Monthly Archives: September 2008

In The Bag

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I’m going to start with the conclusion:

The public image of Obama as an idealistic, post-race, post-partisan, well-spoken and honest young man with the wisdom and courage befitting a great national leader is a confection spun by a willing conspiracy of Obama, his publicist (David Axelrod) and most of the senior editors, producers and reporters of the national media.

Perhaps that is why the National Journal’s respected correspondent Stuart Taylor wrote, “The media can no longer be trusted to provide accurate and fair campaign reporting and analysis.”

That conspiracy not only has Photoshopped out all of Obama’s imperfections (and dirtied up his opponent McCain’s image) but also has put most of his questionable history down the memory hole.

It’s the conclusion of Tony Blankley’s latest on RCP, “The Man Who Never Was”, an allusion to the WWII-espionage classic (and true story) in which British intelligence sent dropped a corpse wtih a completely fictional identity and a stack of faked war plans ashore in occupied France to deceive the Germans.

The media must think we’re the Germans:

They consciously have ignored whole years of his life and have shown a lack of curiosity about such gaps, which bespeaks a lack of journalistic instinct.

Thus, the public image of Obama is of a “man who never was.”

…The mainstream media ruthlessly and endlessly repeat any McCain gaffes while ignoring Obama gaffes. You have to go to weird little Web sites to see all the stammering and stuttering that Obama needs before getting out a sentence fragment or two. But all you see on the networks is an eventually clear sentence from Obama. You don’t see Obama’s ludicrous gaffe that Iran is a tiny country and no threat to us. Nor his 57 American states gaffe. Nor his forgetting, if he ever knew, that Russia has a veto in the U.N. Nor his whining and puerile “come on” when he is being challenged. This is the kind of editing one would expect from Goebbels’ disciples, not Cronkite’s.

And it’s not just building a fictional person; they’re trying to tear down a real one:

More appalling, a skit on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” last weekend suggested that Gov. Palin’s husband had sex with his own daughters. That show was written with the assistance of Al Franken, Democratic Party candidate in Minnesota for the U.S. Senate. Talk about incest.

Where have we seen that before?
And of course, the real deception:

But worse than all the unfair and distorted reporting and image projecting are the shocking gaps in Obama’s life that are not reported at all. The major media simply have not reported on Obama’s two years at New York’s Columbia University, where, among other things, he lived a mere quarter-mile from former terrorist Bill Ayers. Later, they both ended up as neighbors and associates in Chicago. Obama denies more than a passing relationship with Ayers. Should the media be curious? In only two weeks, the media have focused on all the colleges Gov. Palin has attended, her husband’s driving habits 20 years ago, and the close criticism of the political opponents Gov. Palin had when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

But in two years, they haven’t bothered to see how close Obama was with the terrorist Ayers.

Go read the whole thing.

And ask your friendly local media “what’s the weather like in that bag, there?”

Beware Of “Miracles”

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Whenever the Minnesota DFL wants to yank at voters’ heartstrings, they invoke the “Minnesota Miracle” – the period in the sixties and seventies where Democrats and liberal Republicans (which was most of them at that time) imposed a slew of government programs and wealth redistributions, and claimed credit for an economic and social leap forward (in a state that had already been amply blessed with brains, resources and geographic accidents, and would have grown like a weed anyway).

Oh, there was definitely a “miracle” in Minnesota – which had been a poor, hardscrabble backwater state beholden to mining, lumber, agriculture and milling until the early 20th Century.  Minnesota did grow immensely; it would have grown, I suspect, had government merely gotten out of the way, too.

But government – and today, almost forty years later, big-government advocates – claim the “Miracle” as their own.

And to them, the “miracle” was about one thing; being happy to pay for a better Minnesota.

And they’re baaaaaaaack:

[Complaints that schools aren’t “underfunded”] and the sad state of the economy haven’t stopped DFL legislators from pushing what they hope will be one of the biggest school funding boosts in recent history — and one likely to involve a tax increase.

The plan is dubbed the “New Minnesota Miracle” after the state’s 1971 initiative that shifted most school funding from local property taxes to the state.

The new plan calls for $2.5 billion more a year for K-12 education, though it could be phased in over a number of years. That figure includes $400 million earmarked to lower property taxes for homeowners who have watched their tax bills go up after local school funding requests were approved at the polls. The state now spends more than $7 billion a year, or about 40 percent of the state’s total general fund budget, on K-12 education.

Calling it a “new Minnesota Miracle”, of course, is putting lipstick on a pig; it’s just another DFL tax increase, and yet another sop to another powerful DFL special interest.  The plan has no real education reforms; indeed, I think it’s fair to say that it’s at least partly a reaction to the erosion of enrollment caused by the limited school choice that Minnesotans have gotten in the past couple of decades.  But schools will stay the same; they’ll just have more of your money.

Look, Education Minnesota and the DFL (pardon the redundancy); show us some reforms.  Not just windowdressing, mind you, but reforms, ideas that change things for the better; better still, accomplish something, like increasing graduation rates; then declare a “miracle”.

State Of Mind

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A new survey tried to analyze America’s personality, state-by-state.

The University of Cambridge (UK) measured 600,000 people for extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness – and found some interesting results.
I gotta say I didn’t see this bit coming:

And what of the unexpected finding that North Dakota is the most outgoing state in the union? Yes, North Dakota, the same state memorialized years ago in the movie “Fargo” as a frozen wasteland of taciturn souls. Turns out you can be a laconic extrovert, at least in the world of psychology. The trait is defined in part by strong social networks and tight community bonds, which are characteristic of small towns across the Great Plains. (Though not, apparently, small towns in New England, which ranks quite low on the extraversion scale.)

Hm. I must have come from the dour, taciturn corner of North Dakota.

Worth a read.

The Domino Effect

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McCain Up Three In Michigan   

Is Joe Biden’s Mouth on Auto-Pilot?

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Is he secretly throwing the game for someone on Intrade?

Do these guys talk at all? Doesn’t seem to be much strategery going on.

I said it before, I’ll say it again: Barack, dump the dead weight! Hillary is your man.

The Delaware Senator took issue with an attack ad from his own side in an interview with CBS, telling Katie Couric that the Obama hit on McCain’s ignorance of computers and technology was “terrible.” The ad paints McCain as out of touch — and all but calls him ancient — but doesn’t mention that the Arizona Senator’s war injuries actually prevent him from using computers for an extended period.

Asked whether he’s disappointed with the tone of the campaign, including the ad that Couric characterized as “making fun of John McCain’s inability to use a computer,” Biden said “I thought that was terrible by the way.

“I didn’t know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it”

Biden’s right…but at the same time…wrong. Even when you are rooting for the other team, we all cringe when someone on the field fumbles, picks up the ball again and run’s the wrong way.

Biden has also been contradicting Obama on key topics. Politico’s Mike Allen reports on an Obama interview with erstwhile Couric colleague Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today”:

The Democrat attacked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for initially opposing the federal government’s intervention to save insurance giant AIG.

“I think what has been clear during this entire past 10 days is John McCain has not had clarity and a grasp on the situation,” Obama [said].

But Lauer pointed out that Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), had initially said the same thing–on “Today,” no less.

“I think that in that situation, I think Joe should have waited, as well,” Obama said.

You best listen up, Joe. That’s your boss talking. Or did you think FDR is your boss?

Biden also told Couric, “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’ ”

The stock market crashed Oct. 29, 1929. FDR became president March 4, 1933. According to the Information Please Almanac, FDR made his first television appearance April 30, 1939.

One more: Biden v. Obama on energy policy

He was asked by an anti-pollution campaigner about clean coal–a controversial approach in Democratic circles for which Obama has voiced support, particularly during the Kentucky primary.

Biden’s apparent answer: He supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States.

“No coal plants here in America,” he said. “Build them, if they’re going to build them, over there. Make them clean.”

“We’re not supporting clean coal,” he said of himself and Obama. They do, on paper, support clean coal.

The answer seems to play into John McCain’s case that Obama has been saying “no” to new sources of energy.

That ought to be helpful in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Democrats flying high on Obama’s candidacy pre-convention have got to be biting their nails now.

The Washington Post reports that the Obama campaign has released a statement attributed to Biden “walking back” the criticism of the Obama ad making fun of McCain’s disabilities: “Having now reviewed the ad, it is even more clear to me that given the disgraceful tenor of Senator McCain’s ads and their persistent falsehoods, his campaign is in no position to criticize,” Biden supposedly said.

Which begs the question: why aren’t we seeing Obammy and Joe Blow together much?

This is quickly becoming a disaster…for Obama. Biden wouldn’t know the difference.

Let The Debate (Parties) Begin!

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One of the most unforgettable nights of my life – and certainly of my radio “career” – was about this time four years ago.  AM1280 did some horsetrading and got the NARN a ballroom at the Hilton in downtown Minneapolis on the occasion of the final Presidential debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry. 

We expected maybe 100 people, if we were lucky – especially when we saw the weather that day; it was cold and miserable, with a pelting icy drizzle and a stiff wind.  We got the ballroom set up; a big Jumbotron, maybe 150 chairs around tables, one cash bar, a couple of bowls of bar snacks. 

We got overwhelmed.  Over 700 people showed up.  The Hilton opened up two more ballrooms and scoured the place for chairs, another porta-bar, and enough peanuts and booze to satisfy the crowd. 

That was the moment I felt the NARN had more or less arrived.

“But what have you done for us lately, Berg?”

Good point!  Listen up!

AM1280 The Patriot will be hosting a debate viewing party at Trocadero in Minneapolis (it’s right by the Monte Carlo, on Third Avenue at First Street North) for the VP debate on October 2 and the final Presidential debate on October 15.

We’ll have a free appetizers and a cash bar for your gastronomical pleasure (and let me tell you – nobody does appetizers like Trocadero!). Both debates go from 8p CST to 9:30p CST and doors will open at 7:30p-ish.

The events are free – please RSVP at the handy AM1280 RSVP Page so we can plan accordingly.

So sign on up; October 2 for the Veep, October 15 for the final Presidential debate.

We’ll see you there!

Square Bullets For The Infidels

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I remember reading a book about thirty years ago – The Social History Of The Machine Gun, or something like that.  It was a pseudo-academic treatise, adapted for some shred of popular market appeal, that talked about the social roots of fully-automatic weapons.

In one of the first chapters, they included the plans for an early, rudimentary multi-chambered cannon.  It dated back to the 16th or 17th century, and had five or six chambers attached to a circular plate; the plate could be rotated to push the chambers up against the barrel for firing – sort of the anscestor of the Gatling Gun (or, for serious gun geeks, the multi-chambered Aden gun).

It had one extra feature noted in the plans; it used a traditional round chamber to fire round bullets “for use against Christians”, the plans noted (I’m paraphrasing).  But if the troops were facing Moslem troops, the plate could be swapped out for one with chambers bored for square bullets (and no, I don’t recall any plans for square barrel bores), on the theory that square bullets would cause grislier wounds and do more damage.  Of course, being Mohammedans, the extra cruelty was justified, at least to the inventor.

There’s nothing new, there, of course.  A teacher of mine in high school – a Vietnam-era veteran who served in the US or Germany, if memory serves – recalled that one of the first things that the drill instructors did in basic training in wartime was to dehumanize the enemy; Vietnamese and Japanese and German humans became “Gooks” and “Japs” and “Krauts” and what-have-you.  Because killing humans is hard – but pushing a bayonet into a hateful caricature is easy.

Of course, German society (like much of Europe) had a solid head-start in dehumanizing Jews.  Hitler pushed things over the edge – but when it came to reducing a class of humans to untermenschen, he stood on the shoulders of giants.  Hateful, loathsome giants.

For most people – normal, decent people, at any rate – the first step on the road to unspeakable hatred is the belief that somehow, your opponent is less worthy of the decency most of us afford to actual humans.  And once you get past that, really, it’s a hop skip and jump to any ghastly horror you can imagine.

Emily from X Perspective is, by the way, a normal, decent person.  But a recent posts shows some of the dehumanization that is swallowing the left in re Sarah Palin.

[Not following politics this week? GOP VP Candidate Sarah Palin’s 17-yr old daughter is pregnant. Which we’d ignore if Palin wasn’t adamantly anti-sex-ed and anti-abortion.]

I admit to a small amount of hypocrisy of my own here: in general, I believe we should leave the kids out of this election – it’s not the girl’s fault her mother is running for office. But this was just too spot-on not to share.

“We should leave kids out of politics – unless we really hate what their parents [supposedly] stand for?”

And then, all bets are off?  Because decency is only for people who believe as “we” do?

And where’s Palin’s “hypocrisy?”  She – and, we presume, her daughter and future son-in-law – are pro-life.  And they’re following through on that belief.  Perhaps that’s a form of logic impermeable by conservatives; either way, I’m just not seeing it. 

Leave aside that the Juno analogy is completely off.  It supports Palin’s, and the pro-lifers’, stances; the Juno character had the baby, which, by the way, pissed off the pro-abortion crowd to no end – especially here in the Twin Cities, from whence Juno screenwriter and last year’s Hottest Writer Ever, Diablo Cody, sprang a few years back; local “feminists” were in a aorta-busting froth that Ms. Cody didn’t have young Juno abort her “oops”, more or less as they are with Bristol and, for that matter, Sarah Palin.  On whom, by the way, “feminists” have also bestowed dictatorial power over her daughter and her “reproductive choices”.  But that’s just a sign of a photoshopper with no command of metaphor.

On the other hand, every time the left slags Palin and her family, there’s another struggling middle-class-or-lower family who realizes there’s somebody running for the White House who just plain gets it.  And that translates into votes.

So by all means, photoshoppers; photoshop on!

Well, That Was Fun

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Barack Obama’s short-lived bid to be the first Democrat to win North Dakota since Democrats became America-Lasters has apparently disappeared into one of those deep prairie snowdrifts:

[Obama staff spokesbeing Amy Brundage] declined to say how many campaign workers were being shifted, but other Democratic activists put the number at more than 50. Obama has opened 11 North Dakota campaign offices and run television advertising in the state, which is unusual for a Democratic presidential candidate.

McCain’s campaign has no paid staff or offices in North Dakota.

The Obama campaign’s decision comes just before North Dakotans will begin marking early ballots for the Nov. 4 election. Absentee voting may start as early as Thursday, and county auditors have reported getting thousands of ballot applications.

Hm.  Who predicted this?

Why yes.  It was me. 

And who did not?  Why, him and him!

Not to say a Democrat could never win NoDak.  Just not any of the Democrats currently in the party.

Bill on Hillary

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I know, I know; I am sure the title will ilicit some interesting double entendre in the comments…have at it. 

Bawbwa Wawa: “Biew, Did Hiwawee want to be Vice Pwesident?”

Bill Clinton: “Not really.”

Right. It depends on what the meaning of the word “be” is?

“She would have been the best [choice] politically, at least in the short run, because of her enormous support [in] the country,“ Clinton said.

“She said ‘If he asks, I’ll do it because it’s my duty.’”

Sidenote: There is actually four minutes and fifty seven seconds where Whoopee Cushion doesn’t open her big mouth.

Bill Clinton makes an interesting point at about 3:45 in the video.

End Run

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“But why are Mac’s handlers keeping Palin away from the media?  Hah!  Evidence that she’s not ready for prime time!”

Interesting theory.

Now, reality:  They’re bypassing the mainstream media and going directly to the voters.

In fact they are allowing her message to be absorbed without the skepticism of the old gatekeepers interposed between Palin and voters.  The enormous crowds validate the approach and at the same time further diminish the MSM’s old guard who just can’t seem to grasp that their disapproval just doesn’t matter to most of America.

It worked for Reagan.  And given the froth that the MSM and the Obama campaign (pardon the redundancy) have worked themselves into, I think it’s working now.

Wasilla, Alaska Wheys in for Obama

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A rally in Wasilla, Alaska drew an impressive number of Obama supporters.

60.000 (I added the extra zeroes so as to be supportive) Obamanistas clumped for a show of support of the Junior Senator from Illinois.

Witty signs and shouts of praise for Obama came from the revelers. And although those passing by were generally cordial, a few one-finger salutes and derogatory comments were hurled from those motoring past on the Parks Highway at the intersection of Crusey Street.

Did email just arrive in Alaska? I’m pretty sure we got it here in Minnesohta in the 20th century.

Using 21st century connectivity, Fisher said she began e-mailing friends about the planned corner rally, which eventually blossomed into a mass e-mail announcement.

Well, there you have it. No one will be accusing those wiley Alaskan liberals, all sixty of them, of not knowing how to use email.

During a recent symposium in Willow, nearly 55 mushers from the area threw their support behind Obama

A Shot In the Dark first: The words symposium and mushers in the same sentence.

Okay, so 60 folks plus 55 mushers is…um…carry the one….yikes! That’s over a hundred!

Alaska appears not to be at risk.

Is Obama Losing the Hardhats and the Lunchbuckets?

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On November 4th, many of America’s hardest workers and most loyal Democrats are going to punch out, head to the polls and vote.

…for John McCain.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — You just knew that when Joe O’Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters.

“I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain,” O’Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved “Another Democrat for John McCain” signs and roared its approval.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s a seven with three zeros behind it. And why exactly are they leaving the DNC at the bottom of their lockers?

Race?

Oh oh.

(Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George) narrows the problem down to race. “There is no question, earlier in the primary campaign the racial issue was there, just like the gender issue was with Hillary for some unions,” he says.

“We in America like to think we don’t have any hang-ups or stereotypes. But because of our history and because of a lot of industrial psychology controlling the masses, people have innate prejudices.”

Did he just call his membership a bunch of racists? A history of racism?

George says that the mind-set of some people in the labor movement regarding race is no different than it is in church groups, or in the Republican Party.

Oh, scratch that. Union members, Republicans and the Spiritually Inclined are all racists. Gotcha.

Joe Rugola is George’s counterpart in Ohio and he, too, is seeing a problem with race and his members. Yet he also sees another dynamic going on — a respect among union members for McCain.

Might this be a little closer to the truth? Respect for McCain? And…huh? Because of their conservative values? Bam!

Stricker says that other than people not voting for a black candidate, a couple of factors — such as Obama’s cultural style and pro-choice stand — do not sit well with culturally conservative union members.

I’m not sure what the euphemism “cultural style” [Kevin Nealon]reverendwrightarrogantelitist[end Kevin Nealon] represents. But sadly Obama’s race is apparently an issue with some Americans, to an extent probably not reflected in the polls.

Side note: I think we can all agree that if Obama loses his bid solely due to his race it will be a sad day in America.

Whether the issue is abortion, race or “cultural style”, the Democrats are running scared in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

“It’s a problem,” George admits, “but we are in an all-out effort to educate our members that the Democratic Party is the only one for working families.”

Democrats count on unions for get-out-the-vote efforts and for the support of members and their families. Without them, states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio — which each have about 740,000 workers who belong to unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — would move into the Republican column.

Obama’s handlers have been heard to say that they can win without Ohio. But Ohio and Pennsylvania? Not so much…not to mention the East Coast Effect that could have on voters on election night.

…and Joe Biden, thought to be the key to securing these very voters, the “Energizer Bunny Mouth” isn’t helping much either.

Is this the beginning of the end for Obama?

Plastic Roots

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When you work for conservative causes, you get used to dealing with left-leaning “astroturf” groups. Second Amendment issues are a big magnet; while the NRA musters over three million actual Americans of all political stripes, “The Brady Campaign” and the “Violence Policy Institute” muster thin little films of people – even though an NRA membership is a non-trivial $50 (as I recall), and the “Brady Campaign” last I checked was $15. Locally, it’s even worse. While Concealed Carry Reform Now would muster hundreds to come to legislative Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota has roughly two “members” (who are, I think, also paid staffers) and can maybe drag a dozen people to a really important hearing, and would be a complete non-entity in politics in a rational world.

Which is a world the anti-gun movement doesn’t know well.

Astroturf is everywhere, though, especially when issues are emotional. Like, say, uppity broads who should be home with their kids upending political messiahs.

And boy, is it sweet when you find it:

  • Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.
  • The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.
  • Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.
  • Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.
  • The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.
  • This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod’s firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as “astroturfing.”
  • David Axelrod is Barack Obama’s chief media strategist.
  • The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe. Our findings follow.

This story has tripped off a blogswarm – a mini-Rathergate. Michelle Malkin catalogs the contributors and runs the story.  Patterico says it goes all the way to the top of The One’s campaign.

Stay tuned

No. I Mean, Seriously Spinning.

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“The Palin honeymoon is over”, the lefties chant, looking over their shoulder.

Yep.  Over like clover.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin told wildly cheering, flag-waving, chanting supporters that John McCain is “the only great man in this race” and promised Sunday he will fix the nation’s economy if voters give the GOP four more years in the White House.

“He won’t say this, so I’ll say it for him,” the Alaska governor said in an almost confidential tone at the close of her first Florida stump speech. “There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you. John McCain wore the uniform of his country for 22 years — talk about tough.”

The Villages, a vast, upscale planned community north of Orlando, has about 70,000 mostly adult residents — many of them military retirees — who vote reliably Republican in statewide races. Tens of thousands inched along roads into the picturesque town square of the complex, where they stood in sweltering heat for about four hours as local GOP officials and a country band revved up the crowd.

“Well, yeah, but she’s not really affecting the race!”

Post-convention swing state polls are tipping toward Sen. John McCain, the TV pundits are waxing about “The Palin Factor,” and Sen. Barack Obama’s California supporters are freaking out about a race Democrats were uncommonly confident about only a month ago.

“Well, sure – in Georgia or Utah or North Dakota, maybe”

Conversely, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s addition to the GOP ticket jolted Northern California Republicans out of what one described as their “Underground Railroad” existence in one of the nation’s most liberal regions. Ever since her speech to the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3, party officials say volunteers have been contacting California GOP offices in numbers unseen since Ronald Reagan was on the ballot for the White House.

“But – but – but…”

Hush, children.  It’ll be OK.

Bad Faith And Credit

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It’s tempting to look at the new AP-Yahoo poll and have a chuckle. It’d be a bad idea.

The poll – which shows that a third of Democrats have issues with black people…:

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them “lazy,” “violent,” responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

…which, in fact, jibes closely with my own observations; Democrats have been among the most corrosively and casually racist people I’ve met in the past twenty years. Anecdotally, I’ve found mainstream Democrats to far more casual and blase about having racist attitudes than mainstream Republicans.

Still, the number is pretty daunting:

40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

Hm.

But as with all polls and studies, you have ask – where did they get the numbers?

And why?

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can’t win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don’t have such views.

“Agreeing with a negative adjective” is racism? Because being loud, violent and responsible for their own troubles describes perceptions of a lot of groups – American teenagers of all races, Harley-Davidson riders, The Real World contestants and on and on.

Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.

“There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s only a few bigots,” said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

Yep. There are. Some of them wear wifebeaters and drive pickups with confederate flags. Other bigots wear suits and work at networks.

Obama’s weakness in polling outside of his key demographics – Afro-Americans and people in state capitols and university towns – has been troubling his campaign since well into the primaries. It shadowed his performance in the primaries, and it dogged him even before Mac picked Palin as his running mate, in large part, I’d like to think, to exploit this very weakness (and to highlight Democrat bigotry on gender in the process).

The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush’s unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama’s problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

So why are we hearing this?

Because “some Americans are bigots” is news? Please.

I suspect this is “news” because the Tics’ leadership is building a firebreak in case Mac – still a decided underdog – upsets The One in the general election.

In 2000, the Dems blamed their loss on perfidy in Florida. In 2004, they blamed (and still blame) the Swift Boat Vets for…I dunno, telling the truth about their impeccably weak candidate.

But The One isn’t weak (other than being a half-term Senator with no executive experience, but that didn’t become an issue to Democrats until Palin’s nomination); he’s been a juggernaut, a phenomenon. He should, says the Tic conventional wisdom, win in a landslide against a GOP that’s staggering from four really tough years.

And yet it’s not breaking that way.

And it seems to some in the Democratic part it’s better to undermine the system and slime the voter than to admit – should The One lose – that they fielded yet another weak candidate, hobbled by policies left over from the late sixties that most Americans reject long before they reject someone’s skin color.

Bonus question: do you think bigotry would be an issue for a black conservative running for President?

Biden is no Patriot and a Pisspoor Catholic to Boot

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Joe Biden, not realizing his mistake, is running with his “Paying Taxes is Patriotic” theme.

On Thursday he upped the ante, thundering that he also has Jesus in his corner. “Catholic social doctrine as I was taught it is, you take care of people who need the help the most,” Mr. Biden preached to a group of union supporters on Thursday.

So the “you” in Catholic doctrine is the Federal Government? I wasn’t there when that doctrine was penned, but I’m pretty sure they meant “you” as in “you and the church” in which case tithing and “your brother’s keeper” are the operatives they had in mind.

By the way, how’s Obama’s brother doing these days? (I digress)

Applying the actual intentions of the Catholic doctrine, Joe Biden, not surprisingly for a Democrit, practices what the church preaches to the extent of ten percent of the national average – not among the rich – not among those that earn what he earns – the average of all Americans.

Mr. Biden and his wife recently released their tax returns, and they reported an average of $380, or 0.2% of their income, in annual charitable contributions over a 10-year period. The national average was about 2% of income.

Jesus is pissed.  Joe best watch his back.

The Room Is Spinning

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Earlier this month, after a year of relentless publicity, in the heart of one of the most liberal, anti-Republican cities in America, the Labor Day protests at the Republican National convention – which had been expected to draw 50-100,000 people, drew between five and ten thousand. On Labor Day – when most people aren’t working. In Saint Paul. By any rational assessment, the protests – if indeed their intent was to get a message across to the delegates – were an epic failure.

On the other hand, last week, 13,000 people (according to the TSA) showed up to see Mac and Sarah at Blaine Airport. The meeting had had one week’s notice, and was held in the middle of a busy workday in a hanger at an obscure airport in a g-dforsaken north-suburban airport halfway between Minneapolis and Winnipeg. Republicans have jobs; we don’t usually go to rallies or demonstrations at all. And yet 13,000 people showed up at an event where they were expecting less than 2/3 as many.

On Saturday on the NARN show, I spent an entire hour taking calls from people who’d been at the rally. It was the third-busiest day I’ve ever seen on the phones for the Volume II NARN show (rivalled only by the days Terry Schiavo and Pope John Paul II died). To call the callers “enthusiastic” would be hopelessly understated. And to call them all “Traditional movement Republicans” would be inaccurate as well; I got calls from apostate Democrats, from people whose first rally in fifty years the Blaine event had been, from people who’d gone from planning to stay home on election day to volunteering for the McCain Campaign.

That is enthusiasm.

This? Not so much:

Well, John McCain did draw a large crowd to his rally up in Blaine yesterday – something in the neighborhood of 10,000 people. Not bad. But you want to know what is really impressive? The Obama counter-rally at Peavey Plaza, which did not feature either Barack Obama OR Joe Biden (or even a state-wide elected official) drew 3,500 people! (Added by Aaron: …and it was only announced two days in advance!)

In Downtown Minneapolis, if you yell on a loudspeaker “The DFL and the most holy Obama command you to wear aluminum-foil pants”, 5,000 people will be seen clad in Reynolds Wrap the next morning. It won’t matter – most of them will be either unemployed or government workers. Minneapolis DFLers go to rallies like Republicans raise kids and have jobs. Given that Obama’s entire electoral strength is in state capitols and university towns (the Twin Cities is both in spades), 3,500 in the middle of a “work” day is pretty run of the mill.
There’s really no comparison.

But please. Tell yourself it’s significant.

“I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way”

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Democrats deliberately dishonor those that protect and provide their right to be…(I’m sorry, can someone please help me here in the comments section with a suitably disparaging descriptor…I’m at a loss for words, hard as that may to believe). 

Even Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq troop surge, has finally acknowledged its success. But some of his fellow Democrats in Congress apparently remain unconvinced. Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin teamed up to block a vote on a bipartisan resolution “recognizing the strategic success of the troop surge in Iraq” and thanking our men and women in uniform for their efforts.

Even Obama, presumably their new messiah, is better than that, essentially admitting his error in judgement without admitting his error in judgement. How thick can these people be to not at least acknowledge the political ramifications of not resolving to express gratitude for our troops?

By late 2006, Iraq was gripped by sectarian chaos. Insurgents and death squads were killing nearly 3,000 civilians per month, and coalition forces were sustaining more than 1,200 attacks per week.

Under General David Petraeus, who relinquished command of U.S. forces in Iraq on Tuesday, sectarian bloodshed has almost entirely abated, daily attacks have fallen to 25 from a high of 180 in June 2007, and overall violence has declined by more than 70%. In July, U.S. combat deaths were lower than in any month since the beginning of the war. All of the troops sent to Iraq as part of the surge have now returned home and are not being replaced.

And our Congress, now dominated by Democrats can’t muster the fortitude to simply say “Thank you.”

(Insert above descriptor again here please – our friends at KAR are really good at this sort of thing – Assnozzles comes to mind?)

Citing General Petraeus by name, the resolution, which is sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Republican Lindsey Graham, “commends and expresses the gratitude to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces for the service, sacrifices, and heroism that made the success of the troop surge in Iraq possible.”

The Senators — allies of John McCain — had hoped to attach the resolution to a defense bill under consideration this week. But Mr. Reid wouldn’t allow it. Democrats have often claimed that while they may oppose the war in Iraq, they wholeheartedly support the troops. That’s a defensible position, and this resolution honoring our soldiers and Marines for a job well done gave them a chance to back up their rhetoric. Yet they still balked.

The reality is that success in Iraq has confounded the political left, which placed a huge political bet on our defeat. Senator Reid famously declared the war lost in April 2007. Joe Biden introduced a resolution opposing the surge. And Hillary Clinton said the reports of progress in Iraq required “a willing suspension of disbelief.” In the Democratic narrative, our troops in Iraq are victims of a lost cause, not heroes. They’re allowed to get maimed and killed, but not to succeed.

Democrats: so don’t acknowledge victory in Iraq. You wouldn’t know it if you saw it any way. Don’t acknowledge George Bush, General Petraeus or John McCain. No one expects you to change your stance on the initiation or management of the war in Iraq.

But for the troops, at least say “Thank You.” you…(again, please help me in the comments).

[/rant]

If you are reading this and are or have ever served our country in the armed forces, please know that my family is profoundly grateful and exceedingly proud of your service and sacrifice.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

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Citing a 90% correlation of Senator McCain’s voting record with the President’s, Obama and his brainwashed minions have gotten a lot of mileage out of the mantra that the McCain Presidency will be third term for the Bush administration.

Is this the same McCain who drove Republicans nuts on campaign finance, the environment, taxes, torture, immigration and more? Where has McCain not crossed swords with his own party?

And in a striking bit of irony, at the same time calling McCain a liar.

As it’s being used, the 90 percent figure, from Congressional Quarterly, is nonsensical. As Washington Post congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman explained, “The vast majority of those votes are procedural, and virtually every member of Congress votes with his or her leadership on procedural motions.”

Obama might want to be a little careful with these attacks, as the same measure has him voting with Democrats 97 percent of the time.

The truth is, McCain is more like the average American than the President, and much more so than Obammy.

According to the League of Conservation Voters, John McCain is the ultimate centrist. While the average Republican supported liberal environmentalist positions 13 percent of the time, and the average Democrat supported them 76 percent of the time, McCain’s 44 percent put him in the middle.

As Obama and his teleprompter-feeders might recall, many conservatives have held McCain in contempt of our most dearly-held beliefs. Its safe to say more than a few of us will vote for McCain as the lesser of two evils.

Another way to look at these numbers is to see how many of the 99 other senators voted more conservatively than McCain. In 2006, these four groups ranked McCain as the 47th, 46th, 44th and 51st most conservative member of the Senate, respectively. Surely, McCain is not nearly as liberal as the typical Democratic senator, but rankings from the left, middle and right find he is more liberal than the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate.

In contrast to the very liberal ratings given to Obama, the interest groups find that there are about as many senators to McCain’s right as there are to his left. This might not endear him to many conservatives or liberals. But it is a real distortion to claim he is a Bush clone.

Each Candidate’s selection for Vice President, adjusting for political expediency, is far more telling as to their true intent.

Obama’s “Change” platform is belied by the choice of the nation’s second most liberal senator, self-admittedly a life-long member, having joined the club at age twenty nine. Furthermore, Obama’s choice reveals a striking inability to lead as clearly he chose Biden in a moment of weakness, retreating to a default position. Hillary was the clear choice, but would have also required Obama to summon a degree of leadership not within his grasp.

McCain’s courageous (and admittedly calculated) choice of Sarah Palin shows McCain is willing to enlist the aid of someone else who has challenged his own party’s entrenchments. The fact that she’s a woman, and a babe, is the frosting, not the cake.

As it stands, McCain/Palin represents far more hope for a detour from politics as usual than Obama/Biden.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them? Exhibit A: Barack Obama

Only Inches On The Reel To Reel

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Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 11AM-5PM:

  • Volume I “The First Team” –Brian, Chad and John kick off from 11-1.
  • Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed is out on assignment today.  I hold forth from 1-3. James Lileks joins me at 2PM.
  • III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will be dishing the Minnesota smack from 3-5.

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. On the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

And don’t forget the David Strom Show, with David Strom and Margaret Martin, from 9-11!

(Title courtesy Cool James)

I Guess a Pig is not a Pig is not a Pig.

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Senator Barb Mikukulski wants to remind us that Democrat women can wear lipstick too!

…at a women’s rally with Joe Biden in Virginia Friday, Sen. Barbara Mikulski told the crowd, “Democratic women, we wear lipstick too!” referring to Sarah Palin’s now-famous joke that the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom is lipstick.

With all due respect Senator…are you actually asking us to compare this:

 

“You and I know that we women in America are mad as hell and we don’t want to take it anymore,”  

…to this?

 

“We don’t need another George Bush in earrings being the No. 2 spot,” Mikulski added.

I’m pretty sure no one will make that comparison Barb. I’d be mad as hell if I were you too.