President Obama
A regular old Victrola
ST. PAUL, Minn. — In her first national address, vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin wowed the Republican convention using wit, sarcasm, charm and ridicule in a full-scale assault on a now familiar cast of GOP targets: an elitist adversary, biased media and high taxes. <b>In other news, a broken record.</b>
Without mentioning Democrat Barack Obama’s name and rarely losing a smile, the Alaska governor delivered one riposte after another. <b>Oooo, big words,</b>
“We’ve all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers,” she said. “But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed, when the roar of the crowd fades away, when the stadium lights go out and those styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — what exactly is our opponent’s plan? <b> What’s yours?</b>
“The answer is to make government take more of your money, give you more orders from Washington and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world,” Palin concluded. <b>Yadda yadda</b>
Palin’s poised and flawless performance evoked roars of applause from delegates who earlier this week might have worried that the surprise pick and newcomer to the national stage may not be up to the job.
When the nearly 40-minute address came to a close, however, all doubts were doused and Democrats were on notice that Palin will not flinch from the fight.
Palin’s speech so delighted some Republicans that they suggested it may instantly elevate her to GOP rock-star status and diminish presidential contenders who ran this year who may hope to seek the White House again.
“Who’s most bummed?” asked one veteran Republican consultant. <b>Who?</b> “Obama? Biden? Mitt? Huck? Damn, that was good.”
A trickier question for Republicans, however, is whether putting a new face on a traditional playbook can produce victory in a election year when voters are clamoring for change in both foreign and domestic policy in Washington.
The Democrats are hoping it won’t. Nominee Barack Obama’s campaign issued a response that looked straight past Palin and linked her rhetoric to President Bush. <b> Obama’s trump card</b>
“The speech that Gov. Palin gave was well-delivered, but it was written by George Bush’s speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we’ve heard from George Bush for the last eight years,” said campaign spokesman Bill Burton. <b>Keep playing it, bub.</b>
The carefully crafted response also revealed the tricky road ahead Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, will face in taking on a ticket with the first Republican female vice presidential nominee.
Palin sent a signal that she could be as tenacious a rival in the next two months as Hillary Rodham Clinton was during the extended Democratic primary. <b>Their nads are the same too!</b>
Obama only now is recovering from that showdown, and some former Clinton backers are still threatening to back the McCain-Palin ticket to make history.
In noted contrast to the Obama campaign’s tepid assessment of Palin, Sen. Harry Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley offered a blunt response: “Shrill and sarcastic political attacks may fire up the Republican base, but they don’t change the fact that a McCain-Palin administration would mean four more years of failed Bush-Cheney policies.”
In many ways, Palin made it easier for them. Throughout her address, she never mentioned her opposition to abortion rights and support for gun rights — divisive issues that could alienate many voters. <b>Time to come clean, missy.</b>
Professor Dennis Michaud, 57, a Rhode Island delegate, said that “as a moderate Republican, she is fantastic.” Once the abortion issue is “set aside, I think the average American working-class person can really relate to her.” <b>But you can’t ’set it aside.’</b>
Indeed, Palin struck the same critical themes that Clinton had used in the primary to drive Obama’s support among working-class families down.
She dredged up Obama’s comment that some rural voters are “bitter” and, thus, cling to religion and guns.
Contrasting her background as a mayor with the Illinois senator’s experience as a community organizer, she brought the house down by saying: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” <b>Nevermind his eight years as a state senator.</b>
Palin ad-libbed one of her best lines aimed at that same audience. “You know what they say is the difference between hockey moms and pit bulls? Lipstick.”
Jim Carabell, head of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Mich., a critical swing state, gushed. “She’s one of us. I have four kids. My wife is a hockey mom,” Carabell said.
Ken Kachigian, a former Ronald Reagan communications adviser, was in the convention hall during Palin’s speech and praised her plain-spoken style. “She didn’t try to engage in oratory that was beyond her,” said Kachigian.
He also said she made good use of an old Reagan tactic, employing anecdotes to amplify her point.
Palin did that in one of her most pointed attacks, questioning how small businesses in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Minnesota — all swing states — would survive Obama tax hikes.
While Palin’s debut was widely dubbed a success, there is still more work to do.
A focus group of a dozen unmarried women who are either undecided voters or who are weak supporters of either Obama or McCain, convened in Las Vegas to discuss Palin’s speech as soon as it ended.
Two major themes emerged early on during their discussion: They still don’t feel they know enough about Palin — either personally or from a governing standpoint — and they are worried she doesn’t have the experience to take over the presidency should McCain die in office.
“The nation needs to know what her issues are,” said one woman, who, unprompted, added she needed to know more specifics about Palin’s policies because she worries about McCain’s advanced age.
Another woman quickly agreed: “He could just keel over at any moment,” she said, adding that she wants to know “just exactly what [Palin’s] going to do, more than just hearing about her family.” <b>I lol’d</b>
Another woman chimed in, saying Palin should approach the campaign as someone who is “applying” for the job. “She has to apply for this job like she’s running for president. … She’s going to have to sell herself.”
The focus group was one of two convened by Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund and coordinated by Democratic pollsters Anna Greenberg and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research. According to the nonprofit organization, the political action committee is “dedicated to encouraging unmarried women to bring their voices to our nation’s political conversation and to advocate for policies important to them.” The group of unmarried women, as well as a separate group of married women that met simultaneously, included female voters between 30 and 60 years of age.
<b>We need leadership, not an episode of Jerry Springer. MILFs Gone Presidential? My Kid’s Knocked Up by a High School Dropout and I’m Running for VP? Come on…</b>
Only in Republicanland
Sarah Palin’s gonna be a GILF! For joy!
Imagine if the parties were reversed and the Obamas had a pregnant high-school-age daughter about to pop. Then it wouldn’t be such a happy day, would it?
Obamasweet Symphony
The Obama campaign should adapt this for a campaign video, but instead of walking into people, everyone he walks past joins him.
Time to boycott Wal-Mart if you don’t already
Wal-Mart mobilizes against Democrats: report
(Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) is mobilizing U.S. store managers to lobby against Democrats in November’s presidential election, fearing they will make it easier for workers to unionize, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if store workers unionize, the paper said.
About a dozen employees who attended meetings in seven states said executives stressed employees would have to pay hefty union dues and get nothing in return, and might have to go on strike without compensation, and warned that unionization could force the company to cut jobs as labor costs rise, the Journal reported.
The Wal-Mart human resources managers who have run the meetings didn’t tell those attending how to vote in the November elections, but made it clear that voting for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, would be tantamount to inviting unions in, the Journals said.
Wal-Mart could not be reached immediately for a comment.
Getting our troops home is not as easy as it sounds
Now to take advantage of my unlikely backup career: the US Army MP Corps.
If a single TV pundit knew anything about how troop movement works, he (or she) would win the argument every time. It is a FACT – even if operations in Iraq ceased tomorrow (which they couldn’t), American troops wouldn’t be home the next day. This is not a matter of the current political environment, this is not a matter of grassroots terrorism in Iraq magically appearing in a major American city. This is pure logistics.
Say CENTCOM got the order to cease and desist. Okay. I estimate it would take a month to (shoddily) hand over control of things like prisons and checkpoints to Iraqi police. Quality and corruption don’t matter anymore; it’s their own damn problem now.
Now nobody’s doing anything except sitting around with billions and billions of dollars’ worth of crap, waiting for transport to pick them up. There are only so many carriers to go around – yes, we still move things by boat. Strykers can’t walk on water, and lots of things are way too heavy for airlift. Not to mention over a hundred thousand people, all their personal gear, and trying to sort out what equipment belongs to which state’s National Guard. The reason why so many National Guards are stuck for equipment is because on their last rotation, they’ll leave stuff in country for someone else to use.
Six months at the quickest. Maybe. Let’s see if the new Army logistics guru (and our first female four-star) is worth her salt.
Holy god, my life is complete
There. Is. A. Lolcat. Site. Just. For. Obama. Kittehs.
Praise be to Ceiling Cat!
(click the damn lolcat)
Cherry-picking morality
If you can’t out-Christian a crazy Fundamentalist, use their tactics and watch them fold like napkins: and Obama did just that.
(ack, try to parse that sentence. sad face.)
Anyway, this little story pits Barack Obama against crazy fundie James Dobson. I apologize if the link is broken within a few days, because Yahoo hardly ever fixes such things.
Obama gives examples of things in the Old Testament that don’t translate into the modern day, particularly items in Leviticus dealing with how slavery is good and eating lobster is bad. Durr, right? Enter Dobson.
Dobson and [Tom] Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.
“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.
“… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”
The fever has broken!
After nearly a week of HHH (hazy hot and humid) nasty south jersey weather, an impromptu thunder and lightning storm quelled the heat and all my windows are open and the AC is off for the first time in many days. Spike (the cat) even grudgingly drank from the expensive cat fountain, which he seems to regard as his enemy.
More Blogs…
Thinking deep thoughts…. when I get around to it…. in Jamerica
Feminism is for Everyone – indeed!
Obamarama
I’m watching his victory speech right now and I’m STOKED!
Just wait til I say that again…. 1.20.09
:D :D :D :D :D
