2008 USP(G)ET pt. II: counting the days to 2012 primary thread 1

is this thing going to be so close as to be unbearable or is it still too early to tell?

Liberal PAC affiliated with Howard Dean's brother running anti-McCain ad that goes directly after his POW experience, featuring a fellow former POW:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/09/independent_gro.html

that's some sleaze i can get behind

why can't it be november already, all this campaigning is making me ill.

its weird/funny how whatever McCain's campaign says about Obama seems to really be about McCain

No one can match an American worker. Our workers sell more goods to more markets than any other on earth. Our workers have always been the strength of our economy, and they remain the strength of our economy today.

While I can hardly argue with the last bit can anyone explain the second line or is it just election piffle?

I'd say its probably an outright lie.

It is, Germany exports more than the USA does.

Krugman nailed this one earlier:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/were-number-what/

Our workers have always been the strength of our economy, and they remain the strength of our economy today.

Our workers who can't pick lettuce for $50 an hour. They just can't.

to busy picking arugula

TOO

its weird/funny how whatever McCain's campaign says about Obama seems to really be about McCain

Not so weird when you factor in that Obama is rubber and McCain is glue.

lol at Fox News giving McCain spokesman a kicking for the recent McCain campaign dishonesty

and this is probably the most effective Obama ad I've seen:

(both from http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/09/fox_news_in_revolt.cfm)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/16science.html

oh you guys. Obama's space answer is pretty empty, but McCain's...

"Ensure U.S. leadership in space by promoting an exploration agenda that will combine the discoveries of our unmanned probes with new technologies to take Americans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond"

No no no no. At least he admits it's dumb:

"Although the general view in the research community is that human exploration is not an efficient way to increase scientific discoveries given the expense and logistical limitations, the role of manned space flight goes well beyond the issue of scientific discovery and is reflection of national power and pride."

taking people to the moon! can't be done!

"the role of manned space flight goes well beyond the issue of scientific discovery and is reflection of national power and pride"

You know what else would reflect national power and pride? A massive freaking tide farm lighting up the BoWa grid. Just sayin'...

did Obama really claim that he will cure the sick? i mean it's one thing to mock grandiosity in speeches but for the official campaign spokesman to say that w/o smiling is just hilariously absurd

He promised quality affordable healthcare for all Americans, that should cure at least some of them.

i should clarify - it's one thing for McCain/Palin to mock O's alleged grandiosity in their speeches, but for their official campaign spokesman - Bounds - to say that Obama wants to cure everyone in that Fox video up above without smiling is hilariously absurd :)

[quote]can be all too easily painted as a un-american, non-free-market drain on all-american small town businesses[/quote]

[quote]and my point, which you keep insisting on missing, is 'by whom'?[/quote]

The core of the palin narrative is down-home small town, small business, (whilst, perversely also being 'sam'z club'). It's is, and has been, a profitable myth for the GOP to exploit. What you don't seem to get is my point that unless you get a body of people (swing voters) invested in the success it is an easy target for such attacks, and many others. Unless universal healthcare has gone far enough to touch and benefit these people's lives then you have a system that will only last 4 years.

Changing the 'quote' code and hiding the formatting help at the same time: classic

The core of the palin narrative

Does anyone else get the feeling that Pundits/Political commentators are the astrologists of our century? They watch Jupiter move and then they make up a hundred reasons/narratives for why it moved. But they really have no relationship to reality. Except that pundits are even worse than astrologers because they don't definitively know that Jupiter moved. All they have are a dozen contradictory polls that change day to day. I'm sure this isn't an original point but sometimes it's incredibly frustrating to read op-ed after op-ed explaining strategy and trends and narratives that really have absolutely no firm connection to any reality whatsoever.

haha. it's astrologers, sir, and we have fixed and unalterable significations for Jupiterian transits that are cross-cultural, thanx

but anyway...i think the conservative pundits/bloggers are not that different from liberal ones in that the latch onto "polling data" that supports their current campaign narratives or spin constructs, and ignore ones that don't. for example at NRO's Corner there were oh...like 2 ? blog posts about the Wall Street meltdown yesterday. and all the rest were still about Gibson's cruel behavior of Palin, or Obama committing treason in Iraq.

it's like if they whistle loud enough, we won't hear the helicopter overhead

Yeah, astrologers. It's very late here and the Eagles lost to the Cowboys. I'm not totally in my right mind.

What really drives me nuts is that the few statistics we have (like those that show that a VP candidate have barely any affect upon an election) get thrown out every four years because THIS YEAR IT'S DIFFERENT.

It is more significant than in most elections as many people think there's a good chance McCain won't last a full term.

Maybe it's more significant. How the hell would you prove it though?

did Obama really claim that he will cure the sick?

i think he claimed he would increase research funding enormously, much of it specifically targeted towards cures for the leading diseases - something many docs think might be possible and many pols have been talking about for years. remember LIeberman's "American Center for Cures"? perhpas the surrogate went overboard, but i'd give people a lot of leeway to counter bullshit on Fox.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/09/15/palin_had_tanning_bed_installed.html

The core of the palin narrative is down-home small town, small business, (whilst, perversely also being 'sam'z club'). It's is, and has been, a profitable myth for the GOP to exploit. What you don't seem to get is my point that unless you get a body of people (swing voters) invested in the success it is an easy target for such attacks, and many others.

i thought business was the community we had to win over. now it's swing voters? the reason i'm seeming tetchy here is because you seem to be applying an abstract notion of how things work and not confronting our realities. i think you're simply wrong that swing voters need to invested in the success of a health care program for it to work. swing voters are typically busy people who only pay attention to their needs. some of them need and will get health care and will support its creation and oppose its dismantling. some of them will ignore the issue coming or going but aren't going to be driven to vote against it.

The core of the palin narrative is down-home small town, small business, (whilst, perversely also being 'sam'z club').

this is a non-sequitur - most swing voters are not small-towners, and it's palin's personality and gender that have appealed to people (most of them unhappy Republicans, rather than swing voters, who still haven't made up their minds), not her narrative, which doesn't have much to do with small business (who, btw, obama exempts from employer contribution to the new plan and gives a tax credit).

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS201335+09-Apr-2008+BW20080409

you seem to be applying an abstract notion of how things work and not confronting our realities

or perhaps it's that you've taken to heart perennial republican lines of attack - it's gonna hurt small business, pleads mike huckabee, e.g. - without recognizing that they don't really hunt anymore

wow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502406.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Suburban swing voter women would like to know whether they're going to be sodomized by Capital Gains Tax for selling off their business premises on retirement. If Obama can reassure my mom on that level, she won't care about his experience or where he goes to church in Chicago when she goes to vote for him. I hope continued exposure to Palin lies and Blizzard County conniving has dampened her enthusiasm for the Palin pick (I had to sit through boring uterocentric argument she'd have laughed off if deployed on behallf of HRC).

i thought business was the community we had to win over. now it's swing voters? the reason i'm seeming tetchy here is because you seem to be applying an abstract notion of how things work and not confronting our realities. i think you're simply wrong that swing voters need to invested in the success of a health care program for it to work. swing voters are typically busy people who only pay attention to their needs. some of them need and will get health care and will support its creation and oppose its dismantling. some of them will ignore the issue coming or going but aren't going to be driven to vote against it.

except in the case that someone comes along and offers them a tax cut for obliterating boondoggle that is worthless to them.

The only reason that we still have a national healthcare system in the UK is that dismantling it is politically untenable. Unless Obama does something to make this the case then he may as well not even start setting one up.

I don't see how the small town narrative is a non-sequitur. Timne and time again the GOP have managed, through abstract ideas, to get people to vote against their socio-economic self interest and will continue to do so. I'll say it again Obama has to make universal healthcare so ingrained in the system within 4 years that no serious republican can stand on a platform of dismantling it.

The only reason that we still have a national healthcare system in the UK is that dismantling it is politically untenable

perhaps that would have some relevance to the US if we had a 60-year-old national health care system (or a country the size of Oregon, or a more liberal polity with some sense of solidarity). obama is not setting up a national healthcare system and most of the swing voters and other voters you're worried about would never support one on the front end, let alone the back.

I'm pretty sure that if Team O conducted a root and branch cost study they'd be appalled by the amount of $20 tampons charged to hospital bills (up from $10 in 1984, when my mom discovered one such item on her bill) which are then blithely paid by insurers. It's not just the pharmaceutical industry that benefits from our collective distance from any tally-up of hospital bills, there are all kinds of sneaky little inflations that happen as a matter of course and only a handful of people try to police this when looking after patients, or indeed while they've been one.

In a climate where there may be need for increased regulation of financial services, might there also be the same need in healthcare, and would it be urgent enough that people who don't like 'big government' (unless it's big to fite terrism) would accept or encourage the move?

wow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502406.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

― gabbneb, Tuesday, September 16, 2008 7:55 AM (2 hours ago)

yeah that column is crazy

can't stand Cohen but I'd say the press is officialy off McCain's jock, en masse

valiant effort by Drudge here, lol

OBAMA BOOM ECONOMY: RECORD BANK IN BEV HILLS, $28,500 A PLATE!
Tue Sep 16 2008 06:25:55 ET

The nation's financials may be in a spiral, but cash is flowing into the Obama campaign faster than Marvin Hamlisch can play "Niagara"!

Yesterday, Obama declared how we are in "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Today he will host a dinner in Beverly Hills --- costing attendees $28,500 dollars each!

Hundreds of high rollers, including some of the biggest executives in film, television and music, will munch gourmet chow and hang out with the candidate.

Streisand will then sing at the five-star Beverly Wilshire, no doubt reviving the Depression-era standard "Happy Days Are Here Again" with new urgency.

Obama is set to break a single-day fundraising record of $9 million.

Tuesday's events in Tinseltown come after Obama racked up a record-breaking $66 million dollars in fundraising last month, beating his previous high mark of $55 million last winter.

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are still very, very difficult times," rival McCain said, sunny-side up.

"Sen. McCain, what economy are you talking about?" smiled Obama.

Developing...

sunny side up??

Is this Cohen guy known for having a particular political alleigance/schtick?

"Keep Your Sunny Side Up" was an old tune McCain probably whistled as he skipped to kindergarten.

Health Affairs: McCain, Bam healthcare plans won't work.

http://tinyurl.com/5nkl75

he's one of those Democrats who only ever seems to criticize Democrats - xpost

he's ostensibly a center-leftist, but his schtick is typical of the sort of permanent beltway insider that has historically loved and been quite unwilling to doubt mccain

Health Affairs: we hired some people specifically to find flaws in candidates' health care plans; they found flaws

xp, ty.

http://www.nybooks.com/images/palin_sarah-20081009.png

McCain campaign bringin teh lolz

Addressing the nation’s economic crisis, Holtz-Eakin told reporters traveling with the campaign “there’s no magic solution. And I don’t think that it’s at this moment imperative to write down exactly what the plan has to be.” He also said a president isn’t someone who needs to be heavily involved in policy specifics, which should be handled by “quality” advisers,

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/09/22/080922sh_shouts_saunders?currentPage=all

quality advisers like Phil Gramm

exactly