how could Obama be more popular than himself?

10/21/2008 7:13:00 AM

Quote :

"But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?'"

Translation: Continue to blindly follow us when things are still bad. We know what's right for you so even if you disagree with our decision-making, trust us.

Biden is such a moron.

10/21/2008 7:40:54 AM

Did anyone see the video of the protesters trying to stop Palin's motorcade? They were wrestled to the ground by motorcycle cops and had to be dragged away from the vehicles. At one point a police officer's head is pushed within about 5 inches of the wheel of a rolling vehicle as it passes- while he was wrestling on the ground with one of the protesters.

What amazed me about the scene was that they didn't arrest the 2 who wrestled with the cops and almost pushed one of them under a car. That's some amazing restraint on their part. I'd be pissed as hell.

10/21/2008 11:03:43 AM

CNN is reporting that McCain is making those tough decisions that politicians love to talk about. According to CNN, McCain is abandoning Colorado (9 EVs), Iowa (7 EVs) and New Mexico (5 Evs). If Obama wins these three he gets 21 EVs. Add these to the 252 EVs Kerry won and he has 273 and becomes President.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

10/21/2008 11:20:04 AM

Lord is McCain going for the tie?

If he doesn't pull Colorado or New Mexico or Iowa, then unless he thinks he can get Wisconsin or Washington (which I'd doubt since Colorado is probably a better shot), his only route seems to be to pull Virginia and New Hampshire, and end up with the 269-269 tie.

[tie by McCain getting Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and everywhere he is leading]

[Edited on October 21, 2008 at 11:55 AM. Reason : .]

10/21/2008 11:53:40 AM

No, he's trying to cut his losses, defend the other toss-up red states (NV, MO, NC, VA and so forth), and pick off Pennsylvania. Expect a continued presence and onslaught there.

I don't think he'll get PA but that's the only gambit he has left guys

10/21/2008 12:18:56 PM

Yeah, I think you're right.

Honestly going for PA he'll probably let go of Virginia also if it doesn't turn around soon.

He may also make a push for NH to hedge against Nevada.

10/21/2008 12:38:36 PM

10/21/2008 12:51:07 PM

10/21/2008 12:52:10 PM

10/21/2008 1:12:50 PM

Why would he bother going for a tie? If they tied, a Dem Congress would go Obama

10/21/2008 1:34:10 PM

He's counting on the congressional Bradly effect?

10/21/2008 2:09:46 PM

If McCain's "strategy" now is to give up on CO and focus on PA, then that's as good as a concession.

10/21/2008 2:23:18 PM

Quote :

"Obama leads in the latest national polls, 53% to 42%. The margin of error in the polls is 15%"

10/21/2008 2:23:55 PM

The McCain ads in Pennsylvania are hilarious.

BARACK OBAMA AND HIS LIBERAL ALLIES ARE OUT TO TAKE MORE OF YOUR MONEY. *displays a picture of an infant*

10/21/2008 2:47:36 PM

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2008/10/stephanopoulo-3.html

Quote :

"ABC News' George Stephanopoulos reports: Democratic sources say the McCain camp may be giving up on New Hampshire and Wisconsin. "

These last two weeks are going to be hilarious.

10/21/2008 2:52:05 PM

^ Especially when McCain pulls his comeback trick.

10/21/2008 2:55:10 PM

^ wait...you are kidding right?

McCain is.............

10/21/2008 3:13:38 PM

It ain't over until it's over.

Just remember that, okay?

10/21/2008 3:23:07 PM

Obama's lead is growing in Wake County... I didn't realize Bush won this county in 2004
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14785.html

10/21/2008 3:24:37 PM

Another senior moment from good ol' Johnny Boy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLVSURlFoQs

10/21/2008 11:33:10 PM

It started going down the shitter here. (at least in my mind)

10/21/2008 11:36:04 PM

Not sure what they were thinking with that green background... I remember seeing that a being like wtf who chose that?

Obama has a great PR machine, with huge bankrolls funding it.

McCain has terrible PR machine, funded by peanuts relatively.

10/21/2008 11:45:39 PM

^ Remember how the camera angles at the convention basically had him in front of an all blue background then too? I mean yeah in the stadium you could see the giant video screen behind him with the sky and the flag, but on TV almost the whole time he was talking it's like he was in front of a blue screen. That one got some fun re-edits online too.

10/21/2008 11:51:38 PM

McCain/Palin have over used all of their talking points.

I saw some commentary that said "rove style" politics, talking points, and attacks are useless in the youtube era. People get turned off quickly if they hear the same thing over and over again, ESPECIALLY if they do not connect with what is being said.

McCains biggest failure was not identifying what was not working quickly enough. He went through almost the entire campaign without making the middle class the centerpeice of his speeches and proposals. Obama has been reaching out to voters on their level all this time and the opposition keeps hammering at the personal attacks, WHICH HAVE NOT WORKED.

Regardless of whoever is right policy wise, it is pretty clear the McCaicampaign was a PR trainwreck.

10/21/2008 11:56:21 PM

he shoulda been disqualified for saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong imo

10/21/2008 11:58:47 PM

^^^ yeah, for real. Whoever set up that gaudy powerpoint presentation and didn't think to see what it would look like on TV needs to be fired.
I just took these screenshots from this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEkd07ylRfM










Say what you will about Obama's choices at the DNC (arrogant columns, huge venue, whatever), but at least it played as subdued and classy when the camera was focused on him

10/22/2008 12:04:11 AM

Obama: I want to help the middle class
McCain: You cannot trust him, he pals with terrorists

Obama: I want to give health insurance to those who need it most
McCain: He is gonna bankrupt the country

Obama: The Iraqis need to stand on their own so we do not have to send them our money
McCain: He voted against the surge!!

Obama: I want to cut middle class taxes
McCain: I want to cut capital gains

Even if Obama is lying through his teeth about all of this, one has to recognize he took the time to figure out what voters want to hear. I really like John McCain, but he could not have played in to their hands any better when it comes to being out-of-touch with the American people.

10/22/2008 12:06:35 AM

Quote :

"he shoulda been disqualified for saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong imo"

why? the fundamentals of the economy are strong... It was stupid to say because he should have no it would be taken way out of context and used as a sound byte, but what he said isn't wrong... unless you think the American economy is fundamentally weak? Which I haven't heard anyone arguing that.

10/22/2008 1:14:29 AM

Quote :

"In his interview with Ingraham, McCain defined what he meant by “fundamentals,” saying “we’re still the most innovative, the most productive, the greatest exporter, the greatest importer.” On the defensive yesterday, he defined the economy’s “fundamentals” as “workers and small businesses.” In fact, economists have a very different definition of what the actual fundamentals of the economy are. ABC News’s Jake Tapper spoke to a few, and they say the fundamentals are not strong like McCain claims: “One definition,” responded one, providing this definition: “A very broad term which includes such economic measures as interest rates, the government’s budget deficit, the country’s balance of trade account (relating to exports and imports), the level of domestic business confidence, the inflation rate, the state of (and confidence in) the banking and wider financial sector and consumer confidence.” “By this definition, things aren’t so good,” the expert said. Another said, “To which we might add health of job market, value of home prices and stock prices (which have the greatest impact on household wealth) and ability of wages to keep up with prices — these fundamentals are also not good.” Economic experts also tell The American Prospect’s Tim Fernholz that by at least seven different key measures “the fundamentals are not in fact strong.”"

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/16/mccain-economy-strong-18/

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 1:24 AM. Reason : sauce]

10/22/2008 1:24:24 AM

Quote :

"Even if Obama is lying through his teeth about all of this, one has to recognize he took the time to figure out what voters want to hear."

talk is cheap. on both sides. personally i'd rather have an able president over an articulate one any day.

10/22/2008 1:26:43 AM

^^ Quit quoting and linking to thinkprogress. Using biased, attack websites like that hurts your credibility.

10/22/2008 1:44:45 AM

since when did being articulate and eloquent become a handicap? why on earth would anyone see being able to communicate effectively as a drawback? being able to communicate your intentions goes along way toward implimenting those intentions. why do republicans view his ability to speak as something to fear? especially after the "abled yet not so smooth talking" president we have now? i seem to remember another presidential candidate that was a strong communicater. a great communicater, if you will....what was his name again?



V i'm not trying to split hairs here. i'm just saying that the attacks on obama's eloquence is petty. obama has demonstrated in his debates, his platform, and throughout his campaign trail that he has detailed plans. He hasn't harped on the abstract notions of "change" and "hope." those have pretty much been left at the door after the primaries. but the mccain camp keeps attacking obama as being a man with fancy words and no substance, despite the fact that obama has defended his positions. the mccain camp has reduced itself to upside-down character attacks.



"Hey boys, look at this guy-here! Don't let him fool yer with his big werds and all that fancy talk!"

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 2:13 AM. Reason : ]

10/22/2008 1:46:31 AM

Quote :

"since when did being articulate and eloquent become a handicap? why on earth would anyone see being able to communicate effectively as a drawback? being able to communicate your intentions goes along way toward implimenting those intentions. why do republicans view his ability to speak as something to fear?"

Where are you getting this shit?

Nobody I've heard or read has said that Obama's eloquence is a handicap or drawback. The criticism is that talk is cheap and that Obama is more style than substance. Please correct me if I'm wrong, or stop attacking a viewpoint that doesn't exist.

10/22/2008 1:52:06 AM

Seems like the Obama campaign has largely just been letting the GOP dig their own graves on this one... Off the top of my head, I can't come up with an example of Obama/Biden using personal attacks against McCain/Palin, but I can come up with three from McCain/Palin right off the bat.

As for the media being the "attack dogs" of one party or the other, I'd say that they were taking shots pretty evenly at both sides until Palin became the VP pick. The media would switch back and forth between whichever candidate had the hottest talking point at the time (probably so that they could keep the election close, since a blowout won't keep their ratings high)... but then when Palin became the VP pick, they saw the opportunity to create a shitstorm over her ineptitude. Lately, though, I haven't heard much at all from the major news networks, other than repeatedly telling us current poll results.

10/22/2008 2:16:02 AM

Quote :

"^^ Quit quoting and linking to thinkprogress. Using biased, attack websites like that hurts your credibility."

I've never quoted that site before. I don't even know anything about it. I just picked it out because it seemed provide a concise argument about why McCain is wrong. I wasn't aware information coming from a biased news source meant it is automatically not worthy of consideration.

Quote :

"Obama is more style than substance. "

Really? Still? Did you miss the debates? The guy isn't any less substantive than McCain.

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 2:19 AM. Reason : .]

10/22/2008 2:16:39 AM

Quote :

"I wasn't aware information coming from a biased news source meant it is automatically not worthy of consideration."

Yeah, it's a gray area. Hate-spewing and tinfoil hat-wearing sites like Prisonplanet are never acceptable, clearly biased sites like thinkprogress, heritage foundation etc are frowned upon because they knowingly manipulate and obscure the facts to help their cause. For example, no economist in their right mind would define the "fundamentals" of an economy as economic indicators such as inflation rate, consumer confidence, etc. By nature, "fundamentals" are fixed and not variables. The fundamentals have to refer to the free-market, investment-driven nature of our economy and the regulatory system that governs it. But hell, thinkprogress found some asshole "economist" who wanted to make McCain look bad and they quoted him. Thats what they do.

The problem is that one side of the spectrum reads that junk, and the other side reads the opposite argument from another set of hack websites, and the end result is a polarized political atmosphere and ultra-partisan arguments where nobody agrees on anything. These partisan websites contribute nothing but hate and half-truths, and the world would be better off without them.

Quote :

"Really? Still? Did you miss the debates? The guy isn't any less substantive than McCain."

Not my argument. I was just repeating what has been said about Obama.

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 2:44 AM. Reason : 2]

10/22/2008 2:39:49 AM

http://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3

10/22/2008 7:50:32 AM

Ehe.

10/22/2008 8:31:16 AM

Quote :

"The Final Days A Commentary by Susan Estrich Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Email to a Friend Losing a presidential race is not an easy thing. Losing the primary is one thing. But making it to the finals, so close you can almost taste it, and then watching it slip through your fingers is one of those experiences from which few people ever fully recover. If it's a race for re-election, a first term that doesn't become a second, at least you can go off, build the library and console yourself that you're still a member of the club. If you're young enough, you can convince yourself that there is always next time, four years down the road, that the next campaign is only days away. Even if you never run again (see Al Gore, John Kerry), you can get a long way thinking you might. There will be no such solace for John McCain if he loses. He tried twice. He made it to the finals. He is, frankly, too old to try again. It will be someone else's turn next time. And it's not clear, even if the talking heads don't want to admit it, that there is anything he can do now to change an outcome that is feeling more certain with each passing day. You can "what if" the race to death: what if he hadn't picked Sarah Palin; what if the economy hadn't collapsed; what if Hillary Clinton had won instead of Barack Obama? But what (SET ITAL) is (END ITAL) matters, not what if. He did pick Palin; the economy did collapse; and for my money, I think Hillary would have beaten him handily. At this point, almost everything that matters is beyond McCain's control. He can't control the fact that the Dow has collapsed, that Joe the Plumber has a lien on his house, that Palin doesn't read newspapers, or that Obama doesn't make mistakes. He can't even begin to match Obama in terms of organization or money. He is on the verge of the final days of a campaign that he will relive and second-guess for the rest of his life. McCain may not be able to do anything to change the numbers on Nov. 4 or the colors on the map. But there is one thing he can do. He can decide how he will go out, what kind of man America will see, whether the candidate America remembers will be the one who started this race, the one who served in the Senate with distinction, the one who crossed congressional aisles to do what was right, the one who stood up for Kerry when he was being swift-boated, the one who championed campaign finance reform, the de-politicization of the judiciary and fairness in immigration reform, the one who really did put country first for decades; or a bad copy of the guy who beat him by playing dirty politics in 2000. John McCain brought tears to my eyes in 1988 when he led the Republican Convention in the Pledge of Allegiance. He made me believe there was such a thing as principle when he stood up to the scumbags trashing him in 2000, stood up to the scumbags trashing Kerry in 2004, stood up to the loudmouth talk-show hosts spreading anti-immigrant ire in 2007. I haven't seen that guy lately. I haven't seen the guy who carried his own briefcase and was willing to take every question and do his best to tell the truth in answering them. I haven't seen the guy who rode the Straight Talk Express, the guy Democrats like me were most worried about facing in a general election. What I've seen is another desperate politician tossing mud at his rival, looking for cheap shots and funding robocalls instead of denouncing them. Maybe with the economy the way it is, the Bush presidency as unpopular as it is, the desire for change as great as it is, there was never a chance for the guy McCain used to be. It may be too late for him to win with dignity, but there is still time for him to lose that way. And it matters. It will matter to him for the rest of his life. It matters to the process he has fought for and to the country to which he has dedicated his life. He deserves a better last act than the bad jokes of the Palin fiasco. Two weeks isn't much time. But it's time enough to change the way the ending feels, if not how it plays."

If mccain had actually been what was in the bolded area, he would have won. Rove-style attacks ruined both of his presidential runs. McCain didn't read the mood of the country both times.


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_susan_estrich/the_]

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 9:27 AM. Reason : .]

10/22/2008 9:24:19 AM

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 12:43 PM. Reason : -]

10/22/2008 12:35:45 PM

Obama looked frickin exhausted at that press speech he did like 30 minutes ago.

10/22/2008 12:36:59 PM

Quote :

"McCain/Palin have over used all of their talking points"

agreed

10/22/2008 12:39:14 PM

Quote :

"If mccain had actually been what was in the bolded area, he would have won. Rove-style attacks ruined both of his presidential runs. McCain didn't read the mood of the country both times."

I agree.

The problem, if you remember, was that initially, the right-wing whackos in the media had no support for McCain and constantly bashed him, all being lead by Fox News. They didn't embrace McCain until McCain started to act more like a typical Neocon, which is really what got McCain's foot in the door. He could have made a change at some point maybe back in June or so, but it would have looked VERY flip-floppy, and by that time, Obama was charging ahead full steam.

10/22/2008 1:05:36 PM

and the media has backed obama through out the race, regardless of what he says or does


its hard to have a negative image when every outlet portrays you as infalable

10/22/2008 1:08:56 PM

^ Oh right, blaming the networks as the reason Obama is winning is a weak fucking argument man. Weak.

-Has nothing to do with McCain's absurdly run campaign that's steered from lunacy to completely off message at best.
-Has nothing to do with Obama staying on message and acting presidential, displaying superior intellect and temperance against his opponent.
-Has nothing to do with the financial situation and Obama's handling of it VS McCain
-Has nothing to do with the way Obama's campaign has been run to tune of nothing elese we've seen in terms of organization and pure grassroots power
-Has nothing to do with America being fed up with Rovian bullshit and this day next day overreaching acidic talking points, many fueled by fear, intolerance, and hate not to mention stinking of desperation.
-Has nothing to do with the record number of Democratic registered voters that tuned in to the most exciting primary race in history
-Has nothing to do with Bush's landmark approval ratings in the tank and the republican brand in shambles.

Nope, it's all the media. Your mental heuristics are laughable.

10/22/2008 1:16:48 PM

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=QnE-YJ---GI

10/22/2008 1:19:13 PM

10/22/2008 1:19:39 PM

^ fuck that

10/22/2008 1:25:28 PM

Quote :

"and the media has backed obama through out the race, regardless of what he says or does"

I thought people could be expected to take care of themselves, and that's why you advocate less government control and taxes? If that's the case, why is the media's opinion (even though their opinion is valid) an excuse?

REACHING, man. Not even reaching; your arm's off.

^ Deal with it, you ignorant, racist fuck

[Edited on October 22, 2008 at 1:27 PM. Reason : .]

10/22/2008 1:27:15 PM