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GrannyD for Senate
From The Scarlet Pimpernel:
On Wednesday, Oct. 13th, activists across the country will be handpainting signs and putting them up on freeways and major trafficways to express their first amendment right to free and unfettered political speech. So far there are over 650 of us signed in from 175 cities and 45 states, and by the 13th we'll number well over a thousand. The rules are simple: paint a sign and put it up where people will see it. If you use the freeway, I suggest using trees and infrastructure along the sides (approached from off the freeway, please) rather than overpasses. Signs placed off to the side may not be seen by as many per minute, but they stay up for days rather than hours. This event will be getting major national coverage, from Air America, MTV, Pacifica Radio and mainstream national and local news orgs.
My hope is that once people have put up their first sign and seen how easy and effective it is, there'll be no turning back.
Posted at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) & TrackBacks (0) | Email this entry | Category: Campaign 2004
Geodog, in a comment, points to Cryptome's investigation of the Unidentified Rectangular Object under Bush's jacket during the first debate. Not only does he conclude it was probably a receiver, he has photos of possible devices and lists the frequencies that could be used to provide one's own commentary direct to the presidential tympanum. Cryptome also links to a site with 28 photos that make it pretty clear that the appearance of a URO is not due to, say, a solar flare.
I understand why Ken Mehlman, as the Bush/Cheney campaign manager, in his latest msg pounds on Kerry's "global test" statement, as if working with allies is the same thing as giving them a veto. But I can't figure out how he can talk about Kerry's "repeated denigration of our troops" at the debate. I mean, we were there. We heard him. Kerry could not have been more straightforward in his honoring our soldiers.
Yeah, yeah, I understand the logic: If you think a war is mistaken, you must also think the soldiers are mistaken. It's stupid logic, but I understand it. What I can't understand is why the Republican campaign thinks that, given Kerry's actual statements and his demeanor, which we saw with our own eyes, we're going to fall for this one.
(The subject line of the message is: "Fight the Spin - Spread the Truth!" Beyond spin and all the way to chutzpah.)
Email from Ken Mehlman, the Bush campaign manager:
President Bush spoke clearly and from the heart last night about the path forward - toward victory and security - in the War on Terror. The President spoke candidly about the difficulties facing our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as these countries prepare for their first free elections. The terrorists will continue to fight these steps toward freedom because they fear the optimism and hope of democracy. They fear the prospects for their ideology of hate in a free and democratic Middle East.
President Bush detailed a path forward in the War on Terror - a plan that will ensure that America fights the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan - not in America's cities.
John Kerry failed the one test he had to pass last night: he failed to close the credibility gap he has with the American people as his record of troubling contradiction and vacillation spiraled down to incoherence.
More here.
You read 'em Slate. Now you can see them on DVD: Bush's best Bushisms. (I haven't seen it.)
BlogPulse is graphing the attention bloggers are paying to candidates and issues. They explain what they're doing here.
BlogPulse is graphing the attention bloggers are paying to candidates and issues. They explain what they're doing here.
Mark Grueter goes on a tear, attacking McCain and Powell for not announcing for Kerry. His overall point is good: Either of these guys could swing the election. The extra paragraphs denouncing the two of them bother me.
Along the way, he quotes from Powell's autobiography:
I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units...Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country. (Colin Powell’s autobiography, My American Journey, p. 148)
A few days ago, the AP distributed a photo of a 3-yr-old crying because someone had ripped up her Bush sign at a Democratic rally. Touching photo...but possibly a put-up job.
It's hard to tell for sure, but TruthOut has put together an interesting pattern that suggests that the girl's father, Phil Parlock, may have staged the "assault."
It's a little thing, not worth distracting us from the real issues. But let the Google record show that there may be another side to the story.
Islamicate writes angrily about how Wahhabism has become identified publicly as the voice of Islam, and says that American Muslims should have no question how to vote in '04: " Do you want to get your sorry selves thrown in Gitmo? If yes, vote Bush...If it makes it easier for you, rent the movie The Seige."
It feels like eavesdropping on a heated family discussion, but that's true of many of the best blog entries...
I got a msg from the Bush campaign (I'm a member of GOP TeamLeader) touting an HBO movie, 9 Innings from Ground Zero. The msg links to a clip about Bush throwing out the first pitch. In it, W lets us know the pressure on him not to "bounce" it.
I can see why the Republicans are circulating it. It's a good piece of tape, in a patriotic-cum-Riefenstahl sense. And, on the other hand, it's maybe the most absurd reduction of a serious issue I have ever seen.
You want to see American political cynicism at its worst? This is it: The drama of the President throwing out the first pitch.
Back when he was CEO of that mom-and-pop shop called Halliburton, Dick Cheney argued against US sanctions against terrorist nations, according to an articleby David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin in the American Prospect:
While he claimed during the 2000 campaign that, as CEO of Halliburton, he had “imposed a ‘firm policy’ against trading with Iraq,” confidential UN records show that, from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that sold more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was in charge. Halliburton acquired its interest in both firms while Cheney was at the helm, and continued doing business through them until just months before Cheney was named George W. Bush’s running mate.
Perhaps even more troubling, at the same time Cheney was doing business with Iraq, he launched a public broadside against sanctions laws designed to cut off funds to regimes like Iran, which the State Department listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. In 1998, Cheney traveled to Kuala Lumpur to attack his own country's terrorism policies for being too strict. Under the headline, “Former US Defence Secretary Says Iran-Libya Sanctions Act ‘Wrong,’” the Malaysian News Agency reported that Cheney “hit out at his government" and said sanctions on terrorist countries were "ineffective, did not provide the desired results and [were] a bad policy.”
...“We're kept out of [Iran] primarily by our own government, which has made a decision that U.S. firms should not be allowed to invest significantly in Iran,” he told an oil conference in Canada. “I think that's a mistake.”
Now new reports suggest Cheney’s desire to do business with Iran may have amounted to more than words...
We're not talking about what a young man did 35 years ago during a time of national trauma. We're talking about what our VP did six years after he'd been Secretary of Defense and shortly before becoming the de facto President of the United States.
Flip-flop? How about terror profiteer?
Britt sketches a Speech He'd Like to See in which Kerry issues a bold call that distinguishes him as a leader, as opposed to Bush as a manager (and a poor one at that).
I like the fact that Britt's speech puts boldness in the driver's seat, while allowing nuance room on the bus. But Britt would have Kerry call for increasing the number of troops in Iraq to 300,000 in order to get the job done. The problem is that I don't know what constitutes success in Iraq. Without that, there's no way to tell if adding troops just sinks us in further.
That aside, we could use some bold strokes about now. Plus, I enjoy the way Britt writes the speech.
(Note: There's one line that I believe would be too easily mis-taken: I think that when Britt says we should "put Iraq back the way it was before we broke it," he's referring simply to the infrastructure, not to the mad tyrrany of Sadistic Hussein.)
Micah Sifry and David Donnelly have started a site in response to Dick Cheney's absurd attempt to use the success of eBay to bolster the case that his adminsitration's managing of the economy has been nought but a miserable failure. It's called GeorgeWBuy and it's a project of Campaign Money Watch.
Brian Reich at Campaign Web Review is researching what will be a series of posts about convention blogging. To that end, he's posted some questions for convention bloggers. As a credentialed blogger at the Democratic National Convention, here's my take on some of them:
What did you think of the Convention?
What does David Letterman's couch think of David Letterman? We were all just props for the TV. I ended up staying home the night of Kerry's speech so I could watch it on TV to see how it really was.
That aside, the convention was both exhausting and exhilirating. It is empty ritual and true show biz, but it also builds community.
What did you want to do that you couldn't, or didn't get a chance to?
I had no expectations, and every one of them was met!
I thought the Democrats treated us extraordinarily well.
What did the bloggers add to the Convention?
Aside from dancing like monkeys for the mainstream media, I thnk we added little to the Convention itself. We added something to the coverage of the Convention, though ... if the Convention and its coverage are separable, which they're not. I think I can be quite precise about what the 35 bloggers added: 35 points of view expressed in 35 voices. Anyone who expected more than that doesn't understand what blogging is about.
What is your take on the media fascination with bloggers?
Through the lens of the media, bloggers look like itsy bitsy media. So, of course the big media want to know how the itsy bitsy media are going to affect them; that's just natural. But bloggers aren't journalists (except for the tiny handful who actually are). We're not wee broadcasters. We're something else.
What would you do differently for the 2008 Convention(s)?
I'd stop credentialing bloggers. Instead, I'd credential the few people who publish their journalism in blogs. I'd then provide very cool blogging services to the convention attendees — from delegates to security guards — who write blogs anyway: a great, open aggregator, wifi everywhere, "DNC Blogger" buttons, etc.
What do you think are the most exciting developments in online politics in 2004?
The way campaign blogging for a while threatened to let campaigns sound human again, and the way trusting and empowering your supporters got raised as a possibilty before the professional politicians in the Democratic Party decided that would be a distraction from their non-nonsense, hard-ball drive toward defeat.
What will political blogging look like after November (if President Bush wins re-election or if Senator Kerry wins)?
If Senator Kerry wins, blogging will continue as before. If President Bush wins, there will be no reason to do anything ever again.
From the AP:
Indicators measure the nation's unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay.
"That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago," Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. "Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay."
What next will the Bushies dredge up to convince us that the economy is swell? The value of shared MP3s should count in the GDP? Add offshore employees to the ranks of the newly employed?
When you can't tell the AP from The Onion, you know we've entered the realm of the post-ludicrous.
Joi links to a chart that shows an unexpected correlation between drops in Bush's popularity and increases in the terror alert level. My my.
Now President Bush weighs in with an I-love-Israel article in The Forward, following John Kerry's contribution.
Don't you find it ludicrous that the Republicans put forth Arnold as a heartwarming example of how America welcomes immigrants? Ah, yes, Ahnuld who came from Austria as a poor, struggling Mr. Universe, and groped his way to the top. His is the most improbable, hilarious rise in American history.
Doris "GrannyD" Haddock is certainly one of the more unusual Senate candidates. And isn't it about time we had some unusual candidates?
She's 94 and joined the race after the Democratic opponent of Judd Gregg dropped out. A July poll gave her 20% to Gregg's 65%, meaning that Alan Keyes has a better chance of becoming a Senator than she does.
But read what she has to say. It began with this one in Pecos, which is more about the power of art than politics. And this sermon (literally) is about the faith of doing. Here she argues for a return to the old ideals of journalism and for limning a positive vision of how things can be. Here she tries to understand neo-Conservatives and outlines a strategy for winning elections. She says, among other things:
There are many among us who will not support a candidate unless that candidate is perfect on every issue. Politics is about winning. For us, it is about winning to save lives and raise people up from poverty and illness and loneliness and injustice. Those posturing on the left sometimes forget that. Don't tell me that you can't support a particular candidate because of this or that. This isn't about you and your precious political standards. It is about saving nature and our people. We are coming out to win, so please don't stand in our way. When we have reasonable people in power, let us start our arguments again, for we can not move forward unless we have a decent government underneath us and a Bill of Rights to let us speak freely.
To the freshman at Franklin-Pierce she said:
What an amazing world! The young woman college student in Iran, wearing her Levis under her burka, is your sister and your friend. The farmer in Central America who is trying to get a fair price for his coffee beans so that he can build a better house for his children is your uncle and a man you deeply respect. The Navajo woman who is fighting for the right to stay on land that has been her family's for generations is your grandmother, and she needs your help.
It is not too much. It is all quite beautiful. Cast your heart into this world right now, for your eyes and your heart are open and your senses of justice and fairness and your sense of the right thing to do by the planet that sustains us are fully matured and at their perfect moment to give hope and progress to the world. Don't save yourselves for later...
Haddock for Senate.
Meta-Roj got comment-spammed by the Swiftboat Veterans for Big Lies and is pissed. He retaliates by posting bunches of links, info about their domain, and a link to their Form 8872 finance report that lists the group's email address as "no@email."
(Note: Meta-Roj lists this blog as one that escaped the blog spam. No such luck. And, I could have done without M-R's Vietnamese comments, apparently based on the fact that the IP address for the boasting is the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre.)
There's a fascinating, and scarily plausible, discussion in Salon by Charles Tiefer of how Bush's second term agenda will aim at splitting and thus destroying the Democratic party:
A second-term Bush agenda will constantly impale Democrats on the dilemma of abandoning their poorer, sicker, older and minority groups, or seeing their better-off, healthier and younger members lured off to the other party. If it sounds like a political nightmare for the Democrats, that's because that's what it is planned to be.
In the following memorandum from the Kerry pollster to the Kerry camp, you can see the obvious attempt to set expectations, especially the bit that says that Bush needs a huge bounce coming out of the Convention. Since numbers are involved, I'm in no position to evaluate the claims.
...There are some basic benchmarks by which an incumbent's success can be measured as the campaign heads to the Fall. By each of these measures, the Bush-Cheney campaign must make up substantial ground at their Convention.
The average winning incumbent has had a job approval rating of 60%. Indeed, every incumbent who has won reelection has had his job approval in the mid-50's or higher at this point. In recent polling, Bush's average approval rating has been 48%. President Bush must emerge from his convention having dramatically altered public perception of his performance in office.
President Bush has the opportunity to achieve an average, or even greater, bounce from his convention. Typically, elected incumbents go into their conventions with a 9-point lead, while incumbents who have gone on to win enter their conventions with a 21-point lead. Most current polls show the race quite close. This gives the President substantial room to bounce. By contrast, Senator Kerry entered his convention in a far stronger position than the average challenger. The average challenger goes into his convention 16 points behind, while Senator Kerry entered his convention with a 1-2 point lead. This gave Senator Kerry much less room to bounce.
However, as the data above make clear, average is not enough for President Bush. Incumbents who went on to win reelection had an average lead of 27 points after their convention. Indeed, the average elected incumbent - winners and losers - had a lead of 16 points after their conventions. An average bounce would still leave Bush well below the historical mark set by other incumbents, particularly those who went on to victory.
Perhaps most important, the average elected incumbent experienced a 4-point drop in his share of the two-party vote from the post-convention polling to Election Day. Thus, to beat the odds, President Bush will need to be garnering 55% of the two-party vote after his convention. Anything less than that and the President will remain in grave political danger.
This Swift boat attack is a predictable Karl Rove smear. Here's what I want Kerry to say, not that anyone asked:
At long last, we have to ask: Mr. President, have you no shame?
You said you looked forward to a campaign on the issues, one based on mutual respect. And yet some of your largest supporters are sponsoring an unrelenting campaign of mudslinging, attacking my record in the service. The connections between your campaign and these outrageous attacks are close and documented. So, stop your flip-flopping. Don't say you want a clean campaign and then turn your back as mud is thrown in your name.
The other day, a man at one of your carefully controlled town hall events said, "We've got a candidate for President out here with two self-inflicted scratches, and I take that as an insult. " And how did you reply? Did you do the decent thing? Did you try to quiet the applause? Did you tell him that you'd have no part in such accusations against a man who put on a uniform and put himself in harm's way to serve his country, like millions of other veterans? No, here's what you said: "Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. " Thank you? Mr. President, where is your common decency?
These trumped up, false attacks on my war record and my character are distractions from the real issues that face America. You did this to my friend and great patriot, Max Cleland, who left three limbs in Vietnam. Now you are doing it to me. Your pattern is clear: You can't campaign on the issues so you attack veterans, people who when they were needed showed up and did their duty. In the name of respect for those of us who did our service and in the name of the American people who face issues that will shape our destiny, I call on you to make good on your word and denounce these attacks.
By the way, be sure to read JM Marshall's "bitch slap" theory of politics. It helps explain why the Bush campaign has been going after Kerry's war record so hard.
John Kerry in a speech to firefighters, on the attacks on his service record:
Over the last week or so, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been attacking me. Of course, this group isn’t interested in the truth – and they’re not telling the truth. They didn’t even exist until I won the nomination for president.
But here’s what you really need to know about them. They’re funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They’re a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know—he wants them to do his dirty work.
Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.
As firefighters you risk your lives everyday. You know what it’s like to see the truth in the moment. You’re proud of what you’ve done—and so am I.
Of course, the President keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: “Bring it on.”
I’m not going to let anyone question my commitment to defending America—then, now, or ever. And I’m not going to let anyone attack the sacrifice and courage of the men who saw battle with me.
Here's the new ad from the Kerry camp on this topic.
The Republicans continue to repeat that Edwards is the 4th most liberal Senator. This is, however, based on 40 of his votes in 2003. His average "liberal score" over the five years he's been in office is 75.7%. In fact, Richard Cohen writes: "From 1999 to 2002, Edwards had ranked among the more conservative Democratic senators. In 2002, only 11 of the 50 Senate Democrats voted more conservatively." (More info here.)
In general, I like the fourth most liberal senator more than whoever the fifth is, but I also like to see this coming from a national party.
The Campaign for America's Future has set up a schedule of events for progressives outside the confines of the Convention, including an opening address by Howard Dean and Michael Moore on Tuesday at 2pm. Maybe I'll go.
I'm also interested in the one on Thursday at which Steve Rosenthal, CEO of ACT, speaks. Mainly I want to see if Steve is the guy who played rhythm guitar in my high school band, Wheel and the Spokesmen. (Perhaps you've never heard of us?)
Trippi on why Edwards lost the campaign to become the presidential candidate. He attributes it primarily to bad luck, and recommends that the Kerry campaign learn from the Edwards campaign.
A new poll by the Harvard Shorenstein Center says that interest in politics is up but interest in the convention is down.
The television audience for the national party conventions has declined in size in recent elections, and preliminary indicators suggest that 2004 will not reverse the trend. In the Shorenstein Center’s Vanishing Voter Project national poll of July 14-18, only 31 percent of the respondents said they intended to watch some or most of the upcoming Democratic convention. During the same week of the 2000 campaign, only slightly fewer—28 percent—said they anticipated watching some or most of the upcoming convention.
This finding is surprising in that election interest is much higher this year than it was in 2000. In our recent poll, 50 percent of the respondents said they had paid at least some attention during the past week to the presidential campaign, up from 28 percent during the comparable week of the 2000 campaign.
[Thanks to Rebecca MacKinnon for the link.]
Kerry raised more in June through his website, $12.1 million, than the Bush campaign has raised online since it opened shop last year.
Why? I don't believe it's because Kerry's donation page is so much better than Bush's. Is it the constituencies? The marketing? The candidates?
Why?
The latest email missive from MoveOn.org (which, by the way, I can't find on their site), boasts about the effect their $17M ad campaign has had. For example, here's a report on a single ad:
The $87 Billion in Iraq ad was seen by almost 20,000,000 people, an average of 11 times each, in the five target states, over the two week period it ran. As a result, according to our polling, we saw a significant shift away from President Bush and his policies, especially his policy in Iraq. People clearly responded to this message and nearly a million people shifted their thinking about the President. They also changed their thinking about the war...
The email then cites a 6% swing in the polls. Now, of course, as MoveOn certainly would acknowledge, other factors affect the polling, yet I am of two minds about this whole thing. (I am, of course, of only one mind about the polls swing in my preferred direction.) I love MoveOn and admire what it's done. On the other hand, I hate to see political decisions decided by television advertising. As the MoveOn email says, two of the finalists in their grassroots ad campaign "tested very well," so those are the two MoveOn aired. I'm sure the "Girls Gone Wild" ads test very well too.
So, on the one hand, I hate the way we're reducing political decisions to 30 second ads that test well. On the other, I want W out of office and, as the MoveOn message says (in depressing marketing-speak):
In the target states, the presence of continuing opposition issue ads is producing less recall of the Bush campaign’s anti-Kerry advertising. Raising real issues in our ads has the effect of neutralizing the Bush campaign attack ads.
So we're stuck in a stalemate. We can't stop because they won't stop, and they won't stop because we won't. And neither of us will stop because advertising works (despite what some obnoxious self-appointed pundits have said, especially in thesis #74).
Since we can't ban all political ads from TV — free speech and all that — it looks like we'll have to go for the decentralized solution: Let's give everyone TiVo.
The West Virginia Gazette reports that a couple were arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts at a rally for the President:
A husband and wife who wore anti-Bush T-shirts to the president’s Fourth of July appearance aren’t going down without a fight: They will be represented by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union as they contest the trespassing charges against them Thursday morning in Charleston Municipal Court.
Police took Nicole and Jeff Rank away in handcuffs from the event, which was billed as a presidential appearance, not a campaign rally. They were wearing T-shirts that read, “Love America, Hate Bush.”
Spectators who wore pro-Bush T-shirts and Bush-Cheney campaign buttons were allowed to stay.
Thanks to Jon Lebkowsky at GreaterDemocracy for the link.
I didn't come out of this interview cum slapfight having more respect for Nader.
If I were John Kerry, here's what I'd say about the gay marriage amendment in a debate:
There he goes again. George Bush — the uniter, not the divider — is using this issue as a wedge to drive Americans apart by making this complex question of morality, religion, states rights, and love into a simple yes-no, "you're either with us or against us." Americans are smarter than that, Mr. President. We can handle tough questions in all their complexity. And, frankly, it's a failure of leadership and of vision that you can only see things in black and white.
Then I'd pants W.
From the NY Times:
When a questioner noted that Mr. Edwards had been described as charming and a "nimble campaigner" and asked Mr. Bush to compare the one-term senator to Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush snapped: "Dick Cheney can be president. Next?"
I understand the argument that Edwards isn't experienced enough to be president - although he's got more experience than W had in 2000 - but does the Bush campaign really want us to dwell on the testicle-shriveling possibility of President Cheney?
I just received a letter (paper and everything) saying that I've been credentialed to blog from the Democratic Convention. Woohoo!
The Kerry campaign is countering the new Bush ad that features footage of John McCain by releasing a report by Judy Woodruff:
Judy Woodruff: “I just called the office of John McCain just to clarify whether the Bush campaign checked with him that they were using him in this ad, because we know that George W. Bush and John McCain have not necessarily been close friends. The McCain people said yes, he was called, they did give him the courtesy to let him know. But they also point out that this is exactly what they expected, that this was an appearance that John McCain made on behalf of George W. Bush, that John McCain wasn’t consulted about the timing. And they went on to point out that John McCain remains close friends, good friends with John Kerry and John Edwards and that he does not plan to criticize either one of them during this campaign. So it’s a little interesting wrinkle.”
Just blurt out it out, Senator McCain: You think Bush has bungled the war on terrorism. Oh, and the Kerry administration is leaving the light on for you in the office of the Secretary of Defense... : )
The Kerry campaign is countering the new Bush ad that features footage of John McCain by releasing a report by Judy Woodruff:
Judy Woodruff: “I just called the office of John McCain just to clarify whether the Bush campaign checked with him that they were using him in this ad, because we know that George W. Bush and John McCain have not necessarily been close friends. The McCain people said yes, he was called, they did give him the courtesy to let him know. But they also point out that this is exactly what they expected, that this was an appearance that John McCain made on behalf of George W. Bush, that John McCain wasn’t consulted about the timing. And they went on to point out that John McCain remains close friends, good friends with John Kerry and John Edwards and that he does not plan to criticize either one of them during this campaign. So it’s a little interesting wrinkle.”
Just blurt out it out, Senator McCain: You think Bush has bungled the war on terrorism. Oh, and the Kerry administration is leaving the light on for you in the office of the Secretary of Defense... : )
The right-wing National Review is already telling itself that Edwards is bad news for the Kerry ticket. Since I've never been right with a single political prediction (All hail presidents Dukakis and Dean!), it doesn't matter that I think Byron York's article is wrong, but I do.
York's reasoning is that Edwards made his national bones with his "Two Americas" stump speech that said nothing about terrorism. Edwards polls just ahead of Kucinich on the issue, according to York. And this is election is going to be about terrorism. Hence, Edwards hurts the ticket.
IMO, the Democratic ticket can't afford the Bush-Cheney '04 gambit of putting an affable, detached values-guy at the top with the reassurance that there's a hard-ass grownup to guide in him in the #2 spot. Kerry will win this election by being a candidate Americans trust to run the government he's leading. If we think Kerry isn't credible on terrorism, then it doesn't matter if he appoints Thor as his vice president, he's going to lose. (But, Kerry is credible on terrorism - I feel safer just having him run than I do with the Bush crowd of gasoline-tossers running the show.)
Appointing a war vice president would have played into the Republican strategy of defining this election as being only about who is harder on the bad guys. The Edwards selection says that terrorism is not the only issue we need to confront. Nor can we afford to confront it in isolation from the rest of what's going on in our country and in the world.
I think it's a great selection. I look forward to eight years of Kerry followed by eight years of Edwards.
Go Kerry!
At the page of the official George W Bush campaign site where you get to print out your own customized poster, if you say you're from Massachusetts, you get an error message. Of the half dozen other states I tried, none gave an error message.
I think I'm going to take this personally...
Click to get the full screen capture.
Fantastic speech by Gore today about the administration's dangerous consolidation of executive power:
The seductive exercise of unilateral power has led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that would have been the worst nightmare of our framers...
...In the end, for this administration, it is all about power. This lie about the invented connection between al Qaeda and Iraq was and is the key to justifying the current ongoing Constitutional power grab by the President. So long as their big flamboyant lie remains an established fact in the public’s mind, President Bush will be seen as justified in taking for himself the power to make war on his whim. He will be seen as justified in acting to selectively suspend civil liberties – again on his personal discretion – and he will continue to intimidate the press and thereby distort the political reality experienced by the American people during his bid for re-election.
And here I thought The Daily Show was the only place capable of telling the plain truth. Wait ... Gore cites The Daily Show:
Ironically, his [Cheney's] interview ended up being fodder for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stewart played Cheney’s outright denial that he had ever said that representatives of Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence met in Prague. Then Stewart froze Cheney’s image and played the exact video clip in which Cheney had indeed directly claimed linkage between the two, catching him on videotape in a lie. At that point Stewart said, addressing himself to Cheney’s frozen image on the television screen, "It’s my duty to inform you that your pants are on fire."
Until I find where this is posted on line officially, I've unofficially posted it here.
I just got a call from Rep. Tom Reynolds, Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee asking for my help. I am, after all, a co-chair of the Republican Small Business Council of Massachusetts. (I may have gotten the name wrong.)
Someone named Lisa Meyers asked me to listen to a taped message from Chairman Reynolds in which he assured me that as a small business leader, I am what makes America's economy grow. But, surely I don't want to be impeded by "taxation, red tape and over-regulation." Chairman Tom reminded me that the previous electoral victory had been "razor thin" (decided by a single vote, actually), and "if the unthinkable happens and liberals take control of the Congress," I am going to be "at the top of their hit list."
After the message, Greg Henchman (no, I'm not kidding) introduced himself and asked if I would be attending the Presidential dinner I had been invited to.
No, I told him, and I asked him to pass along to Representative Reynolds that I found his message to be over the top. There are differences of opinions, I said, but liberals aren't really going to be putting me on a hit list.
Disingenuous on my part? Yeah, I guess so, in that while I haven't told any lies, I also haven't volunteered relevant information. Until they ask me if I support the President or am a registered Republican, I am happy to let them show me what they're showing their supporters.
The Republicans have launched a new Internet ad that cranks up the ol' class warfare. Ah, yes, those Dickensian childhood years W spent clearin' brush and boiling it up into thin gruel.
The transcript is here. The video is here.
Pray for Reason wants us to counter the prayers of the pro-Bush religious folks with our own prayers:
Why are we collecting this information? The Presidential Prayer Team website has collected 2.8 million pledges to pray for unreasonable religious fervor. There are 300 million people in this country, which means that there are 297 million people who probably do not want our foreign policies to resemble a holy war. We want to counteract the affect of the Presidential Prayer Team by amassing as many reasonable people as possible.
It's hard to tell this site and the ones it's countering from parody, which is a little disturbing...
(Thanks to Mark Dionne for the link.)
The Washington Post is running a bi-partisan (non-partisan?) "Create a Slogan" contest.
The DNC has started a convention blog. Matt Stoller, who likes to ask funny-disarming questions at conferences, is one of the bloggers, which is a very good sign.
The blog is looking for a name. Any suggestions?
1. So, we're going to tear down Abu Ghraib. Excellent. But we're going to replace it with a modern maximum security prison. Replacing an old prison with a new one. Too bad we couldn't have stopped with the first half of the metaphor.
2. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Bush over-mispronounciated Abu Ghraib all three times he uttered the words:
The prison, the scene of torture under Saddam Hussein and the US military, has a name that English speakers usually pronounce as "abu-grabe".
But Mr Bush, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it "abugah-rayp". The second version came out "abu-garon", and the third attempt sounded like "abu-garah".
(I was on the road and missed the speech.)
BTW, here's what Al Jazeera had to say about the speech. Since tearing down the prison is a symbolic act, let's hope that the majority of Iraqi's don't see it the way Al Jazeera does. (Al Jazeera also ran a piece claiming that Nick Berg was killed by the CIA in Abu Ghraib. Among the "evidence": One of the 5 murderers "appeared wearing very clean tennis shoes. This will not be the case with an Al Qaeda fighter." Jeez.)
Robin in a comment to this entry points out that I've been fooled by what seems to be a spoof site. Aljazeer.com is not the same english.aljazeera.net. Sorry. (Thanks, Robin.)
The Bush campaign has spent $126M so far to drive the President's ratings to their lowest point so far.
Let's hope they keep it up!
Micah Sifry, who writes for The Nation among other places, asks that many of us make a small donation in order to beat back a Big Money attempt to undo campaign reform in Arizona:
Arizona's pioneering full public financing system, called the Clean Elections Act, is under attack by wealthy special interests with deep pockets and national conservative ties that run all the way from Tom Delay to Bush's fundraising machine. They've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a constitutional ballot on the November ballot that could crush America's best hope for people-powered democracy--we need to do the same to make sure the dream of elections, not auctions, doesn't die.
"There are those who would vote for a tree stump to replace the president..."
— Mickey Edwards, "The Making of the Next Al Gore," Boston Globe, May 15, op-ed.
First sighting here.
The Boston Globe today quotes a former Naderite who is reluctantly supporting Kerry as describing the Senator as "tree-stumpy." Ulp.
Islamicate has sent an unthinkably radical letter to W and Kerry suggesting that the US president ought to uphold the Constitution. What a concept!
It's a well-put letter.
The Bush-Cheney team — or is it the Al Franken wing of the Democratic party? — has put up a new page touting the Administration. (If you're uncertain, check out the donation page.) (Thanks to Mark Federman for the link.)
Just in case you were having trouble believing the hypocrisy of the Bush administration, here's a frame of the Bush-Cheney ad that used a flag-draped coffin of a firefighter. Now please compare and contrast with Bush's forbidding the media to show photos of flag-draped coffins of our dead soldiers.
I don't have a problem with using images of fallen heroes in campaign ads. I do have a little problem with censorship for rank political aims.
Great news! Congressman Tom Reynolds of the National Republican Congressional Committee has personally invited me, via a tape recording played over the phone, to become an honorary chairman.
Of course I said yes, proudly and humbly.
The live person who came on after the tape assured me that this was very exclusive. I'm going to get surveys and have a chance to attend a dinner with President Bush. And, as my first act as honorary chairman, I was given the opportunity to pay $500 to sign a full page in the WSJ. Plus I'd get aooden gavel and a picture of the President.
"Can be an honorary chairman without taking part in this ad?"
"I haven't had anyone ask me that before. Let me ask my supervisor." A few seconds pass. "You don't have to have your name appear in the ad."
"But I don't want to give money..."
"I know $500 is a lot. Would you be able to give $200-300?"
"But Congressman Reynolds just told me how much he values my opinion. Now it sounds like you just want my money. I'd love to give you my opinion."
"Very good, sir. We'd love to hear from you. So, can I sign you up as an honorary chairman?"
"Will I have to give you money?"
"No, sir."
"Then, great, yes, I humbly accept."
She takes my personal information.
"I have a question," I say. "I'm an honorary chairman of what?"
"Of your state."
"But what am I chairman of?"
"You'll get surveys..."
"That's great, but I was wondering if I'm honorary chairman of blank. Could you fill in the blank?"
"Your state."
"Ok, great."
She also offered me 24/7 access to the Republican convention via the Internet. Woohoo!
BurningBird reports a conversation that we can only hope is going on around the country, not just because it's bad news for Bush but because it means we're not as easily misled as some would have us believe.
Zack Exley of MoveOn.org has signed on as director of Kerry's online organizing efforts. This is great news for us Kerry supporters. Zack is smart, focused, passionate and fun to be around.
Over the course of the Dean campaign, Zack changed his mind - a political guy capable of changing his mind! - about the importance of using the Net to enable supporters to self-organize and connect. He's come to think that there's value to that, but his heart and his mindset remain centered on using the Net to do the bread-and-butter of campaigns: raise money, get out the vote, etc.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on a panel that "debated" Zack and a guy from RightMarch.com. I argued that using the Net to let us supporters connect is part of the bread and butter of campaigns, especially when the campaigns are going to bomb us back to the stoned age with Wal-Mart style ads. So, while I'm thrilled that someone as talented as Zack is going to be directing the Net side of the Kerry campaign, I'll be very interested in seeing how seriously the campaign takes the task - the opportunity - of using the connective power of the Net to generate enthusiasm for the candidate.
(A good sign: Cam Barrett is helping the Kerry campaign figure out what to do with their online activism tools.)
Bill Clinton, talking about the Republicans at the big Democratic Unity event last night:
"They're the mature party, they're the daddy party. They remind of teenagers who got their inheritance too soon and couldn't wait to blow it."
Looks like someone's been reading George Lakoff. And it's a Good Thing, too.
I'm on the GOPTeamLeader mailing list (you can be to...just sign up). This week's message says I'll enjoy this video: Click here. I'm sure I will enjoy it, but I'm at a conference and can't get to it.
So, take it as a blind recommendation, which I guess means it isn't really a recommendation at all.
If we're going to have a gaffe-prone candidate, we might as well have Dean and do the gaffes right.
The Kerry site launched the D-Bunker blog recently. It fact checks Republican claims. Yes, of course it's biased. But useful. It might be even more useful if it allowed comments or even included a wiki where we all could fact check some asses.
Salon also reminds us of the Anenberg Fact Check Center.
Free Republic has put up a site on the Winter Soldier investigation, making the case that John Kerry's opposition to the Vietnam war betrayed his fellow soldiers.
If those cheap slurs on his patriotism is the best they can do, then the Kerry candidacy is in good shape.
Don't they have the slightest sense of what it means to live in a democracy?
Joe Conason analyzes the page, and uses Colin Powell's autobiography to back up Kerry's "traitorous" claim that My Lai was not an isolated incident.
Brian Hindo in BusinessWeekOnline has a trenchant article about Kerry's presence on Friendster. Brian assumes that Kerry's profile is carefully calculated to impress us the right way:
He has posted a picture of himself windsurfing and lists other interests such as "hunting, motorcycles...and offering a REAL DEAL to America." His favorite music choices include the Beatles, Bruce Sprinsgteen ("No Surrender is my campaign song"), and U2.
That's the problem with artificial social networks such as Friendster and Orkut: There is no possibility of any of us presenting "the real deal."
Note: Many years ago I formulated a law that says that whatever people most emphasize about themselves is the biggest lie they tell. If your boss tells you that he's all about teamwork, then he's all about himself. If Nixon says that he is not a crook, then he is. If Bush tells us that he's a decisive leader, we know he's not. If Kerry insists that he's the real deal...
I listened to Kerry's victory speech last night and was impressed. Perhaps because he's an ideological opportunist (yeah, this is going to be a left-handed compliment at best), he has absorbed the best messages from the other candidates. I thought his rhetoric and the set of issues he propounded were right on. (I wish the Internet and innovation were on his radar screen, but that's my own little "special interest.")
I just hope that he hasn't peaked. All three Boston Globe columnists today worry that his shallowness will be exposed over the long term. Why is he running, other than to dethrone King W? I believe Edwards and Dean had issues that kept them going, in addition to their personal ambition of course. Edwards cared about the immorality of there being two Americas. Dean had an inchoate vision of what a great country set free from special interests could do. I honestly can't tell you what gets Kerry going. And I've been paying attention.
I desperately hope Kerry figures it out.
The item on his list that struck me as having the most potential — keeping in mind that I have never ever once been right about this sort of thing — is the idea that Bush the Uniter has been Bush the Divider. Maybe Kerry's announced destiny is to pull America together again, rejecting the wedge politics Bush has been practicing here and abroad. Of course, I'm predisposed to this message as a registered Deaniac and Netiac.
Mini Bogus Contest: What Kerry bumpersticker would be worth driving down the re-sale value of your car?
One nation again
Back together
Because we are all Americans
For the America we love
Divorced Bush, Married Kerry, Got Custody of the Supreme Court
The Economist (pay-per-view) speculates about Cheney being asked to step aside in order to bring in a VP who might be more helpful to W's campaign.
The article suggests that Rudy Giuliani wouldn't "play second fiddle," although I think he might see it as the fastest way to becoming president. The article also pooh-poohs Condi, without giving a reason. It instead focuses on Bill Owens, Gov. of Colorado, since it would help derail Kerry's screw-the-South strategy that requires winning much of the southwest.
I found the final paragraph is amusing:
Mr Cheney would have to retire gracefully, blaming his dodgy heart (he has already had four heart attacks) and no doubt accepting a post as senior counsellor from a grief-stricken president. Persuading such a powerful vice-president to step aside will be no easy thing, of course. But the Bushes don't have a reputation as the Corleone family of the Republican Party for nothing. The next time Mr Cheney takes that jet to go duck-shooting, he may well find James Baker slipping into the seat behind him, with "a litl' proposal to discuss for the good of the party".
(Thanks to Dan Squires for the link.)
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