Early Voting: The Rush to the Polls Is On

Well I usually go and early vote on the second day, giving the poll workers enough time to get the cobwebs swept off the voting machines. But today I wanted to get an idea what the turnout was going to be like, even though I can see the turnout report at all early voting locations tomorrow.

I’m a little impatient, you see.

And it looks like early voting in the general election is going to make the March primary numbers pale in comparison.

When I arrived at the sign-in point, I asked the geezer working that job about the turnout.

“How’s business today,” I asked.

“Very good,” he replied. “Too good.”

He read off of his machine that I was the 362nd voter to register on his machine on this day, and there was another one at the other end of the table, so roughly double that, 720, had shown up by 4:30 PM. He said, from past experience that the number could easily double by closing time, 7:00 PM.

Compare that prognostication to total Democratic early voters on the first day of early voting in the March primary: 1710. That’s 1710 voters county-wide. I was at just one of twenty early voting locations today.

So the message is clear, voters will be turning out in record numbers at early voting locations, and well they should. Polling locations on Election Day are going to resemble a zoo more than a Democratic process.

Colin Powell and The Houston Chronicle Make Bold Sunday Endorsements

I don’t usually do this, but a reader (actually probably someone who “googled” the keywords presidential newspaper endorsements) had this to say about my prediction of an Obama landslide victory in this posting from a couple of days ago:

“And now even Colin Powell, the guy who went before the UN with the "weapons of mass destruction" argument, has endorsed Obama.”

“An impending landslide? For sure. A tsunami, an avalanche, a blow-out. Obama was always going to win this election. But now, as the train is leaving the station, everyone's going to get on board.”

General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama is huge. The McCain campaign shrugged it off, naturally, saying that they have the endorsements of over 200 retired generals and admirals. But does anyone know their names? Absolutely everyone knows who Colin Powell is and who he worked for (and whose father he worked for). If you want to put it in military terms, the “USS John McCain” just took an Exocet missile in her ammunition magazine.

But where Colin Powell’s endorsement will have national effect, I want to point out another Sunday endorsement that will have local effect in SE Texas. The Houston Chronicle just announced its endorsement of Barack Obama for President of the United States.

“After carefully observing the Democratic and Republican nominees in drawn-out primary struggles as well as in the general campaign, including three debates, the Chronicle strongly believes that the ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden offers the best choice to lead the United States on a new course into the second decade of the 21st century.”

And further down . . .

“Perhaps the worst mistake McCain made in his campaign for the White House was the choice of the inexperienced and inflammatory Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Had he selected a moderate, experienced Republican lawmaker such as Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with a strong appeal to independents, the Chronicle's choice for an endorsement would have been far more difficult.”

This endorsement, I need to point out, is the first time the Chronicle endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate since they endorsed LBJ in 1964. A kind of no-brainer at the time, since as Vice President, Lyndon Johnson brought NASA to Houston. But by contrast, Barack Obama has brought nothing to Houston but a couple of rallies (the first attended by yours truly). So this endorsement is huge for southeast Texas.

Now I don’t subscribe to The Houston Chronicle, not because I have some misgivings with their politics, but because I object to the waste of resources that newspapers in general contribute to, especially in the internet age where it’s all online anyway (except for the crossword puzzle). But now I find myself in a dilemma. The Chronicle is sure to take a hit in its subscriber list over this endorsement. McCain’s “base” lives here among us. And they aren’t going to take kindly to this, a Democratic endorsement from a newspaper they have come to think of as one of their own.

Case in point. Here presented verbatim is one of the 310 comments the Chronicle has on its website under the op/ed endorsement piece:

“NEWSPAPERS ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO BE PARTISAN AS WELL AS MEDIA IN GENERAL.BY DOING SO YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR INTEGRITY AND PART OF YOUR CUSTOMERS.REMEMBER THAT NOT ALL YOUR CLIENTS ARE DEMS.I GUESS THE CHRONICLE DON'T CARE.I WILL NOT CARE ABOUT READING THIS PAPER ANYMORE COZ NOW I KNOW IT'S BIAS.AU REVOIR!”

[I wonder whether this ex-reader knows that "au revoir," translated from French, means "until the next time I see you." Probably not.]

So there’s my dilemma. Must I now break with tradition and subscribe to the Chronicle? I hate the waste of newsprint and ink that newspapers make, but on the other hand, I am coming to the end of my LA Times crossword puzzle book.

So maybe it’s time.

17 Days Out: A “Before” Snapshot

So we are 17 days out from the general election. In 2 days early voting will begin in Texas. And the “robo calls” have begun in earnest. You know these calls. The slimy recorded messages that invade your landline in the last weeks before a hotly contested election.

The ones that are factually challenged.

The ones that sway the votes of the fearful and weak-minded whose votes will go to the one that scares them the least. Karl Rove knows all about these people and he is watching them from his place at KarlRove.com. He is keeping track. Here is Karl Rove’s current electoral vote map.

Rove has Obama winning if the election was held today. Winning with 313 electoral votes.

That, by the way is not the way two other electoral vote watching websites have it. At Electoral-Votes.com they have Obama winning 349 electoral votes as of today. Here is their electoral map.

And at Fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver has Obama winning with 349.2 votes. This is the first time I have seen those two sites in agreement. Silver’s numbers have been in the 350’s for the past week or so.

So consider this a snapshot of the election before the onslaught of robo calls and the incredible amount of mudslinging that will become this presidential race. It was too much for John Kerry in 2004. Obama’s campaign is fighting back with calls for investigations of White House (that is, government) complicity in Republican voter turnout suppression.

Let’s just see where we are in two weeks.

To be continued . . .

Newspaper Presidential Endorsements Rising

Perhaps we needed to have an end to the presidential debates. Maybe the editorial boards had already made up their minds, but today we begin to see a flurry of endorsements from major metropolitan newspapers.

For Obama

The Los Angeles Times:

"We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.”

“The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.”

The Washington Post:

“Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.”

“The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.”

The Chigago Tribune:

“It's the first time the paper has endorsed the Democratic Party's nominee for president. But the editorial board declares Obama the right man ‘to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national
purpose.’”

The San Francisco Chronicle:

“Sen. John McCain magnified the aura of crisis, "suspending" his campaign to return to Washington, where his role in negotiations was at best tangential. Sen. Barack Obama was a portrait of calmness and deliberation, reminding Americans that it is possible for a leader to juggle more than one task at a time...”

La Prensa (New York):

“The nation also needs a humane and sensible immigration policy. While Sen. John McCain once appeared as a reasonable interlocutor on immigration reform, hegradually pandered to Republican ultra conservatives by promoting a two-step process emphasizing border enforcement. Sen. Obama clearly outlines a far superior plan that will take a smarter approach to immigration, including bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.”

For McCain

Now the question is, which major metropolitan newspapers are endorsing John McCain? Yes, you guessed it.

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post:

“McCain has been in Washington for many years now, but he is not of Washington. He knows where the levers of power are located - and how to manipulate them - but he is not controlled by them.”

“McCain's selection of the charming, but rock-solid, outsider Sarah Palin as his running mate underscores the point.”

Now newspapers don’t have electoral votes. And not being American human beings, newspapers can’t even vote at all. But from what we are seeing here, it looks like a few rocks and pebbles are being kicked loose and are pinging, pattering and bouncing down the hillside. No snapping of branches yet, let alone the nearly infrasonic sound that landslides make at the very beginning.

But it’s the beginning of the beginning, I think.

John McCain: Abortion Boolean Logic Substitutions

In last night’s presidential debate John McCain several times praised the eloquence of his opponent. It was part of his preparation: praise Obama’s eloquence, then say that he is eloquent in order to hide what he truly thinks.

“Well, you know, I admire so much Senator Obama's eloquence. And you really have to pay attention to words. He said, we will look at offshore drilling. Did you get that? Look at.”

“Just again, the example of the eloquence of Senator Obama. He's health for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement inAmerica to mean almost anything.”

It must be hard, don’t you think, to be the political opponent of a man who really does know how to turn a phrase, and how to explain things simply and clearly. Two things that McCain has lots of trouble with.

Witness this exchange with Bob Schieffer as he tried to nail McCain down on who would be his choice for US Supreme Court Justice.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Let's stop there and go to another question. And this one goes to Senator McCain. Senator McCain, you believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Senator Obama, you believe it shouldn't. Could either of you ever nominate someone to the Supreme Court who disagrees with you on this issue? Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: I would never and have never in all the years I've been there imposed a litmus test on any nominee to the court. That's not appropriate to do.

SCHIEFFER: But you don't want Roe v. Wade to be overturned?

McCain: [after very long-winded attempts to avoid answering the question] “I will find the best people in the world -- in the United States of America who have a history of strict adherence to the Constitution. And not legislating from the bench.”

SCHIEFFER: But even if it was someone -- even someone who had a history of being for abortion rights, you would consider them?

MCCAIN: I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

So there you have it. John McCain doesn’t want abortion rights to be a litmus test that will determine his choice for Supreme Court Justice. He just wants a Justice that is qualified, and that qualification is “a strict adherence to the Constitution.”

But he didn’t forget his base. He just told his base that abortion rights was off the table in deciding who will sit on the Supreme Court bench. So he covered himself:

“I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications.”

Now the downside to these coded messages to his base is that it is a little too circuitous and you have to make substitutions in some sort of Boolean Logic. And there are too many big words in all of that.

My suspicion is that his base may need further explanations.

In short sentences.

Oh, and the photo? The photo is of some of the + 50 people who came to the Rosenberg headquarters to watch the last debate on the big screen TV. You look at that photo and tell me if there is anything missing here? We had grumpy old white men and women, shiny young faces, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, Christians and Muslims.

That’s us. The Democrats.

A Perfect Storm

That was the title of a movie made not long ago. It chronicled the fate of a fishing boat that sailed to the Grand Banks one fateful day as the waves and violence generated by three separate storms at sea converged on just that one place on Earth.

The boat sank with all hands.

And now we have another perfect storm forming over the McCain campaign. It could not be better scripted had it come out of the think tank that is the Obama campaign.

John McCain selects a vice presidential candidate that wows a hungry right wing audience willing to drink any Kool-Aid that is distributed at their national convention. Never mind that Governor Palin is woefully under-qualified for the office. Never mind that she was branded last Friday as “unethical” by a bipartisan Alaska legislature committee that was assigned to look into the allegations that are now known as “Troopergate.” Never mind that she flopped answering the simple questions of Katie Couric (a media personality that is not known for her ambushes).

John McCain’s campaign has set out on a mission to defame Barack Obama as an associate of a man who was once a member of the Weather Underground, One who planted bombs in a war against another unpopular war. And in that endeavor, McCain reaped the reward of having followers who treasonously called for the murder of Barack Obama.

An outcome where McCain found himself in the impossible position of defending his political opponent.

And now, most recently we find that key rightist elements of McCain’s own party are calling for a dismissal of McCain’s entire campaign staff, as well as the discovery of actions (or is it inactions?) of the Republican governor of a key “swing state,” Florida by name, who decided that his personal appearance at Florida’s Disney World today was far more important than his appearance at a McCain rally in his own state.

Guys, I couldn’t have scripted this better than as a campaign in a tailspin.

This campaign has gone from the race that will be the Democrats’ to lose, to the race that the Republicans are throwing against the wall, hoping for some of it to stick.

Let me clue them in. Imploded campaigns and raw uncooked spaghetti do not stick to anything.

Barack Obama Is That One

Remember Richard Nixon? I am not only old enough to remember him (he bore an uncanny resemblance to my childhood dentist), I remember his campaign song and slogan. Yes, for awhile there, we had campaign songs. Not like what we have now. Original music and lyrics.

Nixon’s campaign slogan, and the title of his campaign song, was Nixon is The One.

Being called “The One” is apparently not a bad thing at all. The band Orleans made a mint on a song with “the one” in its title.



But being called “That One” is bad. It’s very bad. African-Americans point out that it is racist. I didn’t know that, but they said that when they heard those words that John McCain uttered last night, their take was that it was a racist remark. Here read it for yourself:

“‘It speaks to the fundamental belief of racism: despite all evidence to the contrary, you are inherently beneath me simply by virtue of the melanin content of your skin,’ Ciji McBride, a 33-year-old sales professional in Los Angeles, said Wednesday.”

“Don Hammonds of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also took offence.”

“‘Regardless of intent, it showed Senator McCain to be culturally ignorant, and completely unaware of the implications of what his off-the-cuff statement meant to people of colour,’ he wrote.”

“‘Whether Senator McCain meant it that way or not, if you are a person of colour, and someone trots out the 'that one' remark, you instantly take it as racist. I know that I did.’”

Being called “The One” is a compliment. Any doubters should ask Tom “Neo” Anderson about that. But being called “That One” is like using the “N” word. It’s a code word for a man with a tan.

So the question is, was this a Fordian “Poland moment?” The same man’s famous nose dribble moment on national TV? Is this Richard Nixon debating Jack Kennedy, showing his shifty eyes to American voters?

Did we just hear McCain say “Macaca?”

Should pundits now refer to the Republican presidential candidate as John McCaca?

Gross Observations on the CNN “Uncommitted Crawl”

For tonight’s presidential debate I decided to break with the past and watch it on CNN. That way I can observe the “uncommitted crawl” that they feature. Tonight CNN featured a real time metering of positive or negative feelings that Ohio uncommitted voters had on the statements and answers from our two candidates.

Why not look at this before? I am with my liberal activist colleagues here. Who cares what an uncommitted Ohio voter thinks? What the heck, if you are uncommitted at this point in the game what business do you have voting in this election? The choices cannot be clearer. They are crystal clear. As clear as ever presented to American voters in decades.

But that is precisely what lured me to CNN. I had to have a look. I had to see what these uncommitted voters are going through.

It was instructive.

First, it taught me that men are wildly emotional, and women are very conservative in issuing a swing in sentiment. More often than not men were either wildly supportive of a candidate’s position, or more negatively supportive. With some exceptions, women varied only slightly.

Doesn’t that run up against conventional wisdom?

So much for conventional wisdom.

Second it taught me that when McCain lies, and he knows when he is lying, uncommitted voters know he is lying as well, and either went neutral over his commentary period, or went slightly negative.

Both sexes.

Third, it taught me that when Obama was delivering positive points it gave him high positive marks. When McCain delivered positive points, it gave him mediocre positive marks.

In my gross, and fairly reasonably unbiased (if that is even possible here) rating, Obama’s positives out did McCain’s.

In other words, uncommitted voters responded more positively to Obama’s positives, and responded neutrally or even negatively, when McCain went on the attack in his “lying mode.” That is, whenever John McCain adopted the Republican line of “The Big Lie,” that is, lie often and lie well, uncommitted voters were unresponsive.

They didn’t buy it.

Signaling, I think, a corner turn. Americans have turned the corner on their reception of whoppers. Americans are willing to listen to a narrative rather than a lie.

Maybe, just maybe, Americans, through our impossibly uncommitted numbers, are finally growing up.

General Wes Clark Speaks At the Johnson-Rayburn-Richards Dinner

How I got to go to the annual Johnson-Rayburn-Richards dinner in Houston last night is a rather complicated story. Let’s just say that I know a couple who are lifelong Democrats, and they were invited by Leslie Taylor to sit at her table at the dinner, but my good friend Susan just wanted a night to relax and do some laundry. So I went with her “Bubba.” Because Bubba broke his wrist planting Obama/Biden 4 x 4s all over Fort Bend County, I figured I would have to cut his food up, but Bubba managed just fine.

I did, too. Especially when I learned that not only did Leslie Taylor have a VIP table, enabling us to mingle in the VIP room with an open bar, but also that her table was right down in front. I decided to video General Clark’s speech, well as much of his speech as my 5 gig flash drive would store, anyway, and had a great seat to do just that.

Imagine my pleasant surprise when I found that I had captured all 30 minutes of General Clark’s speech. And I was dumbfounded when I discovered that there was 1.6 gigabytes of space remaining. So had I known, I could have also videoed Chris Bell as he read Sarah Palin’s letter to General Clark.

Anyhoo . . .

YouTube has a time/size limit so I broke up the speech into 4 parts, each of which has its own theme.

Here is Part 1 – I call it “Eight Years and Four Crises.”



Here is Part 2 – Let’s call this one “New Ideas in 2008.”



Part 3 I like to call “Their Ideas Don’t Work”



And finally, Wes Clark concluded with an exhortation to his audience to be ambassadors of new ideas to those around them, friends, relatives, work mates. People don’t make decisions by watching the news, says General Clark. They make decisions by talking to other people. For this reason Wesley Clark called for his audience to “Go Hug a Republican.”



Now I have to ask this question. Do you think Barack Obama will have a place for General Clark in his administration? That has got to be a big affirmative, hasn’t it?

What Do You Say To Republicans Who Ask What Has Barack Obama Accomplished?

Republicans love to ask that question. You know why? Because it immediately puts you on the defensive. A place that they like you to be.

Yesterday at the Fort Bend County Fair, I was trying to sell campaign buttons and T-shirts, and an old guy, well, a guy about my age, came up and started a harangue on Obama. “I can’t believe you are voting for him! Why are you voting for him,” he sputtered.

While I suspected that he was asking why I, an older white man, was voting for a man of mixed parentage, I tend to stay away from playing the race card.

Then he played the “defend yourself”card and asked me what had Barack Obama done in his political career that made me most proud of him.

Now I could have bitten in and mentioned the legislation he put through in his two terms as Illinois State Senator. Like the way Obama supported, in a bi-partisan way, then Governor George Ryan’s initiative to block the predatory lending practices way back in 2001. Practices that have led up to our current financial crisis.

Or like how he sponsored and led the bipartisan passage of Illinois’ Racial Profiling law, a law that required Illinois law enforcement to record the race of people that they detain in their reports, as well as legislation that required video taping of all homicide interrogations – the first law of its kind ever passed in the nation.

Or I could have defended myself by citing Barack Obama’s US Senate accomplishments like the Obama-Lugar Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a bill that requires full disclosure of all entities and organizations receiving Federal funds.

But I chose not to.

Instead, this is how I answered him: I became most proud of Barack Obama the day he announced his candidacy for President of the United States. Here was a man, a black man in America, who was audacious enough to think that Democratic Americans would nominate him as their candidate, and then a majority of Americans of all parties would elect a bi-racial man their 44th president.

I was proud of him because he had the wisdom and judgment to see what I could not see. He saw that Americans – or a great many of them anyway - have entered the “post racial era.” It took me some time to get on board because I doubted my fellow Americans were ready for this.

But no longer.

This is how I answered him. He didn’t like my answer because I was not placed on the defensive. In fact, instead of me being on the defensive, he now was.

And he quickly left so I could resume my task of collecting donations from the people who had crowded around trying to buy campaign buttons, bumper stickers and T-shirts.

McCain Calls Time-Out

What is the first thing a basketball coach does when his team is behind in points and the clock is ticking toward zero?

Exactly.

He calls a time out.

This is what John McCain did today. Behind in the polls and sinking with each day’s news of financial crisis, how he is self-admittedly not an expert on economics, and how Barack Obama is increasingly being seen as the candidate who is most likely to deal with a financial crisis effectively and with good judgment. How McCain reacts to the news of impending financial disaster by lashing out at SEC chairman Christopher Cox threatening to fire him (made especially poignant with the news that a president actually does not have the power to fire the SEC chairman), and how Obama has responded with measured judgment that addresses key concerns voiced from both sides of the aisle.

So John McCain called “time out” today, announcing that he was suspending his campaign “to return to Washington to help broker a deal to save the financial industry,” to quote Chris Cillizza who pens WaPo’s “The Fix” blog.

Are you kidding? Didn’t we all hear John McCain say that he was “no expert” at economics? So now he is going to lend his expertise in brokering a deal? I’m sorry; I have to have a reality check here. Below is a 13 second clip of McCain’s chat at a Concord, New Hampshire town hall meeting early this year.



Asphinctersayswhat?

Believe me, the last guy I want in Washington working this deal is this rank amateur, John McCain. This is a combination of grandstanding in the extreme, and a strategic stall to save his falling numbers.

Grandstanding. McCain claims that negotiations on the bailout have entered a morass and are unlikely to be settled anytime soon. But just a few minutes ago, Congressman Barney Frank, interviewed on MSNBC, who is working this problem, claimed not only that the deal was close to agreement, as in “in a few days”, but that McCain’s help wasn’t really needed.

Strategic Stall. The last thing McCain needs right now is to face Barack Obama in public debate. Even if it is on an unrelated matter, like foreign policy, this debate can easily be turned into a shooting match over finances.

And that is the last thing McCain wants.

So is this debate going to go or is Obama going to be alone onstage this Friday? Obama has indicated no intent to suspend his campaign. To do so would be to allow McCain to lead. On the other hand, should McCain bow out, what does that do to his argument about wanting to have all of those town halls with Obama, and Obama not agreeing? Now we have McCain ducking behind skirts on an imagined crisis.

Frankly, this is a real exposé on what we can expect from a John McCain presidency. Ducking out, cutting and running when the heat gets turned up. Concocting an excuse based on faulty intelligence to do something, or not do something as the case may be.

Geez, who does that sound like?

Exactly.

The New Obama/Biden Yard Signs Are In!

While I was at the Fort Bend Democrats Rosenberg headquarters today a truck rolled up filled with 5000 of the new Obama/Biden signs.

To get them off the semi as quickly as possible we backed up a pickup and offloaded to the truck bed. Then drove the truck up to the headquarters entrance. I took a couple of photos of the event as we finished the making the pile

Here we are taking a break after building the pile o’ signs in the truck bed.

And here is Wanda, the Fort Bend Democrats’ secret weapon, a talented artist, modeling one of the signs next to the pile.

There’s a funny story associated with this. Don swears it’s true.

Recall that Barack Obama announced his running mate on the Saturday before the Democratic National Convention convened the following Monday? On the very next day, Sunday, an Obama supporter stopped in to buy some campaign paraphernalia, and she asked whether we had any Obama/Biden signs. Don laughed and told her “We’re good but not that good.”

So anyway, the new signs are in at 4801 Avenue H in Rosenberg [map]. You can buy them for $3.00 each or 2 for $5.00 (any two). The older signs with Obama’s name alone are now selling for $2.00 each. Stakes are included.

These things are going to go fast, and to my knowledge there is no other source for these slick suckers in Fort Bend County. Come and get yours now. The faster they go, the faster we can turn around and buy more.

Republican Lies and Code Words Promise a Slimy Autumn.

Well it has started. Republican lies make it from speeches to the nightly news.

Lies about “change.” Said John McCain today: “We are the reform party.”

A lie.

No, not an “inaccurate statement.” A lie.

How, I ask you, does a party reform itself? How does the party that brought Americans an illegal and immoral war in Iraq, through lies, deceit, and cover-ups reform itself by offering yet more lies? “We are the reform party.” If it weren’t so patently absurd, if I didn’t know for an absolute fact that this particular Republican will say anything, anything if it sounds like a good sound bite, despite failing the truth test, I would be sitting there with the others blankly nodding my head in agreement.

And really, I have to ask, if John McCain will tell a bald-faced lie about such a petty thing as Governor Palin selling the Alaska governor’s jet on Ebay, and making a profit on the sale, what will he say when it really matters? When lives and treasure are at stake?

It made a good sound bite, as does “We are the reform party,” but it is a lie, and an absurdity.

And the code words continue, don’t they? We have blatant racist remarks from Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland calling Barack and Michelle Obama “uppity.” (but had the good sense to drop the “N” word, which is what comes next). We have Giuliani and Palin offering the words “neighborhood organizer,” accompanied with an excess of forced snickers and giggles, as a code word for outside agitator.

For those of you who weren’t alive in the 60’s an “outside agitator” was someone who came into the community to organize it so they could fight racial injustice.

You know . . . black people. Black people who caused trouble.

But the latest code word comes as no surprise at all considering the lead-up. It’s amazing how low McCain goes. Over the weekend, at a rally, McCain addressed his audience on the need to drill for oil on the OCS. The audience erupted in chant, repetitions of “Drill, baby, drill.” McCain interrupted his speech to remark that he really liked what these people were saying.

Again, for those of you who weren’t alive in the 60’s, “Drill baby, drill” comes from a crowd chant invented by rioters who lit up stores and other places of commerce during the 1967 Detroit Riots. “Burn baby, burn” was their chant as they encouraged the flames to consume symbols of their oppression.

It is a blatant and thinly veiled reminder of times past when blacks and whites seemed to be at polar opposites. It’s a reminder to Republicans and Independents not to lose their fear and dread of black people.

It is cold, calculated racism.

Is Sarah Palin’s Family An Issue to Be Discussed?

Now I’ve heard the Obama campaign comes down hard against any criticism regarding the family of Sarah Palin. I have also read the opinions of others, including of those in the blogosphere, who think that this is holy ground that shall not be desecrated.

I think that Republicans just love it when we Democrats exhibit some humanity and our ever-popular tendency to keep to the high road. They love it because the high road has not felt the footfalls of a Republican for years and years.

Republicans have carved out their niche in the mud and they are very unapologetic about it. It works for them and has worked for them in the past.

For instance, Republicans, mainly southerners, are not above calling Barack Obama “uppity.” That word was actually used by Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland today to describe Obama. Other less crass Republicans substitute the codeword “elitist” when they refer to Obama or his wife.

John McCain owns eight houses, but Barack Obama is elitist.

And finally, earlier this year, in April, Kentucky Republican Rep. Geoff Davis (R) said this of Obama:

“I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”

Even in the 21st century, Republicans will utter racial slurs, the lowest form of demagoguery.

But Sarah Palin’s family is off limits.

Says who?

That Sarah Palin has had a child with Down syndrome, and she knew it would be afflicted with this disability, but chose not to have an abortion because of her religious beliefs is an issue. Now this was her choice to make. At least the state did not step in and say to her that she shall have an abortion because her child will be mentally and physically disabled. But here it is: the choice that Sarah Palin made is not something Sarah Palin wants to let any other woman have.

It is just as paternalistic for a government to demand a woman have an abortion as it is that they demand that she not have an abortion.

But McCain/Palin Republicans think that the government has a right to keep their hands on women’s uteruses, and if elected McCain will bring an end to legal abortion through Supreme Court appointments.

Governor Palin’s daughter is pregnant and unmarried. That is not an issue to discuss. What is at issue is that she may have been put in that position by a mother whose total contraception program is abstinence. Just say no. Sex education in the schools? No way, says Palin. Just say no.

What amazes me is that Palin’s own daughter is a poster child for just how poorly that contraception program goes over with teenagers with raging hormones, and this fact hasn’t fazed Palin at all.

And what about how Governor Palin receives the news that her dear daughter is pregnant by her 17-year old boyfriend? What about her sheer nonchalance when she made the “Bristol is pregnant” announcement praising her good sense? Doesn’t this send the wrong signal to millions of teenagers? Premarital sex, it seems, is good if you a) don’t use contraceptives b) carry the resultant fetus to full term, and c) marry the horny little b*$&ard who caused the whole mess.

Does Governor Palin know the statistics for teenage marriage? Marriage at the point of a shotgun?

This just goes beyond the pale. This is all about the judgment of a potential Vice-President of the United States. And by extension, it is all about the judgment of a potential President, the one who picked her out of the line-up.

No, I’m sorry, Sarah Palin’s family is a subject for discussion. Not for titillation, but as a means to arrive at a judgment of whether Sarah Palin is someone who is fit to serve in high office.

Republicans Thank God The Bahamas Are Not American

Just think, if you will, what would have happened if the Commonwealth of The Bahamas had been American soil. Think about it.

Hurricane Gustav completely trashed Day One of the Republican Party’s Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Trashed it. An act of the Lord God prevented the opposition from opening their convention with fanfare, celebration, music and gaiety. Well, as much as Republicans can be gay, anyway.

Instead we were treated to day-long news accounts of how well, or how badly the Gulf Coast took the landfall of Hurricane Gustav, and how Republicans, with their crocodile tears, pled for donations to help Gulf Coast residents recover from the onslaught of Gustav. Indeed, Cindy McCain, with her beer distributorship inheritance, standing next to Laura Bush, could probably knock the frowns off of thousands with a little taste of her millions. But asked for donations instead.

Nevertheless, the Republican Party will reconstitute anew tomorrow as Gustav degrades to tropical storm status, then tropical depression, then to a cliché.

But what of Hurricane Hanna? Hanna is churning her way up the western Atlantic chewing up sand as she passes over the Bahamian bank, with all of those islands from now until Wednesday.

But The Bahamas, while an American tourist destination, are not American. So while thousands of Bahamians get pounded out of their homes tomorrow and Wednesday, the Republicans will dance and play in the Twin Cities.

They, the citizens of The Bahamas have the unfortunate situation of not being American. Or for the most part, of not being white.

So Hanna doesn’t count, does it?

No, it doesn’t. And that is a point that the Lord God is missing when He sends His three mighty winds, Gustav, Hanna and Ike, against American soil in answer to the prayers of James Dobson’s pious follower Stewart Shepard. The so-called Christian who prayed that the Lord God send His rain to Denver on the night of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field last Thrusday.

He misses it in that He doesn’t understand, maybe, that The Bahamas aren’t of the US despite the fact that the islands are so close, and depend on American tourists for their very survival. Despite all of that, they are not American.

So the Republican convention will proceed anew on Tuesday, music included.

Because Bahamians aren’t Americans.

Hanna isn’t projected to hit US soil, South Carolina in point of fact, until Friday. Republicans must be sighing a sigh of relief that they can hold their convention in the time window (almost) between hurricanes. They can be happy and gay on camera.

Because the black people of The Bahamas are not American.

Judging John McCain’s Judgment

One of the most relevant issues in any presidential election is how sound is a president’s judgment? Will the president use common sense to solve problems? Will the president proceed in a decision knowing s/he is right and their evaluation is the best course despite the objections of social, cultural, religious or business groups?

On that, we have John McCain and Hillary Clinton, both of whom decided that what Americans craved was experience and campaigned hard pushing that issue.

Both were wrong in their judgment. The election this year isn’t about experience, it’s about change.

Obama knew it was about change, and it still is.

Now John McCain has seen the light and has abandoned his previous position about experience by naming Sarah Palin, this singularly most under-qualified state governor as his running mate.

John McCain, it seems, is all about "change."

“The Maverick” is back, they say. John McCain made a bold decision for change. He goes against the flow. How is that, I wonder? John McCain wanted Joe Lieberman as his Veep, or he wanted Tom Ridge. But neither of them would be acceptable to the Republican right wing. Lieberman is a moderate and Ridge is pro-choice. Mitt Romney was out because of his religion, but that was bolstered by Obama’s choice of Joe Biden whose son is in the process of deploying to Iraq.

As an aside, I was wondering what Mitt Romney’s sons were doing now that they weren’t doing their patriotic duty to get their father the nomination? It seems to me that they are now free to enlist.

So is John McCain being “The Maverick” on this decision for his vice-president, this crucial first judgment, or is he caving to the extreme evangelical neoconservative right wing, which again has been energized with one of their own on the ballot.

What does this say about John McCain and his judgment?

But let me close with an observation of more recent events. Hurricane Gustav is going to hit the Mississippi Delta at possibly Category 4 force. Lessons learned from Katrina force Bush to eschew the Republican Convention to look more presidential than he did when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. He will govern over the storm in Texas instead. You do remember the photo taken just 3 years ago of Bush landing in Phoenix Arizona on Air Force One to present John McCain with a birthday cake? On the day 1800 died in the Gulf Coast region? Well so does John McCain.

In John McCain’s judgment, the best place for he and his new running mate-to-be is hustling and bustling around in the areas about to be hit, getting in the way as people down here are doing all they can to evacuate the population and protect assets.

In John McCain’s judgment, stopping this work to get his face photographed in a hurricane command center is far more important than actually getting that work done.

Have another piece of cake, John.

Top Ten Reasons Why John McCain Named Sarah Palin His Running Mate Today

When I heard from a student today that McCain had named his running mate, and that it was Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin, my first thought, my first question was “Why her?” Will the right wing nasties, even their women, want to vote for a woman who will be “a heartbeat away?”

Misogyny, I think, was invented by the Republican Party.

Has McCain just given away the election?

I think not. I have thought about this some for the better part of half a day and I have come up with ten very good reasons why John McCain should have named Sarah Palin as his running mate. It’s so obvious to me now.

So without further ado, I give you the Top Ten Reasons Why John McCain Named His Running Mate Sarah Palin Today (with further apologies to David Letterman).

10. It’s the name. If you take out the “L” the ticket becomes McCain/Pain.

9. Experience. Sarah Palin has been a woman all her life, and one thing that John McCain lacks is expertise in the fairer sex. Had he known Sarah Palin all those years ago, she probably would have counseled him that it wouldn’t be a particularly good idea to run around with his present wife while his current wife was abed with a fatal disease. She would have told him that it wouldn’t look good if he ran for president some day.

8. Age. Sarah Palin is 44 years old. She solves the problem of collective age. Together, Obama and Biden have been on this planet for 112 years. McCain and Palin together? 116 years. Age becomes a non-issue, right?

7. Executive and military erudition. Governor Palin has been the chief executive of Alaska for darn near two years now. And she is the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard. McCain has never led anything but the dinner line, and his military experience consists of getting shot down over enemy territory.

6. Palin flips to McCain’s flop. In 2007 she said “Thanks but no thanks” to the now-famous “Bridge to Nowhere.” But in 2006 she couldn’t wait to get the thing built. Their flip-flops complement each other.

5. Given McCain’s penchant for dumping old aging wives for young things, the McCain/Palin ticket gives new meaning to the term “running mates.”

4. With Bush leaving office in January, there would have been no one to fill in the void he leaves in having an anti-science activist in the Executive Branch. Sarah Palin fills the bill. She is against stem cell research, doubts global warming and is in favor of creationism being taught in public schools.

3. Sarah Palin solves the Romney problem. Had he picked Mitt it would have not only pissed off the Christian Evangelicals, in which Sarah is counted in their number, but it would have raised the issue of whose son is fighting in Iraq (Biden’s) and whose are not (Romney’s).

2. Another way Sarah Palin complements John McCain: where John McCain is old, bald, wrinkled, ugly, mean and nasty, Sarah Palin is a recent former beauty queen who desperately wishes for “World Peace.”

And the number reason why John McCain should have picked Sarah Palin as his running mate?

1. As Alaska’s Governor, Sarah Palin has already shown that she is well along in her quest to take over for “Dead Eye” Dick Cheney. Cheney has shown time and time again how he can be so abusive of power that isn’t really his to wield. Sarah Palin, with only two years as governor, is already being investigated for abuse of power when she fired her Commissioner of Public Safety when he refused to dismiss her abusive ex-brother-in-law. Now that’s what I call Republican executive material.

Barney Smith At the DNC With the Sound Bite of the Convention

Oh good God.

Did you watch the closing night of the Democratic National Convention? If you watched the talking heads on the networks you missed it. This was, by far, the greatest “sound bite” of the convention in my humble opinion. I was watching CSPAN with a bunch of fellow Democrats at the Rosenberg, Texas Headquarters. The room erupted in a roar of exclamations and applause.



Barack Obama did a great job, too.

Really, he did. I was transfixed.

But I will be eternally wondering, where did they get Barney Smith?

At a Watch Party in Rosenberg, Texas

Why do they call it a “Watch Party” anyway? When I was a lot, a whole lot, younger, when I heard that term I thought it was like a “Tupperware Party,” but instead of selling plastic containers that burp, they sold watches.

And it’s not like you have other kinds of “Watch Parties,” right? When people gather to watch the Superbowl they call it a “Superbowl Party.” No, the idea of a “Watch Party” is very definitely a political one.

So the Fort Bend Democrats had a Watch Party tonight on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.

There was a potluck table.

There was lots of talking and trading of lies.

There were new campaign buttons to buy.

There was Teddy Kennedy.

And by God, there was Michelle Obama. Now it’s a school night so I had to leave before she spoke, but don’t think I would ever have missed her speech. I got back to the Half Empty Hovel in time to see all of it.

All I can say is “My God.”

If Michelle Obama hadn’t up to tonight passed the litmus test of her mettle, of her poise, and of her superior “brainiac-ness” I think there is little doubt in the minds of the millions who saw her speech tonight that she certainly has passed that test now.

Biden Biden Bo Biden Banana Fanna Fo Fiden

Me My Mo Miden . . . Biden

In the end, do you know why Barack Obama didn’t, couldn’t and wouldn’t pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate?

Here is why:



This is the hit piece that the McCain Campaign came out with today on the news that Barack Obama has named Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

This is the best they can do.

Can you imagine what they would have come up with had Hillary Clinton been given this spot? Not only Hillary’s vociferous attacks on Obama, but also attacks from a former President.

That being said, what is all this guff about Clinton delegates circulating a petition to put Clinton’s name in nomination for Vice President? These people are either completely at sea, a full bubble off, and not firing on all pistons, or they are McCain operatives – Republicans who got themselves invited to the Democratic Convention.

It has got to be option two.