Convention Adventure

Palin and Joe a Drag On McCain

As many of us predicted from the outset, Sarah Palin is becoming a huge liability forJohn McCain. And it's his own fault. He rolled the dice and came up short on his political calculation of selecting an utterly unqualified candidate to be a heartbeat away from leading our nation. Sure she excites the base but we are seeing the base is NOT mainstream America and, based on what we have seen of this red meat crowd, I am grateful for that. New poll numbers show that most Americans don't think Palin is ready to be President. Anyone who has listened to her unscripted interviews or watched the debates have come to the same conclusion.

And how can Governor Palin STILL have trouble answering the question "what is the job of the VP"? I guess this was not covered in debate prep camp. No the VP does not "manage the Senate" Governor. Sheesh! She is making Cheney look good.

And the Gov's $150,000 clothing budget is causing quite a stir in cable news today as it clashes with the image feed by McCain camp. I'm more concerned about her "pro American" comments which feed a larger GOP narrative about their brand of patriotism and the "anti-American left". It's all so pathetic and insulting. The fact that her poll numbers have gone south, restores my faith in Americans. We are finally waking up to the tactics the GOP have long used to win elections and the Obama campaign has done a brilliant job of exposing the hypocrisy and lies, voter suppression and nasty robocalls.

Governor Palin may have a hard time explaining how she is the "hockey mom" married to "Joe six pack" when she lives a life that looks more like Paris Hilton. But in fairness, I realize that candidates need to look good and have little time to even pack a suitcase from home. But the RNC should have skipped Saks and Neiman Marcus in favor of Main Street department stores. I have to laugh that McCain is stumping for the middle class. Please. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and married into big money. At his Arizona home, I am told by a former AZ resident familiar with the McCains, plumbers enter home #7 via the servant's entrance. This is NOT a campaign or Party that is looking out for the little guy.

And will someone tell McCain that Joe the Plumber is a sinking ship. He is neither Joe nor a plumber nor a soon-to-be business owner, nor an independent voter. Which begs the question:

WHO IS THE REAL JOE THE PLUMBER?

Acorn Defends Itself Against Bogus Charges From the Right

From an email issued by ACORN yesterday:

Project Vote and ACORN succeeded in helping over 1.31 million Americans register to vote in 21 states this year. The vast majority of these registrants are low-income Americans; 60-70 percent are people of color; and more than half of them are under the age of 30.

With guidance and supervision from Project Vote, ACORN implemented this program in the field through a massive operation of nine regional directors, 16 field directors, 42 political organizers, and approximately 13,000 part-time canvassers and quality control staff.

Project Vote designed and supervised a quality control system used by ACORN that is the most sophisticated in the field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be bogus.

Some of the more than 13,000 workers who collected applications for ACORN decided to sit home and fill out bogus or duplicate cards instead of doing the work they were hired to do. There is no evidence that any of these workers were out to "defraud" the system (which is difficult and rare); rather, they were out to defraud us.

ACORN canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card. We have a strict zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in cases where our internal quality controls identified this happening ACORN fired the workers involved and notified election officials and law-enforcement.

ACORN's staff routinely flagged incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when submitting them, but these warnings were often ignored by election officials. Many election officials, however, recognized ACORN's good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials complained about faulty applications, the applications in question represent a small percentage of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN collected.

At the end of the day, we will likely learn that Project Vote's program helped 800,000 to 1 million eligible Americans join the voter rolls.

GOP Tactics To Suppress the Vote Detailed in Rolling Stone

A great article in Rolling Stone on voter suppression at the hands of the GOP. The media has been focused on Acorn- a non profit group trying to register new voters in poor and minority neighborhoods- but the real assault on democracy is coming from systematic efforts by the GOP.

Read the article by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast here.

Good over Hate at McCain Rally

This is the way to treat the haters at campaign rallies. The McCain Campaign got it right at a recent rally in VA. CNN wanted to interview the guy who intervened and praise him for his heroic action but the McCain Campaign would not allow it. Why doesn't the McCain Campaign want to highlight a Muslim supporter confronting hate? In fact, this man was a McCain delegate and is a Campaign Chair. He did the right thing and I applaud his actions. Watch what happened.

Barack leaves the campaign trail to be with "toot"

Barack will leave the campaign trail on Thursday and Friday to visit his seriously ill grandmother, Madely Dunham in Hawaii.

She and her late husband Stanley raised the young Barack in Hawaii for many years while his mother, who had remarried, lived abroad.

Known within the family as "Toot", a shortened form of the Hawaiian word "tutu" meaning grandmother, she gave him a stable home and the traditional American values brought from her own Midwestern childhood.

"Toot" was also in an ad for her grandson in April. Watch it here:

What's not to like?

Palin's got nothing on the Dems. I'm just sayin'..... if we win, the next 4 8 years will also be easy on the eyes. Maybe more of us will actually watch the State of the Nation address and presidential press conferences.

One of my favorite photos. -Kim

A Flurry of Obama Newspaper Endorsements

Obama is racking-up some great endorsements from newspapers including conservative publications like the Chicago Tribune which has NEVER endorsed a Democrat- even one from Illinois- until now.

Last week, Obama received the endorsements of the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. Editor & Publisher, a newspaper trade publication, reported Saturday that by its count newspapers endorsing Obama outnumbered those supporting McCain, 62 to 18. Is this just the the "liberal media" in the tank for Obama (hahaha)? No in most cases it was due, in part, to McCain's Palin pick and Barack's leadership and intellect.

Here are some links so you can read them for yourself.

Kansas City Star

Miami Herald

Raleigh News & Observer

Sacramento Bee

Idaho Statesman

Colin Powell endorses Obama on MTP today

Here is the entire broadcast in case you missed it. Of course the GOP will paint this as all about race but clearly it is not. Powell lays out a thoughtful argument for Obama citing three main points:

1) Obama's temperament, intellect, ability to unify and inspire, and his potential to be a "transformational leader"

2) McCain's pick of Sarah Palin reflected poorly on McCain's judgment

3) Obama's steady performance on the economic crisis is the leadership we need

Watch the whole thing if you can but certainly the first 20 minutes. -Kim

Shocking footage of McCain/Palin supporters

There are no words to describe the hate coming from McCain's base...so here is the video to watch it. Imagine what these folks do behind closed doors. It breaks my heart to see children with these adults- learning this kind of vitriol and racist behavior. John McCain is to blame for this and his robo calls are fanning the flames of division. This election can't come soon enough. -Kim

Joe the plumber neither Joe nor plumber

More vetting problems for McCain. Seems there are a few problems with John's friend Joe the Plumber- the infamous "undecided" voter in Ohio who challenged Obama when he was canvassing. McCain adopted Joe as his a campaign mascot to symbolize the white, middleclass, workers who McCain claims will benefit from his tax plan. Just a few problems with Joe.

Read the whole thing here on Daily Kos.

Like far too many Republicans, it seems that Joe has a habit of lying about as much as the rest of us breathe.

The facts, as the reluctant-to-bother-reporting Corporate Media have revealed, are that:

Joe The Plumber only makes $40,000 a year, doesn't have a valid plumbers license in the state of Ohio, has only been a "plumber" for 6 years - not 15, has never finished his plumber courses, has never apprenticed as a plumber, can't afford to buy his bosses business - which only generates $100,000 a year in income Profit, not $250,000 - is a registered republican who owes over a $1,000 in back taxes, and under any version of Obama's plan would get a tax cut that would be larger than McCain's.

His (first) Name isn't even Joe - It's SAM!

Gotta hand it to McCain, he knows how to pick his campaign tools.