Modern’s piece on Kasich is up. It’s all I promised and then some. Maybe not what you expected, but there’s a point to that. The right in Ohio has historically gone down the nasty rumor mill road more times than not. They typically do it when most vulnerable. You’ll remember the NAMBLA flailing about that eventually even made it into a debate between now Governor Strickland and his opponent Ken Blackwell (now fringe wingnut columnist).
Then there’s the “Strickland is gay” stuff, lead by Scott Pullins and other right wing bloggers. Now we have the “Ted may have Parkinson’s Disease” being spewed by the likes of Kyle Sisk. The same Kyle Sisk who posts a disgusting Willie Horton-esque attack on the Governor only to edit it then pull it down entirely once it’s discovered that the main suspect in the killing of 4 police officers in Seattle is someone whose 95 year sentence was commuted by Kasich buddy Mike Huckabee. The credibility gap between the two bloggers at this point is Grand Canyon in scale.
My earlier rumor mongering hinting at the subject of Modern’s post is surely a let down for some. The point, however, is to expose the tactics being employed by those on the right who would surely scream should those tactics be used against them. The other thing worth noting is that actual journalists have been hoodwinked by such rumor mongering to the point that they pick up crap from a discredited blogger and push lines of questioning that have no merit whatever. Yet it is doubtful they’ll actually use Modern’s post today to ask Kasich any questions related to the underlying narrative of his campaign and question it.
So while there appears to be no dirty little secret in terms of a gay affair or other such sensational news, there is a dirty little secret related to the basis of the Kasich campaign. We’ll now await to see if Joe Hallett and his brethren have the guts to ask the questions. So how about it guys? Care to question the false narrative that is John Kasich for Governor? There is still time to save your own credibility from the likes of Kyle Sisk.
Let’s hope for the best here. I hope bloggers left and right will send well wishes to Ms. Dunham.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama is canceling nearly all his campaign events Thursday and Friday to fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly ill 85-year-old grandmother, his spokesman said.
Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday that Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who helped raise him, was released from the hospital late last week. But he said her health had deteriorated “to the point where her situation is very serious.”
This is really innovative and I think very effective. Humanize the campaign for supporters letting them know that real people are also working as hard as they are in volunteering. This time, Plouffe does something else new and creative. He gives some national exposure to local attacks. These things typically stay pretty targetting and under the radar. David is not content to let that happen. He wants to shine some light on them in order to blunt their effectiveness. Really good stuff:
A great deal of commenting has been going on since this post was emailed around to a bunch of us. I agree completely with the take in the post.
Here’s my experience in this election. I go sit in the Delaware Obama office quite a bit. Most times just to get out of the house for a bit while working. The undisputed leader in requests coming through the front door is for yards signs. Almost always they are told there are none, but there are volunteer opportunities. They almost never sign up. They wouldn’t even if they scored a yard sign. Why? Because getting a yard sign and putting it in your yard FEELS like doing something, but it’s not. Yard sign takers usually don’t volunteer to do real work with campaigns because they feel like putting out a yard sign IS work for the campaign.
It’s not.
Yard signs are for losers. Signs don’t vote and they don’t win elections. Voters do. I think the Obama campaign is spot on in focusing on what matters to win and those who think planting a yard sign in their yard is doing something for the candidate to win are delusional.
Is visibility good? Hell yes. But from a strategic standpoint and not a feel-good standpoint. Hell, I LOVE yard signs. I had one until the winds came and it split down one side and blew away. I’ll be fixing it soon and putting it back out. I’ve also got a rally sign in my window. Know where I got it? I bought it online. Same place I got my two bumper stickers and Tee shirt (that already feels like a 5 year old tee). I didn’t wait for the campaign to get what I wanted. Neither should you.
So if you want a yard sign go get one online or better yet get a whole supporter pack. Hell. Buy 10 and commit to passing out 9 to your neighbors. If you think going to a campaign office and getting a free yard sign is “doing something”. Think again. You are wasting your time and (more importantly) the staffers at HQ. They are busing meeting call targets. They are busy “cutting turf” for actual volunteers to walk. Here is an alternate action plan for you:
1. Head down to HQ and sign up to volunteer. Find a neighborhood team and get to know the team leader. If no team leader exists, step up and become one.
2. Ask for a call list and take it home. Clear your throat and take your energy and enthusiasm and channel it into calling your neighbors. They are waiting on you to call, trust me.
4. Worst case, make your own. Decorate your car. Write Obama on your windows. Print out flyers and hand them out. Get a T shirt or three and wear them everyday. Tell everyone you meet to vote for Obama. Connect with your neighbors. Get to know other supporters. Walk with them in your neighborhood and get out the vote.
There are so many things to do in this time other than worrying about why the campaign is not giving out free stuff that most likely doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in winning elections.
Bottom line if you want a yard sign, buy one. If you want to win, volunteer.
Just in time, we have LowRoadExpress.com. Yet another site dedicated to answer McCain campaign false attacks and low road methods to try and beat Barack Obama. You’d think someone that promised to have a “respectful campaign focused on issues” wouldn’t cause his opponent to dedicated an entire new site to exposing his negative strategy.
Like FightTheSmears.com, this is another excellent effort to fight off what will only be lower gutter level politics tossed at the Senator.
It’s only going to get worse the more desperate they get. There has always been an exponential correlation to those two things. Factor of 2 or 3.
Just when I thought hilarity would cease and we’d not have any more fun close to the level of “Jessica the racist bitch“, here comes Matt Hurley. Matt is proprietor of Weapons of Mass Discussion, an Ohio wingnut with a pretty creative name but with web design that just may blind you. Seriously. I’ve warned you.
Joe already posted here about the insanity of getting all worked up over a campaign logo that borrows elements from The Presidential Seal. (It’s not like he’s running for PRESIDENT or anything). So big deal, right? Where’s the hilarity. Well, that comes in when Matt’s analysis includes Star Trek references. I’ll let Matt tell you why this is so serious.
Stop smiling. Matt is serious here.
I’ll let Matt tell you…damnit stop laughing! Can you not understand this is a matter of national defense and the very fabric of our country is at stake here! Shit! Stop the grab assing and listen to Matthew tell you why this is such a serious matter.
Go ahead Matt:
I am reminded of a Star Trek novel with the title of Dreadnought! by Diane Carey throughout this whole episode. Specifically, the character of Vice Admiral Rittenhouse, who is the main villain of the book, is the only officer in the history of the Starfleet to ever have had the audacity to create a “personal command emblem” which was worn by all the personnel who served with him. Rittenhouse plotted to take over the Federation by force and install himself as a benevolent dictator. In other words, he was a fascist. What tips Kirk and company off about Rittenhouse’s real character and motivations is the emblem and I can’t help but think that we ought to hear what Obama really thinks about this seal before we just let the issue go away.
I’m not kidding people. Cut the damned laughter out and understand the gravity of the situation we are dealing with here.
Are you surprised that Matt used a Star Trek reference? I’m not. Afterall, he lists being a “Starfleet Commander (CEO)” as one among many political and leadership experiences in his bio at his blog:
Political / Leadership Experience
Commander Starfleet (CEO): Starfleet Officers Club (Star Trek fan club and non-profit, charitable organization)
So while Matt may be very qualified to give us the inside scoop on what happened in the book Dreadnought! by Diane Carey, I’ll leave it to our good readers to decide if the guy is qualified to judge whether Obama’s campaign logo is akin to him wanting to establish some kind of “Imperial Presidency”.
If Matt were worried about that, It begs the question where the hell Matt has been during the time George W. Bush actually DEMONSTRATED a desire to set up a fucking “Imperial Presidency”. Not. One. Fucking. Word. I guess imagery is more important to Matt than actual events. You can bet your ass if a right winger had such a logo it would be a “thoughtful expression of patriotism”.
These guys are way too easy. November is going to be fun watching them cry. Dude promises “What the Great Seal of Obama Might Actually Mean for America” in his title, then gives us a Star Trek reference? LOL. Damn…
Sweet mother of mercy and all that is bright and good can you believe we get to do this for another couple months before they all go move to some outpost in West Jordan, Utah?
Bottom line: I just don’t think she was hungry enough for it in the beginning. It wasn’t really until the ten-in-a-row loss that she started doing stuff like ‘Saturday Night Live’ and Jon Stewart. In the beginning, it was hard to get her to do those things.”
i think it was 11 in a row, but whatever. There are many more examples given by those in the know. Some we knew and others that were a bit surprising. Financial mismanagement bordering on fraud. More themes than you can shake a stick at. Inability to frame a campaign in a change environment. Circular firing squads. The list goes on. I’m sure this campaign will be studied for years to come. They took inevitable and turned it into unwinnable. Worth reading about the cautionary tale that is has become.
It would also behoove the Obama campaign to take a look see at what not to become in the general. They’ve been about as good as Hillary has been bad, though. It doesn’t mean their game doesn’t need to tighten up for a general – it does. There is certainly less room for error if he is to be elected in the fall.
I wonder what would make Hillary Clinton say this:
“Anyone, anyone, who voted for either of us should be absolutely committed to voting for the other†in the general election, Clinton said during an hourlong meeting with The Indianapolis Star Editorial Board. “I’m going to shout that from the mountaintops and the valleys and everywhere I can, no matter what the outcome of the nominating process is.â€
Maybe it’s because her campaign since falling behind after Super Tuesday has done nothing but divide us? Maybe it’s because she is planning on taking this thing away with more vile and unfair attacks on Senator Obama? Maybe she knows she needs to send out these false vibes about unity for her own sake when she does?
Or maybe it’s just because she wants us all to come together. Right now. Over her.
Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Clinton and Governor Bill Richardson, D-N.M., prior to the Governor’s endorsement of Obama say she told him flatly, “He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win.”
Wow. I wonder what “sources” and why this was leaked. I can see it either way, really. Richardson people wanting to hurt Hillary. Hillary people wanting to push the idea that Barack can’t win in November. I guess the good Governor disagreed with her (and got called Judas by a scrunch-faced surrogate in James Carville).
Obama was hounded today by someone his campaign claimed was seeking autographs and photographs to sell on Ebay. HuffPo has it. Politico has it. CNN has it. WaPo has it.
The take away from this is that it’s time to beef up his security. No nutjob (autograph seeker or not) should be allowed this close to him. He was way too pushy to be getting close to a Presidential candidate. It’s not safe.
Another angle (you can also hear Obama call him “an Ebay guy”:
There are a few indicators in the sidebar race for money in this year’s Presidential Election. March numbers show Obama maintaining a blistering pace at $30 million – though down from $55 million in February. Clinton comes in at an estimated $20 million and still at a clear disadvantage. If money is free speech, then voters have been shouting loud and clear for some time now.
For Hillary, her debt is starting to become ominous. If she paid off her estimated $9 million in debt to vendors she’s been stiffing in state after state, then she only will show roughly half of that $20 million and look vulnerable. If she doesn’t pay them off and she loses the nomination (which she will), she then has to raise money to pay the debt off and then turn around and raise enough to defend her Senate seat in New York which will undoubtedly be targeted after the NY scandal within the party and her ties to Spitzer.
So she’s not only fracturing the party by refusing to face the fact that she can’t win the nomination, but she’s endangering her Senate seat as well.
I don’t have a problem with debt, especially when running a big campaign. It happens and it perfectly normal. It’s the level of debt versus what a campaign has show an ability to bring in that worries me here. To have your debt be half as much as what you take in for a given month is pretty rough. Obama, on the other hand took in $30 million and was carrying about $600,000 in debt. That’s not a bad ratio and is certainly manageable.
A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.
Oh wait. I remember! Haven’t we had enough deficit spending? We need a President who is ready on day one to better manage the finances of this country! No to Hillary Clinton!
“We worked very hard to put together these events on a moment’s notice and do absolutely everything to a ‘t’ to make it look perfect on television for her and for her campaign,†said the employee. “Sen. Clinton talks about helping working families, people in unions and small businesses. But when it comes down to actually doing something that shows that she can back up her words with action, she fails.â€
Way to “walk the talk” Hillz. Good stuff! If her campaign is any indication of how she’d run the country, we are in trouble if she succeeds in stealing the nomination.
