This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: John McCain/Sarah Palin

  • New McCain ads

    They must be reading the blogs over at McCain Central.

    The first ad is entitled “Rein” and quotes Bill Clinton bragging about him and the Congressional Democrats blocking Republicans’ attempts to rein-in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae;

    [youtube r2RZ0sUcVcE nolink]

    The second uses the video I posted the other day of Obama admitting that the fundamentals of our economy are strong – just like McCain said last week;

    [youtube VVB5rd-azXM nolink]

    Now I just saw an Obama ad where he claimed that among a littany of other things, “change” meant we won’t allow banks to rip people off. I’m pretty sure we’re in this mess because people were ripping off banks by not paying their mortgages…but I might be wrong.

    But over in Camp Obama, they’ve got real topical videos like this one of some child molester and her child groom;

    [youtube TFVfNYVT298 nolink]

    By way of The Weekly Standard Blog, Politico‘s Ben Smith quotes Obama admitting he really doesn’t mean all of the bipartisanship blather of his;

    “I don’t think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful, I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle,” he said.

    But according to Conservative Punk, he couldn’t even convince Sheila Jackson Lee to vote for the bailout, but she touts his ability to deliver votes.

  • McCain hits Obama with Chavez

    Hugo Chavez makes the big time in American politics as a star in the latest John McCain ad with Chavez’ rant just last week about “shit Americans”;

    [youtube AHQwsxHiaY0 nolink]

    The Washington Times says the ad is aimed at Hispanic Americans;

    In the ad – replete with bleeps to cover up Mr. Chavez’s repeated expletives in condemning Americans – the McCain campaign charges that Mr. Obama would meet unconditionally with Mr. Chavez and other anti-American foreign leaders. “Do you believe we should talk with Chavez?” the announcer asks.

    The McCain campaign said Hispanic voters are particularly open to the message because many of them are immigrants who came to the U.S. seeking to escape the sort of political tactics Mr. Chavez employs.

    “They come to American for freedom, and yet Senator Obama seems overly willing to deal with a tin-pot dictator,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

    Typically, the Obama campaign’s response has little to do with reality;

    Federico de Jesus, an Obama campaign spokesman, called the new Chavez ad the “latest distortion” from Mr. McCain, and said it’s actually President Bush’s policy that has boosted the Venezuelan leader.

    “We cannot afford more of the same economic policies that have driven us into a ditch, and we cannot afford more of the same foreign policy that has strengthened Chavez and set back U.S. leadership in Latin America while doing nothing to break our dependence on foreign oil,” he said.

    Chavez was anti-US before the Bush Administration came into existence. Chavez merely took advantage of the US Left’s disdain and uses Bush as a boogeyman to whip up the crowds of supporters in his own country (like he was doing last week in the video). The reason we haven’t broken our dependence on foreign oil is because we aren’t allowed by our own legislatures to access our own sources, it has nothing to do with George Bush or Hugo Chavez. It’s the Democrats.

    The only part of the ad I disagree with is the phrase “Do you believe we should talk with Chavez?” It ought to be “Do you believe we could talk with Chavez?”The only way Chavez will accept any audience with a US leader is if the president (who ever it is) comes crawling across the floor of the Miraflores Palace. And right now, Obama is probably just the guy to that.

    UPDATED: Chavez responds as quoted by ElUniversal;

    “I will not reply to any candidate (Obama or McCain). We will try to understand each other, as presidents, with whomever who turns out to take office. Now, they are electioneering, seeking votes, and attacking Chávez there will probably give them votes in some sectors.”

  • On earmarks

    An email from doubleplusundead led me to Cuffy Miegs‘ artful dissection of a Wall Street Journal article on Governor Sarah Palin’s supposed “airport to no where”;

    The Wall Street Journal’s credibility takes a hit today as it reports on Gov. Palin’s federal funding requests for Alaska. The problem? The WSJ sloppily declines to identify which of these requests were hypocritical earmarks and which requests were normal legislative appropriations:

    Somehow, the Wall Street Journal thinks that taking earmarks from Congress is the same as giving earmarks from Congress and uses a governor’s requests as evidence of her (and McCain’s) insincerity about ending earmarks.

    A governor’s responsibility is first to her own taxpayers and with a Congress more than willing to shell out money for pet projects of it’s members to buy job security, it was also her responsibility to get as much free money to make life easier for as many residents as possible. Does the Wall Street Journal think that if Palin hadn’t spent that money that Congress would have written the rest of us a check to return that money to the taxpayers?

    I’ve said on this blog in the past that the closer government is to the people, the more liberal it should be – a governor knows better how to spend money in her state than a bureaucrat in Washington. If government sees it’s job as redistribution of wealth to benefit the least of us (I don’t agree, by the way, but government does see itself as that these days), and we know damn well that government is going to spend every dollar they get (and more), who can fault a governor for getting as much of that money as they can for their own people to improve their own states?

    The problem is in Washington, not in Alaska. Fault the Democrats AND Republicans who refuse to break free of the culture of buying votes with tax dollars.

  • Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton

    Last night, Saturday Night Live opened their show with Tina Fey (Shocked? Me, to!) playing Sarah Palin next to a Hillary Clinton character. The video is here…YouTube scrubbed all of the pirate copies. They had one good line about the differences in their political opinions with Hillary explaining how she believed that we could we reason with foreign power to get a satisfactory outcome to which the Palin character responds “And I can see Russia from my house”.

    But the main thrust of the skit was that Hillary had worked so hard to get where she is and Palin just swooped in and scooped up Hillary’s mantle. That Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. I agree.

    Hillary Clinton got to where she is because she attached herself to an ambitious man, perhaps less ambitious than herself, perhaps she had to poke and prod Bill Clinton along, but Hillary Clinton would never had made it as far as she has without Bill Clinton.

    Sarah Palin, on the other hand, made it pretty much on her own. Her husband had no political connections, her parents didn’t either. Sarah Palin went from the PTA to the governorship largely on her own. She became a conservative force in this country in her first year as governor, again, on her own. I remember discussing her as a possible candidate for VP back in March – I think it was with TSO when he and I were at Winter Soldier during our lunch break.

    No one can point to any man that “empowered” her or mentored her to the position she’s reached in America. No, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. In fact she’s the complete opposite of Hillary Clinton. That’s probably what scares the Left so much – an ambitious woman making it without their help and their afirmative action programs.

  • Who’s attacking whom, here?

    The day after his campaign ran an ad mocking John McCain’s war injuries, just a few days after he referred to Sarah Palin as a lipsticked pig, Barack Obama warned supporters to look out for sleazy ads and unwarrated attacks on him, according to the Washington Times;

    Sen. Barack Obama told voters not to fall for Republican attempts to “distort my record,” keeping up his attacks on Sen. John McCain, whose campaign criticized the Democrat for talking politics during a hurricane.

    During a rally that was scaled back as Hurricane Ike swamped Texas, the Democratic presidential nominee said Republicans “will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats are trying to do,” but warned voters in the blue-leaning swing state that “the times are too serious for those strategies to work.”

    “If we don’t [start] the changes that we need starting right now, then our children may not have the same kind of America that we want them to have,” Mr. Obama said.

    I think it’ll be pretty hard for the McCain campaign to distort Obama’s record since he doesn’t have one. Regardless, here’s a quick perusal of headlines in today’s news. From the International Herald Tribune;

    From AFP;

    From The Age;

    From SeaCoast Online;

    In fact, if you do a Yahoo search in the news on “Obama+attack” you get 11,000 results that begin like this;

    Now a search of “McCain+attack” results in 11,000 hits, too (the first three articles were the same, so I cut one out)

    So who is attacking whom here? I remember John McCain extending his hand on the night of Obama’s nomination in an ad that was gentlemanly. He didn’t even bother to campaign that night so Obama could have his night to himself. Obama repaid that gesture by conducting an interview while John McCain accepted his party’s nomination.

    The only thing that has changed about the way Obama is conducting this campaign from Democrat campaigns in the past is the face. Oh, and did I mention he has a funny name?

  • The Palin Effect

    The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire reports that the McCain campaign plans on keeping the ticket as a single unit through the election;

    The McCain campaign is so pleased with campaign events featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin that advisers plan to keep the running mates together more often through Election Day.

    “The question is: how often will they be apart?” a senior adviser said when asked how often they will be together.

    Traditionally, presidential campaigns split the two candidates up so they can cover more territory as each candidate generates local news coverage in the cities he or she visits

    Why?

    Today’s rally in Fairfax, Va., attracted 23,000 people, the campaign said, citing a fire marshal estimate. That’s a new record. McCain’s events before Palin joined the ticket were considered large at 2,300 people.

    Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs notices what the rest of us don’t see;

    I like Palin’s husband. Watch him on stage while Sarah is stumping. He seems to get a real kick out of his wife. He enjoys her success and power, you can just see it. It is genuine. Spouses usually are wallpaper, but this guy digs it. He enjoys the crowd’s vibe off the wife. He seems to be thinking, “yeah she’s great, isn’t she?” It’s a very cool (and real) thing.

    Another endearing thing about this power ticket is McCain. When Palin is speaking he stands back like a proud papa and sort of beams.

    She left out Cindy – my dream girl (a blonde, millionaire beer distributor heiress)…the four of them make one hot ticket, though. I’d always said that the first Black and the first woman US Presidents would be Republicans because Republicans really are closer to the real people Americans want leading them, the real people that Americans themselves are.

  • Gov. Palin follows the rules

    The front page for the Washington Post this morning looks like this;

    Now do you see the article in the bottom right corner (with the headline that just fits above the fold);

    Looks pretty suspicious doesn’t it? Looks like that Palin woman tried to screw taxpayers…but the actual article tells a different story. Well, if you have the fortitude to read past the first paragraph. Here are the first two paragraphs that lay out the case;

    Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a “per diem” allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

    The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

    But further down, we see that it’s really just a Washington Post popcorn fart of a story;

    The state finance director, Kim Garnero, said Alaska law exempts the governor’s office from elaborate travel regulations. Said Leighow: “The governor is entitled to a per diem, and she claims it.”

    The popular governor collected the per diem allowance from April 22, four days after the birth of her fifth child, until June 3, when she flew to Juneau for two days. Palin moved her family to the capital during the legislative session last year, but prefers to stay in Wasilla and drive 45 miles to Anchorage to a state office building where she conducts most of her business, aides have said.

    Palin rarely sought reimbursement for meals while staying in Anchorage or Wasilla, the reports show.

    Now, the Washington Post gets upset over a few thousand dollars spent by a governor, but do they get upset over Charley Rangel’s tax payer-funded leased Cadillacs? Or Nancy Pelosi’s demand for a military aircraft to ferry her to her California district?

    But the headline bit gets the attention-deficit crowd all worked up (from the article’s comments section);

    kkampf527 wrote:
    Everyday more and more comes out about Gov. Palin. I hope americans are paying attention. She’s not change, she’s more of the same.

  • Send in the girls

    Apparently, until last Friday, Obama hadn’t worried much about the female vote. He figured that forcing Clinton to make her “Unity” speech would be enough to earn him the loyalty of women voters. Well, then John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, and now the Obama campaign isn’t so sure about their position among women. Time to send out the women to defend him (Washington Times/AP link);

    Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all were scheduled to campaign for Obama in the coming weeks. Republicans say they hope Palin, who made her national debut with a feisty speech on Wednesday, could put some female voters in play.

    “We respect her. She’s a skilled politician, as she proved last night,” Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters aboard the campaign plane Thursday. “She’s deft at going on the attack.”

    But it’s not clear exactly how Obama and his running mate Joe Biden should respond. They keenly remember how women rallied around one-time Democratic front runner Clinton when they perceived she was a victim of sexism. They don’t want to appear with a weak response, either, and certainly they also don’t want to send independent women flocking to the GOP.

    The solution, at least in the short term, will be have top-tier female supporters vouch for Obama to largely female audiences and keep the candidate himself away.

    Sebelius started on Thursday, linking Palin to the unpopular President Bush.

    Of course she did…the Democrats are more comfortable running against President Bush than they are running against someone actually being elected. After all, they’ve run against Bush in the last 4 elections…and they were successful only in the most recent. That strategy can’t backfire, can it?

    The Washington Post says that it may take more than a few battleaxes from the Democrats to bring Palin down;

    Palin’s turbulent introduction and a speech that electrified convention delegates on Wednesday produced an unexpected surge of energy and unity within the Republicans’ conservative base. If that holds up, it could narrow a sizable enthusiasm gap between the parties that has been seen as one of the Democrats’ most important advantages in the general election.

    One of my workmates, knowing my stance on politics, approached me yesterday morning and announced how energized he was after watching Ms. Palin Wednesday night. Another workmate, knowing my stance on politics announced he extreme dissatisfaction with the Palin choice and immediately began demeaning her as a woman in relation to her family. Now the first person was a borderline Republican who had moved to the DC area from Pittsburgh, the second was a lifetime resident of DC, a white elitist Liberal.

    This certainly isn’t a scientific poll, and I don’t mean to present it as such, but it illustrates what has  happened in this country since Friday, last. Republicans and Conservatives are coming back tot the party, and Liberals are mad about it…and for the first time they’re worried about Governor Palin’s effect on the race. They think that they deserve the reins of government after eight years and all of us bitter, God-clingers had better give it to them.

    So they send out the women that they should have named as VP picks to do their dirty work. Too little, too late. The Anchoress says Obama is “hiding” behind the women. John Hawkins at Right Wing News explains “Why Liberals Hate and Fear Successful Conservative Women“