with Biden as VP, compared to 42% who say the same about Palin. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Ohio voters say they would be at least somewhat comfortable with Joe Biden as Vice President, while only 54% say that about Sarah Palin.

Rollins: McCain is Repeating Hillary’s Mistakes

Trish

Republican consultant Ed Rollins notices similarities in Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful run against Barack Obama, and John McCain’s lurching strategies.

Rollins: “No one seems to be in charge of the McCain campaign, least of all the candidate.”

Clinton’s campaign had several different groups setting and implementing strategy. They include the first campaign team led by pollster Mark Penn, her loyalists from the White House days led by eventual campaign manager Maggie Williams and campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, and a rump group led by her husband. Prior to this year and his efforts on his wife’s behalf, President Clinton was viewed as one of the best political strategists around.

All that brain power couldn’t come together and agree on a consistent strategy to beat a young inexperienced outsider. There will be second guessing and finger pointing for years to come.

Rollins then lists the dizzying succession of McCain advisors.

In the end, it’s not relevant who holds what title in the McCain operation, because it is not being run by campaign professionals, but by the Washington lobbying class.

And no one seems to be in charge, least of all the candidate. The end result is a campaign suffering from “schizophrenia.”

John McCain is saying one thing on the stump, his running mate another. But the worst sin is that his advertising campaign is incoherent and putting out multiple and inconsistent messages.

It’s probably too late for McCain at this point, Rollins says, but he offers a plan anyway.

All I can advise is “Engage us, John!” You are an honorable man who has dedicated your life to serving this country. Quit the name calling and make the last weeks about leadership and solutions.

Accept Obama’s challenge issued last week: “The American people aren’t looking for someone who can divide this country. They’re looking for somebody who will lead this country.”

But if Obama is right about pretty much everything, and has run a sure and steady campaign, you have to ask, “Why do we need McCain to change?” We know enough now to make our decision. It’s Obama, Obama, Obama.