the best part was the dude continuing to slaughter turkeys behind her while she talked

11/21/2008 9:20:04 AM

Folks just can't stop talking about her...I swear she's more popular now than during the election.

11/21/2008 12:17:45 PM

That must be why she helped McCain win so many electoral votes...

11/21/2008 12:27:02 PM

^^ could have something to do with the fact that she's done more interviews in the past 2 weeks than she did in the entire campaign.

11/21/2008 12:47:48 PM

how could nobody think to themselves, "hey, you know what, let's not lop off turkey heads on camera. let's just wait a second." or how could the camera man not say, "hey, sarah, it's judgement day for half those turkeys behind you, let's just move the camera/interview ever so slightly to the left." i mean, you're really just inviting unnecessary scrutiny at that point.

11/21/2008 6:07:41 PM

^ it's giving her press she otherwise wouldn't have gotten.

Part of me thinks this was intentional.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1xQeOPE9ePU/SSY_iOVvwmI/AAAAAAAAC7I/6WX0oV2NWXY/s1600-h/msnbcturkey.jpg

[Edited on November 21, 2008 at 6:50 PM. Reason : ]

11/21/2008 6:45:06 PM

IOP101

11/22/2008 6:24:59 PM

Quote :

"Despite attracting millions of new contributors to his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama received about the same percentage of his total political funds from small donors as President Bush did in 2004, according to a study released today by the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-11-24-obamadonors_N.htm

It turns out that once you account for people that gave multiple donations over the campaign, Obama didn't raise any more money from small donors than Bush. Yet I was being silly for suggesting this might be the case 3 months ago.

11/26/2008 6:26:36 AM

^^^ I think the farmer just wanted to be on TV

11/26/2008 7:20:37 AM

^^According to that article, he had many more small donors than Bush.

I don't know what the exact claim was 3 months ago, but even if you indeed made a claim about the percentage rather than the number, that doesn't seem like a particularly interesting point.

11/26/2008 9:27:23 AM

^^ aha, i though the same thing.

11/26/2008 11:58:24 AM

Quote :

"I don't know what the exact claim was 3 months ago, but even if you indeed made a claim about the percentage rather than the number, that doesn't seem like a particularly interesting point."

It is interesting because even though Obama raised more from small donors in absolute numbers, he also raised more from LARGE donors in absolute numbers as well (though I don't see you jumping on that talking point). Percentages provide us with an indication of the contributions of small donors relative to all contributions.

This is especially important if you're going to make the claim that Obama is somehow less reliant on "big money" donations (as his supporters have).

PS* This should also makes anyone that supports public financing even less comfortable about Obama setting a precedent for dropping out when the money is good.

[Edited on November 26, 2008 at 1:23 PM. Reason : ``]

11/26/2008 1:14:37 PM

Socks, you just need to have sex with Obama and get over this creepy obsession you have with tearing the man down. If McCain had won and people were picking apart his victory to the Nth degree you'd be telling them to shut up.

Obama got a shitton of money from small and big donors. He won the popular vote by 7% (largest victory ever by a non-incumbent number wise and #12 percentage-wise).

No matter how you explain it away, Obama won and there's nothing you can do to change it by your (and hooksaw's) incessant whining about minute details that only sore losers care about.

11/26/2008 2:00:36 PM

Quote :

""Despite attracting millions of new contributors to his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama received about the same percentage of his total political funds from small donors as President Bush did in 2004, according to a study released today by the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute." http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-11-24-obamadonors_N.htm It turns out that once you account for people that gave multiple donations over the campaign, Obama didn't raise any more money from small donors than Bush. Yet I was being silly for suggesting this might be the case 3 months ago. "

You are interpreting that data incorrectly.

THis has a good breakdown (but still more speculative than I like): http://arstechnica.com/journals/law.ars/2008/11/26/the-dribble-donors-a-second-look-at-obamas-fundraising

11/26/2008 2:20:04 PM

^ moron um. Did you read the post? Sanchez interrupts the data the same way I did. He then uses that information in a separate argument about how the internet has changed campaign finance.

Skank, I'm not tearing anyone down. Obama won and I have no hurt feelings. In fact, I am feeling much much better these days because he is proving to be much more of a centrist than you progressives wanted. I'm very hopeful for the next administration.

Really, I just mention it because I pointed out the possibility of this happening months ago (too many true-believers were quoting numbers on donations as if they were numbers of donors). But when I said it, I was lampooned or ignored.

Granted, it doesn't take a genius to see the possibility (I'm sure I've seen it mentioned during the election by others), but then again, progressives were more concerned with talking points than intellectual honesty.

[Edited on November 26, 2008 at 6:13 PM. Reason : ``]

11/26/2008 6:04:51 PM

Quote :

"progressives were more concerned with talking points than intellectual honesty"

yeah, we all thank god that you Lieberman-Republicans are here to keep everyone straight



look, here's the most important number: over 90% of all Obama donations were $100 or less.

now, just because somebody's grandma donated $25, $50, or $100 several times over the course of two years, she no longer counts as a small donor -- by your reckoning -- because all her donations are consolidated into one lump sum, and has now become one of the donors in the $500 - $1000 range

yep... that's some nice, intellectually honest work, there.





[Edited on November 26, 2008 at 7:27 PM. Reason : ]

11/26/2008 7:17:33 PM

^ ahaha yah i know. I'm such a dick for pointing out that if you give Obama $75 today and $75 tomorrow, you actually donated $150 to his campaign. What a glaring flaw in my logic!!! hehe

BUT CAN'T U *IMAGINE* A POOR OLD BLACK WOMAN GIVING A PORTION OF HER SOCIAL SECURITY CHECK EACH MONTH TO OBAMA!?!??!?! CLEARLY, THIS MEANS THE VOLUME OF SMALL DONATIONS ARE AN INDICATOR THAT THE POOR AND ELDERLY DROVE THESE DONATIONS!!! POOR, HOPEFUL AMERICANS ShOWING THEIR SUPPORTWITH THEIR HARD EARNED (AND TOO FEW) DOLLARS!!!

STFU bitch Your silly, partisan, and totally made up stories do not sway me. I can imagine a lot of things. I can imagine a 28 yr old researcher & yuppie living in the triangle that makes $50,000 per year and only gave Obama $50 this year. That imagined (actually real) person is counted as a small donor (but you wont see his story on the Daily Kos' talking points).

The fact is that we really can't say anything about the characterisitcs of donors. We can just IMAGINE. Fuck that. The DATA we do have indicate that the portion of small *donors* to Obama's camapign are not unprecedented and in fact are close to the portion donating to Bush in 2004. So suck on THAT!

[Edited on November 26, 2008 at 8:41 PM. Reason : ``]

11/26/2008 8:27:18 PM

it's not imagining, when its the actual case.

but even by your adjusted numbers, obama still got 60% of his funds from small donors, while Bush got 48%. that's not "close"

and that's only after you've tortured the data to make it confess what you "knew" all along.






[Edited on November 26, 2008 at 8:47 PM. Reason : ]

11/26/2008 8:43:29 PM

^

Quote :

"About $156 million, or a quarter of Obama's record-shattering campaign account, came from donors of $200 or less, according to the institute's analysis of federal election reports through Oct. 15."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-11-24-obamadonors_N.htm

Have you redefined what a small donor is ($200 or less) or are you just bad at fractions (one quarter is actually 25%)?

Either way, I don't feel like arguing about it. It's clear you've left the reality based community. Don't worry, it's just the rush of your party actually winning a Presidential election. This is why I prefer to avoid such associations. Keeps my thinking clear and my ability to do simple math in tact.

11/29/2008 12:55:45 AM

Quote :

"The fact is that we really can't say anything about the characterisitcs of donors. We can just IMAGINE. Fuck that. The DATA we do have indicate that the portion of small *donors* to Obama's camapign are not unprecedented and in fact are close to the portion donating to Bush in 2004. So suck on THA"

Your first half of here is accurate. Your second half is not. NEITHER article posted speculated on comparisons between the amount of individual donations ONLY the TOTAL breakdowns of DONORS not DONATIONS. Therefore, while the total donated by the <$200 group was similar, the nature of those donations appear to be different, which does meaningfully reflect on Obama's supporters.

And THIS is Sanchez's point, spelled out more partisanly:

Quote :

"I think I must have been buying into the wrong myth, because this doesn't really debunk the thing I'd thought was key about Obama's fundraising: That it was, to a higher degree than in the past, web-driven, rather than dominated by high-dollar events at which donors buy access (though there were still a lot of those). The relationship between the candidate and a random citizen who gets $500 squeezed out of her by a series of desperate emails from David Plouffe isn't all that different from the relationship between the candidate and someone who gave $10 to buy a key ring at a megarally -- there's no access bought, no implied promise of favors, and no opportunity to ask for a favor."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/Repeaters.html

11/29/2008 12:35:44 PM

Socks must have a 12" oboner

11/29/2008 1:03:32 PM

back to the "just posting shit online doesn't make it transparent" argument.....
if you've been following change.gov and barackobama.com, you've seen they've been making multiple updates daily with videos of meetings and transcripts of all the speeches and press conferences.

they've put up a new section on change.gov called "Your seat at the table", where all major documents from the transition team, including meeting summaries and transition documentation, are posted and can be read, searched, and commented on.
http://change.gov/open_government/yourseatatthetable
http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/seat_at_the_table/

12/5/2008 6:17:57 PM

^ oh yeah, one more thing that was being discussed on the last page - on change.gov, any video that is embedded from youtube also includes links to Yahoo video and direct links to download the mp4 version of the video

12/6/2008 3:36:54 PM

I just noticed that the RealClearPolitics daily tracker still shows up in my Firefox Awesome Bar when I type www.

12/8/2008 11:43:44 AM

Not really news-worthy, but post-worthy.

Wright visits Trinity pulpit, lashes media
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/12/reverend-jeremiah-wright-trinity-united-baptist-church-chicago-obama.html

Quote :

"'Any preacher who dares to point out the simple ugly facts found in every field imaginable is demonized as volatile, controversial, incendiary, inflammatory, anti-American and radical,' Wright said, taking time out to note the thousands of Japanese civilians who died 67 years to the day when American warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (Actually, Dec. 7 marks the day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.)"

The above quote, I believe, is from the Chicago Tribune in reference to Reverend Wright claiming that the bombing of Nagasaki occurred on December 7 (whereas it actually occurred around August 7). From the quote alone, I don't gather that he was specifically associating December 7 with Nagasaki.

Again, not that it really matters... but now that my interest is peaked, I'd like some factual information on this. Any idea where to find the full transcript or video of the sermon? I checked the church's website, but I only found live streams available.

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 12:30 AM. Reason : ed]

12/11/2008 12:28:53 AM