Presidential election may be up for grabs

[tomahawk6]

Just for you Cougar Daddy:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Teddy Roosevelt

 

[CougarKing]

Just for you Cougar Daddy:

Teddy Roosevelt

I find it interesting that you would use a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, who btw, left the Republican party to form his own Bull-Moose party nearly a century ago, not just to run against President Taft. and gee I wonder what he found wrong with the Republican Party back then?

And here is one of his quotes after forming the Bull-Moose party, which was also known as the "Progressive Party" back then:

"We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–08 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests

And lastly, if your quote above is to imply my voice and those outside the US do not count, that may be true, but your people have spoken. And it is time to move on.

And this will be the last thing I say about this on this thread.

You're entitled to bash Obama as much as you want for all the good it will do.

 

[tomahawk6]

Nope the quote was aimed at you for your belittling comment to me. I dont usually respond to negative attacks,but I made an exception in your case.

 

[Kirkhill]

CougarDaddy - I generally hold you and your opinions in the highest regard but in this case I'm afraid I have to make an exception.

It may indeed be time to move on - just in the same sense that MoveOn started Moving On as soon as "Bushitler" was elected.  Or just as Clinton was attacked as soon as he was elected. Or Reagan, or Carter.

In the States the next election starts today.

Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Franks MAY have 8 years to Change Amerika.  On the other hand Americans get an opportunity in 2 years time 2010 to decide whether or not the like the decision they made and determine if they want to put the brakes on Change.



I just got a view "from the other side of the hill" today.

A business acquaintance of mine, from the Former Yugoslavia, and old enough to remember Tito - has been telling me for a while that he wanted Obama to win.  He didn't like McCain - I think there was a gut level reaction to McCain being a bomber pilot and him being subjected to American bombs.  That just compounded his antipathy to all things American - including that racist society they have.

In any event, with Obama winning today he seemed a bit lost. Kind of like the dog that caught the car.  Not sure what to do with it.  His verities have been challenged and he can't believe that a black man with an Islamic name is now President of the Great Satan.

And strangely enough he is not happy. With McCain he could plan. With Obama - the empty cipher - there is no sense of where he will take the country.  And even for enemy's that is a problem.

He half roads expects it to be a trick. 

Even worse it may be how the system actually works in which case he is really concerned.  Because how can you plan if the government keeps wobbling from left to right every two to four years.

In Tito's World - you could sleep on the beaches, drink beer in public, smoke where you liked, everybody had a guaranteed job, guaranteed shelter, free medical care.  Now you couldn't leave paradise, you couldn't speak against Tito or anybody else above you and you had to accept the job, shelter and medical care you were given by the appropriate bureaucrat - but you were well taken care of.

And in my mind there you have the dichotomy: Coddled with Tito taking the risks and doling out the benefits (following the well established principle of paying himself first) or; Risking failure and reaping any benefits personally.

As T6 pointed out elsewhere - this chap Obama doesn't understand (better "Grok" - look that one up) the US constitution.  He finds it bizarre that the Constitution doesn't demand that the Government DO things.  He fails to understand that the Constitution was written by people that had had a bellyful of Governments DOING things and wanted to be protected from Government.

Now, if the Folks of the NorthEast, including Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes want a guaranteed income that I submit that we start building pyramids - lots of manual labour directed to nothing in particular with lots of "free" beer and bread for all.

Meanwhile, for the rest, that choose not to live in the hive, ...... leave us alone. or prepare to be deposed.

The good news with Obama's election may be that more people come to my Yugoslavian buddy's understanding of Democracy - to quote Churchill - "The worst of all systems, saving all others".

 

[Drag]

On a lighter note, a factor that contributed to McCain losing.  We discussed some of these here before but I think a visual record shows it best.  Sarah Palin's greatest hits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzXLYA_e6E&feature=related


And now Joe Biden's greatest hits, I have no idea how he got aways as easy as he did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmRXH7RkCZQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VAzOIT4Ef8 

FDR and TV during the Great Depression is GOLD

 

[Edward Campbell]

This report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it raises some disturbing questions about Gov. Palin:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081106.wpalin1106/BNStory/International/home

Knives come out for Sarah Palin

LEE-ANNE GOODMAN
Canadian Press

November 6, 2008 at 9:08 AM EST

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin wasn't aware that Africa was a continent and she and her brood behaved like a band of “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” aides to Republican John McCain are telling prominent news organizations.

Less than 24 hours after McCain lost the presidential election to Democrat Barack Obama, those close to him apparently wasted no time burning up the phone lines to dish the dirt on Ms. Palin, the Alaska governor who portrayed herself as a sensible hockey Mom when she was chosen the Arizona senator's running mate in late August.

If the anonymous McCain insiders are to be believed, Ms. Palin was unaware that Africa was a continent, arguing that South Africa was simply a region of the larger country of Africa.

She also didn't know the three countries — Canada, the U.S. and Mexico — that are in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

A call last week by a Quebec radio prankster pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly became a fiery source of tension between the already feuding McCain and Palin camps. An aide to the Alaska governor, Steve Biegun, OK'd the call without discussing it with McCain's people or the U.S. State Department.

The Los Angeles Times reported that an outraged Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain's top strategist, organized a conference call after the prank — which revealed Ms. Palin to be ill-informed and naive — made international headlines and brought further ridicule to the campaign.

He demanded to know who had arranged the Sarkozy call and questioned why anyone would have agreed to such an unusual request and then failed to clear it with top staff.

Mr. Biegun immediately took responsibility.

“I was fooled,” he told the L.A. Times in a report published Thursday. “No one's going to beat me up more than I beat myself up for setting up the governor like that.”

The leaked stories about Ms. Palin's alleged antics throughout the campaign are appearing in publications that include Newsweek magazine and the New York Times just as Republicans begin meeting Thursday in Virginia to discuss the future of the party.

Many in the party's right wing are enthralled by Ms. Palin and her socially conservative views, and hope to make her a presidential candidate in 2012.

“I'm not doing this for naught,” Ms. Palin said recently when asked about her aspirations.

Yet soon after she was chosen Mr. McCain's running mate and despite publicly defending her, his campaign insiders say they became queasy with the growing knowledge that Ms. Palin was desperately unqualified and ill-prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

They attempted to bring her up to speed on the issues of the day, but she refused any efforts to prepare her for a string of disastrous interviews with CBS's Katie Couric that proved extremely damaging to the McCain campaign.

The McCain insiders have told various news organizations that Ms. Palin nonetheless threw angry temper tantrums over their mishandling of her when the Couric interviews went badly.

The most salacious of the stories leaked — with many more supposedly still to come in the days to follow — involve Ms. Palin's infamous US$150,000 spending spree at some of the most expensive stores in the United States.

Despite her self-styled image as a down-home working mother opposed to big government spending, the aides told Newsweek she behaved like anything but: spending tens of thousands of dollars more than the US$150,000 originally reported on clothing, accessories and luggage for herself and her family.

One senior aide told the magazine that she was told to buy three suits for the Republican National Convention and hire a stylist, but instead, the vice-presidential nominee began amassing costly goods from stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

At one point during the campaign, Ms. Palin's youngest daughter, seven-year-old Piper, was photographed carrying a US$790 Louis Vuitton bag.

Two sources told Newsweek the goods were bought by a wealthy donor, who was flabbergasted when he saw the bills. Ms. Palin also allegedly instructed low-level staffers to buy her clothes on their credit cards, something the McCain campaign only discovered last week when the aides sought reimbursement.

Ms. Palin aides had a different version of events, with several telling the Los Angeles Times that she was outraged by the amount of money being spent on her clothing and that she was naive about what the clothes cost.

“The very first day of shopping, there was a $14,000 price tag and . . . she was absolutely shocked,” one of the Palin insiders said.

Another told Newsweek: “Gov. Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense.”

On Wednesday in Phoenix, Ms. Palin said: “There is absolutely no diva in me.”

Nonetheless, a Republican party lawyer is reportedly heading to Alaska to inventory and retrieve the clothes still in Ms. Palin's possession.

The tensions between the two camps reportedly continued even into election night, when Ms. Palin met Mr. McCain at the Biltmore hotel in Phoenix with a concession speech in hand that she wanted to deliver before he took to the podium to address supporters.

Much to her chagrin, she was told by senior Mr. McCain aides that such a speech would be inappropriate since vice-presidential nominees do not traditionally speak on election night.

The relationship between Ms. Palin and Mr. McCain, in fact, had deteriorated in the final days of the campaign to the point that they were seldom talking.

“I think it was a difficult relationship,” one top McCain campaign official told the New York Times. “McCain talked to her occasionally.”

Gov. Palin did one of her jobs: she energized the conservative base for McCain, but it’s not clear that Huckabee or Romney would not have done as good a job. She did not bring any significant number (beyond the 15-20% who were ‘there’ at the end of the Democratic primaries) of Hillary Clinton’s supporters to McCain. She was of no help at all on the economic issues – Romney, almost certainly, would have been.

The McCain team needs to blame someone – preferably other than themselves - and Palin is a nice, easy target.

Somehow I cannot see her on the top (or bottom) of any ticket in 2012.

 

[tomahawk6]

Romney probably would have turned off the Baptists and McCain didnt like the guy.I think Palin was an exciting choice.The whisper campaign is intended toput her out of the game in 2012. The people making these comments are known and an effort will be made to expose and make them unemployable in the future.
Neither Romney or Huckabee want to have to face off against her but neither man are strong national candidates IMO.

Palin has some options remain as Governor or throw her hat into the ring for Stevens seat if he ends up retaining his seat.The previous Governor named his daughter to fill his Senate seat so the Legislature changed the law which now requires a special election.

 

[Bane]

The GOP needs and indeed deserves a better candidate than Palin.  She belongs in the dust bin of history and did not deserve to share a stage with McCain much less a ticket. 

 

[Redeye]

Indeed.  If they pin any future hopes on Sarah Palin then they are doomed.

The GOP needs and indeed deserves a better candidate than Palin.  She belongs in the dust bin of history and did not deserve to share a stage with McCain much less a ticket.   

 

[muskrat89]

Let's see - what would look better on my resume... Governor, or political know-it-all on an internet message board??

Hmmmmm

To sit on your ivory towers and imply that all of those people who have voted in Palin as a Mayor - and then a Governor - were somehow stupid, naive, or so easily misled - is the height of arrogance in my eyes. You didn't agree with McCain's choice - we get it. Now tell us why your opinions are so much more valuable than others'.

 

[a_majoor]

Governor Palin has a great deal of credibility simply based on her resume. Most of the activities that were attributed to her (like attempting to ban books) were proven false when actually reserched, and given the rest of the antics of the MSM, I would not believe half of what they report about her anyway. People who followed Prime Minister Harper's career know about that as well (remember "scarey Steven" and the "hidden agenda"?). Given Governor Palin's personal popularity and ability to draw huge crowds, I suspect the hatchet job was on from the start by the MSM since she represented a credible threat to "The One"

Governor Palin represents a different slice of the Republican Party than most people with only a passing interest in politics are likely to see, and if you are hostile, condescending or indifferent to the "people with religion and guns" or "Joe the plumber" demographics, then I expect you would be feeling the same about the candidate as well.

Republicans as a whole need to define what they really stand for and articulate it in a sensible and convincing way. Young new talent like Governor Palin, Governor Jindel or others are the "public" face of the party, but they can do nothing unless the underlying message is clear. Canada's conservative movement suffered from this fault during the Decade of Darkness; one can only hope that the Republicans can get sorted much faster given the American government's structural need for checks and balances at all levels.

 

[Drag]

Gov Bobby Jindal is awesome.  He could even outplay Obama in the intellectual debate game.  McCain would have done much better with him than with Palin.  But i doubt he would appease the far right of the GOP like she did.

 

[Redeye]

Gov Bobby Jindal is awesome.  He could even outplay Obama in the intellectual debate game.  McCain would have done much better with him than with Palin.  But i doubt he would appease the far right of the GOP like she did.

I haven't seen a lot of him - but what I have seen is pretty impressive, he may well be a really key player in the future.  Imagine a presidential battle between an African-American and an Indian-American.  You're most correct that the Republican Party has a lot of work to do - they are going to have to embark on a very significant process of reformation essentially - sorting out what their party really stands for, because I never really got a clear view of it from what I've seen - and what I did see of what they claimed to stand for seemed to be hypocritical.  It comes back to what I was saying about voting for something vs. against something.  Obama whether one agrees with him or not was fairly clear about what his vision is - as clear as one can expect a politician to be, anyhow.

To Muskrat89's point - I don't know what sort of competition Sarah Palin faced in her previous campaigns.  I was, however, infuriated by the way the GOP made constant reference to Obama's "lack of experience" while stating that Palin had some tremendous experience when she didn't seem to at all.  My contention is that the way she carried herself in debates and in public appearances gave me no confidence in her or the prospect that she could wind up President.  So she drew huge crowds, there's a novelty factor to a female candidate, but I don't really think that's a great way to base a decision.  I would hope likewise that people voted for Barack Obama for better reasons than the melatonin content of his skin - that they voted for him because of what he stood for.  In my view for the entire campaign the Democrats presented something to vote for - and the GOP by contrast merely presented Obama's platform is something to vote against.  I think that a lot of voters might have been weary of the status quo and despite a lot of trite about being a "maverick" McCain showed himself to be as much an "empty suit" as some claim Obama is.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Governor Palin has a great deal of credibility simply based on her resume. Most of the activities that were attributed to her (like attempting to ban books) were proven false when actually reserched, and given the rest of the antics of the MSM, I would not believe half of what they report about her anyway. People who followed Prime Minister Harper's career know about that as well (remember "scarey Steven" and the "hidden agenda"?). Given Governor Palin's personal popularity and ability to draw huge crowds, I suspect the hatchet job was on from the start by the MSM since she represented a credible threat to "The One"

Governor Palin represents a different slice of the Republican Party than most people with only a passing interest in politics are likely to see, and if you are hostile, condescending or indifferent to the "people with religion and guns" or "Joe the plumber" demographics, then I expect you would be feeling the same about the candidate as well.

Republicans as a whole need to define what they really stand for and articulate it in a sensible and convincing way. Young new talent like Governor Palin, Governor Jindel or others are the "public" face of the party, but they can do nothing unless the underlying message is clear. Canada's conservative movement suffered from this fault during the Decade of Darkness; one can only hope that the Republicans can get sorted much faster given the American government's structural need for checks and balances at all levels.

I was listening to an old time (Reagan era) Republican insider a day or two ago. He suggested that the Republican Party no longer knows what it is, for what it stands, itself. He suggested that there is an unyielding struggle underway between many factions including (but not limited to) the religious right, 'closet' libertarians, the Project for a New American Century gang and so on. He expressed no views on who might win. Old fashioned 'Eisenhower Republicans' - Hagel, Lugar, Powell, etc - are all reported to be leaning towards supporting Obama, perhaps in an effort to head off the loony left wing of the Democrats.

Here is an article I found interesting.

I'm interested in who our American members think might rise up to lead the GOP back, out of the wilderness.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I just heard an interesting bit of speculation on my TV.

The Alaska senate race is not yet decided. The incumbent, Ted Stevens is leading and if he wins he will, almost certainly face a threat of expulsion (something that has not happened since the 19th century) because he was convicted of corruption just a few days prior to the election.

If Stevens is expelled Alaska will have to hold another election within 90 days. One potential candidate is Gov. Sarah Palin. Many Republicans may wan to join with Democrats to expel Stevens for two reasons: he is corrupt and is a blemish on his Party, and it would make room, in Washington, in "the world's greatest deliberative body" for Palin. 

 

[OldSolduer]

Sarah's hot. That's all I have to say.

 

[a_majoor]

Imagine that:

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=89B65C8A-18FE-70B2-A8C3F5493FBD366D

Obama likely to escape campaign audit
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
November 11, 2008 08:10 PM EST

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul.

Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.

Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.

McCain, on the other hand, accepted the $84 million in taxpayer money, which not only barred him from raising or spending more – allowing Obama to fund many times more ads and ground operations – but also will keep his lawyers busy for a couple years explaining how every penny was spent.

The Obama campaign does not expect to be audited, but spokesman Ben LaBolt said it would be ready in the event it is.

"We have had a first rate compliance operation for an unprecedented national grassroots fundraising effort," LaBolt said.

“Nobody wants to go through an audit,” said former FEC chairman Michael Toner. As the top lawyer for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, which accepted public financing, Toner prepared for that campaign’s mandatory audit, before he was appointed by Bush to a seat on the FEC.

Agency investigators fan out across the nation interviewing campaign staffers and vendors to account for even the most seemingly trivial expenses.

The resulting audits have dinged publicly financed presidential campaigns for billing the press for port-a-potties accessible to supporters at events (Bob Dole in 1996) and using the wrong formula to divide the cost of outfitting campaign planes between primary and general accounts (John Kerry in 2004).

Obama – the first presidential candidate to decline public funding in the general election – certainly would provide fodder for the green eye-shades at the FEC’s E Street offices.

Obama’s campaign admitted it initially mis-categorized the purpose of an $832,598 payment for get-out-the-vote efforts to a consulting firm affiliated with ACORN, the community organizing group that became a top target for Republicans alleging voter fraud.

And FEC analysts over the course of the campaign have written more than a dozen letters to Obama singling out hundreds of contributors for whom the campaign either didn’t supply adequate information or from whom he accepted donations exceeding the $4,600 limit.

Spokesman LaBolt said the campaign has corrected errors as it was made aware of them. It's  not at all unusual for the FEC to send many such letters – “requests for additional information” in agency parlance – to big-money campaigns. McCain’s campaign received at least a dozen, for instance.

But the media – first conservative outlets then mainstream publications – seized on the FEC letters to Obama, singling out donations from apparently fictitious donors as well as from foreign addresses - which are permitted as long as the donors are U.S. citizens. Allegations that the Obama campaign was willfully allowing foreign donations and excessive donations blossomed in the conservative blogosphere and prompted the Republican National Committee to file an FEC complaint.

Seizing on Obama’s reversal on a pledge to accept public financing if his Republican opponent agreed to do the same, as well as his campaign’s refusal to voluntarily release the names, addresses and employers of donors who gave less than $200 each – a group that accounted for about half of the more than $600 million that the campaign had raised through the end of September – the RNC asked the FEC “to immediately conduct a full audit” of all of Obama’s contributions.

It’s very rare for a complaint to trigger an audit, campaign finance insiders say.

And ironically, the historic volume of Obama’s small contributions, which may have made it tough for the campaign to weed out problem donations, may also help spare Obama an audit.

That’s because the byzantine formula the FEC staff uses to determine whether a campaign has engaged in “substantial” violations of federal election rules – the trigger to recommend an audit to commissioners – takes into account the size of the campaign’s coffers, according to David Mason, who served as a Republican appointee to the FEC until this year.

“So if a House campaign makes a $100,000 error, that’s huge and they’re likely to get audited,” he said. “If a campaign the size of the Obama campaign has a $100,000 error, then maybe not. It would depend on what the error is, obviously,” he said, explaining that mere accounting snafus are unlikely to prompt an audit. More serious and systemic problems, such as illegal contributions, result in campaigns getting tagged with more “audit points,” Mason explained. “If you get enough audit points, you get audited,” he said, adding “nobody outside the commission would know how many audit points the Obama campaign has.”

Mary Brandenberger, an FEC spokeswoman, declined to comment on the likelihood of an Obama audit. But she explained that if campaigns adequately answer the agency’s requests for information, it’s less likely they’ll be recommended for an audit.

Even if Obama’s campaign reached the audit recommendation trigger point, it’d be tough to muster the majority commission vote necessary to initiate the audit. That’s because the FEC is comprised of three Democratic commissioners and three Republicans and, as such, is prone to deadlock on partisan issues.

 

[a_majoor]

He's "hoping" for a little more "change" from his supporters:

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2008/11/13/obamath-3

Obamath

Raise $600 million, spend $700 million. Weren’t Democrats the ones complaining that Republicans failed to balance the budget?

I have a clipping from the Born Loser cartoon in my cubicle. He tells his wife: If you had an unlimited budget, you’d find a way to overspend it.

He must be married to President Obama.

Obama is desperately trying to raise $100 million from his devotees to cover the $100 million that the DNC borrowed to get him elected, Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times reported.

I’m curious, who loaned Obama the money? Are his lenders now receiving bailout money? What was the collateral — treasury secretary or ambassador to England?

They asked JFK if daddy’s money was buying the election. Kennedy said Pop was impatient: “I’m not paying for a landslide.”

What Bentsen said to Quayle applies to President Obama.

 

[a_majoor]

Probably the saddest commentary of all: did these people have any idea at all what they just voted for?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022095.php

How Obama Got Elected

Share Post  PrintNovember 18, 2008 Posted by John at 7:05 PM

Last night I embedded a video by John Ziegler that showed some Obama voters being interviewed about their knowledge of the issues in the campaign. The video is funny, but also instructive. It was prepared in connection with a Zogby poll and the web site How Obama Got Elected.

Here are some highlights of Zogby's poll of Obama voters:

* 57 percent thought the Republicans still control Congress. Note that this is worse than a random result, since there are only two possible answers.

* Only 12 percent could identify Obama as the candidate who said that his energy policies would cause the cost of electricity to skyrocket.

The only issues on which the Obama voters were well-informed (or thought they were, anyway) had to do with Sarah Palin. Thus:

* 94 percent knew that Palin was the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, the highest correct score recorded by the Obama voters.

* Likewise, 86 percent knew that Palin was the candidate whose party bought her a $150,000 wardrobe.

Those answers suggest that the mainstream media's emphasis in this election was not exactly on the nuances of public policy. To be fair, though, they probably also reflect where the interests of Democratic voters tend to lie. This one is interesting:

* 87 percent said that Sarah Palin was the candidate who said she could see Russia from her house. Actually, it was Tina Fey who said that. Once again, though, it shows that Palin seemed to be the candidate who made the biggest impression, for better or worse.

It's worth noting that the Obama voters in Zogby's sample were 97 percent high school graduates and--rather shockingly--55 percent college graduates. It's almost enough to make you wonder about the future of democracy.

 

[tomahawk6]

Hey you dont need to be informed when all you have to do is vote party ticket.