Red State Rebels

VP debate and emails

Couple of thoughts today - first of course is the VP debate tonight. I know I will be watching from my living room, and I am wondering will Palin be able to answer anything. I mean a real answer and not a talking in circles with a smile and a shrug and tangents. She does claim, that she can look us all in the eye, and say she has the experience to be one old heart beat away from leading the country.

I disagree.

Also something seems to have been coming up more and more, at least with the folks I know - those email forwards. You know the ones, some "facts" that tell you why to not vote for someone, why they are getting their cash from someone bad etc.

I am one of those people that takes a firm stand on not sending or allowing people to send me forwards. I find then time wasters, and often not even true - many not even a small sliver of truth. I am also confident that you will not be struck dead if you break the chain...

That said, an email does come now and again, and it seems often they also come with poor email etiquette. With the addresses of many people showing. In the last week I received two, I hit reply all, point out this is NOT TRUE, and here is a link you should keep handy (snopes.com) and here is a direct link to why your facts are not true. Then I add something like honesty is important, especially when it comes to elections, and the value of every vote.

Now a couple of things tend to happen. One the person stops adding my name to the list of group emails, but very often I will get a direct email back from one of the people on the Reply All - that says:

thank you! these things make me crazy, I appreciate what you did.

Wow thank you for taking the time, to let me know the facts.

or thanks, that was a great reply, mind if I borrow that idea next time I get one of these?

Notice the thank you in each? People want the facts, and very often they know the forwards are not fully true, but they are not sure if they are somewhat true. There are so many ways to make sure that people
have the facts before they vote, and not all of them are debates, or yard signs, or walk and talks.

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Fancy a weekend in Vegas ... or Bozeman?

The Obama-Biden campaign is asking Idaho supporters to consider taking a trip to Nevada or Montana over the next few weeks to help reach voters in those important swing states. Nevada in particular looks ready to tip Obama's way. As The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote on The Fix today:

The Nevada caucuses way back in January gave Democrats a huge jump on voter registration and voter identification efforts. (The Republican side was barely contested with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney winning easily.) At the end of August, there were 458,877 registered Democrats in the state as compared to 397,172 registered Republicans. Compare that to November 2004 when there were 442,122 registered Republicans and 438,906 registered Democrats and you see that the trend line is moving in the wrong direction for the GOP.

Now it's a matter of registering even more people - then getting out the vote. So be like these people, and If you can spare some time to travel to one of our neighboring states, fill out this form. And if you can't travel between now and Election Day, never fear: there's plenty you can do here in Idaho by pitching in with the Obama campaign, the state party, your county Democratic office, or the campaign of your choice.

It's the economy, period

If the economy wasn't the top issue for voters before today, it certainly will be now. Which candidate is best prepared and most able to shepherd our shaky economy through its deepening crises? It's a no-brainer.

John McCain and his wife are unspeakably wealthy through his wife's involvement in a beer distributing empire. He doesn't know how many houses he owns.

He insists that the economy is fundamentally strong. (Watch him dodder through this statement today, even as Wall Street giants collapse and the stock market reels.) He said earlier this year that he really doesn't understand the economy. He supports Bush economic and tax policy that favors the wealthiest Americans while offering little to the middle class. His key economic adviser says Americans are "whiners" and that the recession is all in our heads.

Barack Obama is a product of the middle class who only recently became well-off due to book sales. He understands what middle-class families are going through. He and his wife Michelle own one home.

Obama's economic policy is based on tax cuts for the middle class and creation of top-notch new jobs for the 21st century. He would  end tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and he would bring more oversight to the financial and housing markets. Watch Barack Obama and Joe Biden talk about the economy and what working families really care about.

As Obama spokesman Bill Burton said this morning, "Today of all days, John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans. Even as his own ads try to convince him that the economy is in crisis, apparently his 26 years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an historic economic crisis."

Update 9/16/08: Obama released this ad today:

Update, Wednesday afternoon: Check out the fastest flip-flop in U.S. political history. The economy is strong. No, wait, it's not! Nice straight talk there, senator. And now McCain adviser Carly Fiorina is telling the media that neither McCain nor Sarah Palin nor Barack Obama nor Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But actually, after 19 months of watching Obama build a powerhouse organization, I'm dead  certain he could run HP, or anything else.

For a recap of how the economy is now dominating the presidential campaign, check out this AP story, which leads with this statement: "Economic fears are suddenly dominating the presidential campaign, shoving aside lipstick on pigs and every other issue." And not a moment too soon ...

Biden logic

I'm watching the Sunday morning news shows, and Rudy Guiliani is spouting the Republican party line about how, since Hillary Clinton got nearly as many votes as Barack Obama, he was a fool to pick anyone else as a running-mate. And of course, the McCain campaign quickly launched an ad showing Joe Biden saying in a primary debate that Obama may someday be ready to be president, but that day hasn't yet come.

It's true that 36 million people voted in roughly equal numbers for Clinton or Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries and caucuses. There's good evidence that in some states, Rush Limbaugh encouraged his lemmings to vote for Sen. Clinton to push her forward as the nominee the GOP would most like to oppose. But even considering that most of Sen. Clinton's support was genuine, more than 122 million people voted in the 2004 general election. Barack Obama was right to choose someone whose spouse was not impeached, someone who has not been vilified by reactionary Republicans, someone whose compelling personal story demonstrates strong family values, and someone who - despite 35 years in the Senate -  has commuted home most nights to Delaware.

As for the "not ready" meme, Americans are smart enough to know that the primary candidate Biden needed to contrast his experience with that of his much more junior colleague. Of course Obama knew what Biden had said, and he has the self confidence to know it was "just politics." Now, Biden could - and should - put this non-issue to rest this week at the convention. He got a good start in his speech Saturday as he recounted watching the way Obama came to the Senate and immediately started reaching across the aisle to solve some of the country's toughest problems: securing loose nuclear materials, ethics reform, and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed. In his prime time speech this week, and perhaps even in a TV ad, Biden needs to underscore Obama's readiness with words similar to what he said yesterday: that these times require more than a good soldier ... they require a wise leader, "a clear-eyed pragmatist who will get the job done."

Senator Biden did a good job yesterday saying that while he is a longtime friend of John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee has supported George W. Bush 95 percent of the time and would perpetuate the failed policies of the last eight years. He made the case that Barack Obama is the best person to move Washington out of its partisan gridlock. It was a good start for what I believe will be a good ticket. Let's see some home runs hit over the Rockies this week.

Update: Bethine Church, earlier a strong Hillary Clinton supporter, likes the Biden pick. This is especially noteworthy since Bethine was the person who spoke on Clinton's behalf at the Ada County presidential caucus in February. From the Statesman story: "I think they're going to make an absolutely superb ticket. And when elected, they have so many problems to iron out. But I think they'll work together to do it. I think it's going to take all of Joe's expertise, and Obama's youth to do it. They're both really brilliant."