U.S. Elections 2008: General Elections -- Analysis and Commentary

[Koga No Goshi]

When Edwards got a $400 haircut, a fit was thrown and Edwards had to pay back his campaign.

When Hillary paid $3,000 for various hair treatments & stylings, Hillary paid back her campaign.

$150,000 has been spent on Palin and her family's wardrobe for the campaign trail.... and people are saying "What's the big deal?"

Comments?

[Ronin]

but...but....it´s all being given to charity!!


hey...all the woman has is looks...so they had to invest there!

[Strike For The South]

When Edwards got a $400 haircut, a fit was thrown and Edwards had to pay back his campaign.

When Hillary paid $3,000 for various hair treatments & stylings, Hillary paid back her campaign.

$150,000 has been spent on Palin and her family's wardrobe for the campaign trail.... and people are saying "What's the big deal?"

Comments?

How in Gods name can a haircut be 400$? Thats unpossible

[drone]

It's the RNC's money. They are just doing their best to stimulate the economy and help out retailers who are looking at a grim Christmas season forecast.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Would you prefer it spent on attack ads?

[Koga No Goshi]

It's the RNC's money. They are just doing their best to stimulate the economy and help out retailers who are looking at a grim Christmas season forecast.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Would you prefer it spent on attack ads?

Not at all, haha. I think it's fantastic they spent more than the huge majority of American family's incomes on CLOTHING. I just think that if they could have found a parallel "questionable use" of campaign contributor funds in the Obama camp for things like designer clothes and outfitting Biden's whole family with new threads we would be in such deep crap right now.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Not as deep doo-doo as if al-Qa'ida had endorsed Obama...

[Koga No Goshi]

Not as deep doo-doo as if al-Qa'ida had endorsed Obama...

Absolutely true. You notice how these things that would destroy the Dems' chances, happen to the Reps, with no effect? :)

[Strike For The South]

I find Campbell Brown Very attractive almost as attractive as Ronald Martin.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Absolutely true. You notice how these things that would destroy the Dems' chances, happen to the Reps, with no effect? :)

Yes, and I wonder why. The American people are, on the whole, remarkably well balanced, but there seems to be an indulgence of the Republican party that does not extend to the Democrats. The GOP can launch attacks unthinkable for a Democrat.

Is this because there is an innate right-leaning tendency among voters (so they are more likely to believe bad things about Democrats) or do they hold the Democratic party to higher standards and higher hopes?

The al-Qa'ida thing has been treated in exactly the right way - with contempt and little publicity, but I suspect the chorus of scalded cats would have been singing along with the fat lady if Senator Obama had been the recipient of such "support".

[Koga No Goshi]

Yes, and I wonder why. The American people are, on the whole, remarkably well balanced, but there seems to be an indulgence of the Republican party that does not extend to the Democrats. The GOP can launch attacks unthinkable for a Democrat.

Is this because there is an innate right-leaning tendency among voters (so they are more likely to believe bad things about Democrats) or do they hold the Democratic party to higher standards and higher hopes?

The al-Qa'ida thing has been treated in exactly the right way - with contempt and little publicity, but I suspect the chorus of scalded cats would have been singing along with the fat lady if Senator Obama had been the recipient of such "support".

It's because they have defined the Republican Party as the default American party, and the Democrats as a variant of it that has to prove itself first. They have pitched the whole national dialogue on that slant. And when you control 90% of the talk radio airwaves that reach across much of non-big-city America, it becomes very widespread.

The thing that gets me though is that I think the most basic "pro-America" element of any politics, supporting the troops, has been something the Dems have been railing for for 8 years, while Reps have been making snappish retorts to criticism like "you don't get the Army you want" or "we have enough VA funding" and they get a free pass on it. Are military families really this indoctrinated that they SUPPORT "not being able to afford" proper equipment and care for our soldiers at the same time no-bid contracts are being handed out left and right to private entities?

I think this is a symptom of the ADHD attention span of Americans. They will take the guy who worked for six years for veterans, and the guy who screams just at campaign speeches that he's for veterans (but has an abyssmal voting record to support said claim) and think the 2nd guy supports the troops more, because he gives them that short-term temporary morale boost. And they are either ignoring, or not paying enough attention, to see the contradiction.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Your right, a decorated veteran that starts making false statements loses all his honor.............what is McCain's excuse? I forgot no one can say anything bad about McCain because of his service or the republicans go nuts.

Not that there are any double standards. Obama tax credits, wealth redistribution. McCain's tax credits, the way to save health care. Make sense to me and the GOP.

Of the Nam vet crowd, most of the right wingers would have preferred to elect Hackworth. Unfortunately for us, the was far too smart to put himself through the political meatgrinder.

[Spino]

I find Campbell Brown Very attractive almost as attractive as Ronald Martin.

You're barely scraping the surface. I've seen her without makeup on....

[Gregoshi]

I think you aren't giving Al Qaeda enough credit...Therefore their plan ALL ALONG was to trick us into electing McCain!

Or it isn't a "trick" at all. McCain wants to stay in Iraq indefinitely. Obama would rather pull out of Iraq ASAP and concentrate on the "real war" - Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda lives and breaths. Therefore, if McCain gets elected, America stays distracted in Iraq. If Obama wins, Al Qaeda is up to its eyeballs in an Afghanistanian "surge". Which would they prefer?

[Lemur]

Much to my surprise, the Powell endorsement seems to be having an effect. I never know how these "undecided" freaks are going to jump. They must be a different species. I mean, seriously, how could you claim that you don't have enough info at this point? What kind of rocks do these people have in their brains?

Barack Obama is up 11 points on John McCain among likely voters in the new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, 54 to 43 percent. Though little changed from yesterday, Obama's national lead is now his biggest of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.

Former secretary of state Colin Powell's endorsement provides a new boost for Obama, who has made significant progress with voters as a leader in international affairs.

[CountArach]

The Powell endorsement isn't having too muchof an effect:

But only a relatively small 12% of those aware of the Powell endorsement indicated in the survey that Powell's gesture makes them more likely to vote for Obama. (This means only 10% of the entire registered-voter population is both aware of the endorsement and report that it makes them more likely to vote for Obama.) An even smaller group of 4% of those aware of the endorsement (or 3% of all voters) say it makes them less likely to vote for Obama.

I think most of those 12% of people are Obama supporters anyway.

[Koga No Goshi]

The Powell endorsement isn't having too muchof an effect:

I think most of those 12% of people are Obama supporters anyway.

A black guy endorsing a black guy doesn't do much to budge the people to whom Obama's race and name are a factor in whether they'll vote for him, IMHO. I would have been surprised if it made a huge impact, especially considering his almost total irrelevance (at least, his treatment as such) since Bush told him to skeedaddle out and sell the Iraq War.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Much to my surprise, the Powell endorsement seems to be having an effect. I never know how these "undecided" freaks are going to jump. They must be a different species. I mean, seriously, how could you claim that you don't have enough info at this point? What kind of rocks do these people have in their brains?

Barack Obama is up 11 points on John McCain among likely voters in the new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, 54 to 43 percent. Though little changed from yesterday, Obama's national lead is now his biggest of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.

Former secretary of state Colin Powell's endorsement provides a new boost for Obama, who has made significant progress with voters as a leader in international affairs.

While there ARE a few folks who are undecided until the very end, I have always thought that quite a few of those last moment deciders are trying to wait long enough to determine a very likely winner and then jump on the bandwagon. Seems rather silly in a country with a secret ballot, but there you go.

For those in that group, Powell's endorsement was the "white smoke" they'd been seeking.

[Makanyane]

Please excuse me butting in on the end of a long thread, but I cannot see any possible reason why anyone remotely sane could possibly vote for any outcome that could in any remote eventuality result in the Palin woman being left in charge of a large city let alone half a continent... Please, please bear that horrible prospect in mind before anyone is tempted to vote for the party supporting her as 'vice' anything.

[CrossLOPER]

Please excuse me butting in on the end of a long thread, but I cannot see any possible reason why anyone remotely sane could possibly vote for any outcome that could in any remote eventuality result in the Palin woman being left in charge of a large city let alone half a continent... Please, please bear that horrible prospect in mind before anyone is tempted to vote for the party supporting her as 'vice' anything.

Where have you been in the past eight years?

[Hooahguy]

no offense Makanyane, but i think you just dont make much sense in what you said.
i see no problem in voting for palin. she is a lot more in touch with average americans than obama will ever hope to be. the fact that obama wants to take away our hard earned money and give it to those who havent worked so hard for it makes me want to retch. i worked incredibly hard for my money, searching for jobs and working full time during the summer.
my dad works 3 jobs and were middle class. we're not rich. as the 2nd of 5 kids, i dont want to see my fathers incredibly hard earned money taken away to benefit some crackhead.
socialism or capitalism? obama is for the former, palin for the latter. the choice is clear.

[Xiahou]

The Powell endorsement isn't having too muchof an effect:

I think most of those 12% of people are Obama supporters anyway.

For me, Powell burned up most of his credibility after the Iraq war. This "progressive" CommonDreams article kinda sums it up for me.

Trying to have things both ways, Powell fails twice, appearing both irrelevant and disloyal. If he was the reluctant warrior, then he was used by the so-called Gestapo. If he was as gung-ho as the others, how can Woodward describe him as semi-despondent "because he knew that this was a war that might have been avoided?"

Powell's a soldier, his defenders say. He was outvoted on the war, so he saluted and did the mission.

There are three answers to that:

It depends on the mission.

He's not a soldier any more.

You don't do the mission, then complain when it flops.

I also think the State Dept seemed kind of rudderless under his control, as compared to under Rice. Also add to the fact that he knew who the Plame leaker was from the beginning and kept it from his boss, and I just don't really think much of him any more.

Years ago, I had hoped Powell would run for president. Now, I wouldn't vote for him if he did.

[woad&fangs]

How is Palin "more in touch"?

[Spino]

Much to my surprise, the Powell endorsement seems to be having an effect. I never know how these "undecided" freaks are going to jump. They must be a different species. I mean, seriously, how could you claim that you don't have enough info at this point? What kind of rocks do these people have in their brains?

Barack Obama is up 11 points on John McCain among likely voters in the new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, 54 to 43 percent. Though little changed from yesterday, Obama's national lead is now his biggest of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.

Former secretary of state Colin Powell's endorsement provides a new boost for Obama, who has made significant progress with voters as a leader in international affairs.

I think Powell's official statement for his not endorsing Obama earlier in the campaign is politically loaded bullchips. I believe Powell's endorsement had nothing to do with him "getting to know Obama" and had everything to do with him hedging his bets until the time was right to commit to what he felt was a politically safe bet on the dark horse (pun intended) he was rooting for all along. The fact that Powell was so reluctant to furnish an endorsement months ago tells you he was simply biding his time and praying for good omens. Had the recent polls been unfavorable to Obama Powell could have chose to not endorse anyone and fall back on the excuse that McCain did not accurately represent sensible conservative views and that Obama was insufficiently risky to merit dismissing his participation in the race. An easy out that helps him to maintain his credibility while risking little to nothing. Then there's the race factor... It has become more than a little tiring to hear African-Americans say they're not endorsing Obama because he's black. When you have 90-95%+ of the African American population lining up to vote for Obama and donating unprecedented amounts of money to his campaign the idea that his race isn't a factor is ludicrous to the extreme.

To be honest I never really looked at Powell closely before. Prior to this his pro-affirmative action stance was the only thing that threw me for a loop but I readily dismissed it for reasons I will list below.

Powell's endorsement of Obama obviously sends a mixed message. He was a major player in both Bush White Houses, he helped to sell the UN on the cassus belli to invade Iraq and yet he comes out in favor of a candidate with a decidedly liberal past who constantly uses his anti-Iraq War position as a selling point. And yet at the same time Powell, inexplicably, openly cites his displeasure at the prospect of seeing two more conservative judges appointed to the Supreme Court?!? These are the positions of a self proclaimed conservative? Powell's support of a politician notorious for his anti-Iraq war position reeks of hypocrisy. Had Powell an ounce of integrity he would have resigned instead of playing a part in selling the invasion of Iraq but he didn't, he stuck it out until Bush's second term so as to not tarnish his sparkling record in the eyes of his biggest benefactor, the Republican party.

Now to the issue of Powell openly voicing his displeasure at the prospect of having two more conservative judges appointed to the Supreme Court. To be honest I actually found this revelation more revealing about the man than his endorsement of Obama. It falls in line with the pro-affirmative action stance he has held for ages, a position that I previously believed was held simply because Powell is an African American of the generation that can readily recall the pre-Civil Rights social landscape. That same reason could be applied to his endorsement of Obama but now I believe there is more to it than that after all. If Powell's comment on the Supreme Court judges doesn't tell you about his real political alignment I don't know what does.

In light of his political maneuvering I think Powell's yet another example of a high ranking general working the system to his personal advantage. Here's some more food for thought... I wonder what will happen to Powell's income if Obama is elected? The last time I checked Powell charges a whopping $100-200K per appearance! With an endorsement of a liberal and wildly popular Democratic candidate suddenly institutions and universities that would have never considered hiring Powell for an event because of his political associations will open their doors and wallets to the man. It's safe to say if Obama wins Powell's guest speaker dance card will be full for the next 4 years. Even if Obama loses the prospect of Powell's fee jumping dramatically will improve in light of the surge in demand. Last but not least there's always the chance Powell could receive a cabinet appointment and have the pleasure of being the first African American cabinet member to work for the first African American president. At this point I wouldn't put it past him if he accepted a position in Obama's cabinet.

Powell's problem now is that he is taking a huge gamble with his credibility on this endorsement. By now most conservatives have already taken him off their various 'Like' & 'Respect' lists but how will this go over with independents on November 4th and beyond? If Obama loses and resumes his far left political practices in Congress then everyone who endorsed him and believed him to be a shining example of intellect wrapped in a moderate, centrist package is going to look like a fool.

Am I reading too much into this? Not a chance, this is politics.

A poll by any other name... Here's a poll which shows Obama's lead dwindling to a mere point which could fuel the notion that McCain's 'Obama's a tax raising & spending liberal socialist' attacks are working...

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/Polls.a...13550536#polla

[Xiahou]

no offense Makanyane, but i think you just dont make much sense in what you said.
i see no problem in voting for palin. she is a lot more in touch with average americans than obama will ever hope to be. the fact that obama wants to take away our hard earned money and give it to those who havent worked so hard for it makes me want to retch. i worked incredibly hard for my money, searching for jobs and working full time during the summer.
my dad works 3 jobs and were middle class. we're not rich. as the 2nd of 5 kids, i dont want to see my fathers incredibly hard earned money taken away to benefit some crackhead.
socialism or capitalism? obama is for the former, palin for the latter. the choice is clear.

Absolutely. Since her nomination, she has showed herself to be a quick learner and now is spending more time with the media than any of the other candidates. She strikes me as a pragmatic conservative, as opposed to an ideological one. I've always thought McCain was competent on foreign policy, but the rest of his platform left me less than enthusiastic. The addition of Palin makes the ticket much more palatable.

One thing that always sticks in my mind for Palin was in a video interview with her I saw (people were trying to use the clip as proof that Trig isn't her son ). The interviewer complements her on how nice her house is (the governor's mansion), and her immediate response was that (paraphrasing) "This isn't my house, it's the people of Alaska's, I just live in it".

[Spino]

Interesting article on the media coverage in this election year from, of all people, Orson Scott Card. Orson is a best selling sci-fi author & Democrat who apparently takes exception to the notion that the mainstream media is not biased to the left...

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.

[seireikhaan]

Just curious, Xiahou, but how does Palin NOT strike you as an idealogue? Everything I've seen from her is how much she just loves "Joe the Plumber, and Wendy the Nurse, and Bob the Builder, and how much she loves God and country. Energy is the only thing I've been able to discern she has any actual sort of view which is her own, beyond doubt.

[Ronin]

no offense Makanyane, but i think you just dont make much sense in what you said.
i see no problem in voting for palin. she is a lot more in touch with average americans than obama will ever hope to be. the fact that obama wants to take away our hard earned money and give it to those who havent worked so hard for it makes me want to retch. i worked incredibly hard for my money, searching for jobs and working full time during the summer.
my dad works 3 jobs and were middle class. we're not rich. as the 2nd of 5 kids, i dont want to see my fathers incredibly hard earned money taken away to benefit some crackhead.
socialism or capitalism? obama is for the former, palin for the latter. the choice is clear.

i´m sorry...but I have a hard time reconciling this...

after what the US government has just done to the financial system you think Obama is the socialist?

your government just socialized the financial systems debt how does it feel to belong to a "commy pinko socialist" nation?

One thing that always sticks in my mind for Palin was in a video interview with her I saw (people were trying to use the clip as proof that Trig isn't her son ). The interviewer complements her on how nice her house is (the governor's mansion), and her immediate response was that (paraphrasing) "This isn't my house, it's the people of Alaska's, I just live in it".

anyone can come of as "idealistic" in an interview...you are prepared and usually come off better than what you really are.....so the mansion belongs to the people of Alaska uh?...how about the money for those travel expenses of hers?...does it belong to the people as well?....she sure was using it as she saw fit.

Palin has shown nothing more than the ability to repeat messages that where probably drilled into her head by party speech writers.

last week I saw video of a campaign speech she gave, on the subject of the economic crisis Palin brutally contradicted herself in the space of 5 minutes regarding the subject of government intervention on the market....and by contradiction I mean 2 statements that are complete 180º shifs from eachother in the space of a few minutes...

and you know what I found really scary about that video?

It wasn´t that she contradicted herself....politicians do it frequently, even if not in such an obvious fashion.

no...what was really scary was that the crowd at the rally cheered for both antagonistic sentences.... that means these people aren´t even thinking about what their chosen candidate is telling them....and these people vote....now that´s scary.

[CountArach]

How is Palin "more in touch"?

Her kids play Hockey, or something.

[Strike For The South]

Her kids play Hockey, or something.

Palin lives in Alaska. Alaskans get Texans and Inuits to drill there oil. Nuff said

[Crazed Rabbit]

I think the democratic muggers of Pittsburgh need a reminder to stay classy...

A knife-wielding man robbed a McCain-Palin campaign volunteer and etched a “B” into her face after he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the woman’s car, Pittsburgh police said.

Ashley Todd, 20, of College Station, Texas, was using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street in Bloomfield just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her, put a knife to her throat and demanded $60, police said.

Todd handed the man $60 she had in her pocket and stepped away from him, investigators said. The man then noticed the bumper sticker on the woman's car, which was parked in front of the ATM. The man became very angry, made comments to Todd about John McCain and punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground, police said.

"He continued to kick and punch her repeatedly and said he would teach her a lesson for supporting John McCain," said police Chief Nate Harper.

The man then carved the "B" into Todd's right cheek. Todd, who isn't familiar with the area, drove to a friend's house nearby and told her friend she wasn't sure of the exact location where the robbery took place but remembered a green sign above the ATM. The friend called police and the officer met them on Cypress Street in Bloomfield, police said.

CR