Moderators: Bill_Abner, ScoopBrady
You're the one who started using the word imaginary like it was a synonym for unidentified or unnamed. But I understand why you would choose to believe that, in this specific instance, Carl Cameron's off-the-record sources are liars and that he risked his credibility by going on the air with an invented story. Since his sources are not going to commit career suicide and reveal themselves, you can keep on believing.matthewk wrote:Not sure why you are so stuck on the word imaginary. The mysterious source is still unknown, and this so-called "news" is very likely a bunch of crap. Palin has denied it, and no one has come forward to explain how/when (or even if) this occurred. This is no more a solid piece of evidence than claims that Obama is a Muslim.
The problem is, without a forward credible witness, what we have is allegation. We also lack context. Even if we presume that the source had some merit based upon some discourse with SP, it's not inconceivable that there could be some confusion if the conversation had included the *countries* of South Africa or Central Africa, for example. Instead, however, what we have is presumed guilt and a "ZOMGFUX! She doesn't know the difference between a continent and a country" reaction from her detractors.Feanor wrote:You're the one who started using the word imaginary like it was a synonym for unidentified or unnamed. But I understand why you would choose to believe that, in this specific instance, Carl Cameron's off-the-record sources are liars and that he risked his credibility by going on the air with an invented story. Since his sources are not going to commit career suicide and reveal themselves, you can keep on believing.
OK - OK...so she knows that Africa is a continent! The list of other things she doesn't know is still long enough (Bush Doctrine, What the VP actually does, News Periodicals She Reads, etc).GameSeven wrote:
The problem is, without a forward credible witness, what we have is allegation. We also lack context. Even if we presume that the source had some merit based upon some discourse with SP, it's not inconceivable that there could be some confusion if the conversation had included the *countries* of South Africa or Central Africa, for example. Instead, however, what we have is presumed guilt and a "ZOMGFUX! She doesn't know the difference between a continent and a country" reaction from her detractors.
I'm not an ardent defender of Palin. I think she had a net-zero effect on the campaign. I think she gave a boost that the GOP wouldn't have received with a more conventional pick. I think it came back down to Earth when her weaknesses were laid bare and lampooned daily. Ultimately, BO's charisma and ability to sell himself as 'Change' in conjunction with the massive referendum on GWB proved insurmountable. BO's incredibly deep war chest didn't hurt.
Still, I have to agree with Teal that the fascination with SP by some on this board is borderline obsessive.
And it was the case with at least one voter on here. (Though, in fairness, I was as equally turned-off by what I learned about McCain leading up to the election.)JackB1 wrote:
I believe that the swing voters that were up for grabs were for the most part, turned off by Palin and turned to Obama instead. At least that was the case in the many undecided people that I spoke to before the election.
The overall effect is something that is going to remain a matter of opinion, I fear. Personally I believe she probably was a slight net negative, but I take issue with Jack's comment that the people who like her were already voting republican. I don't know that you have your finger on the pulse of the Republican community, Jack, but lots of Repubs (including radio talk show hosts like Limbaugh) did not like McCain, and I knew some personally that did not want to vote for him until the Palin pick. Now, these people would not have gone for Obama, but McCain gained some that may have considered third party candidates.JackB1 wrote: But I disagree that she had zero effect. The people that like her were already voting Republican. I believe that the swing voters that were up for grabs were for the most part, turned off by Palin and turned to Obama instead. At least that was the case in the many undecided people that I spoke to before the election.
So you're saying she doesn't know what she reads because she declined to answer the question?JackB1 wrote:OK - OK...so she knows that Africa is a continent! The list of other things she doesn't know is still long enough (Bush Doctrine, What the VP actually does, News Periodicals She Reads, etc).
This next quote is from a Democrat. And though I don't agree with his feelings about Palin,I do agree with his point on how she affected the election.JackB1 wrote:
OK - OK...so she knows that Africa is a continent! The list of other things she doesn't know is still long enough (Bush Doctrine, What the VP actually does, News Periodicals She Reads, etc).
But I disagree that she had zero effect. The people that like her were already voting Republican. I believe that the swing voters that were up for grabs were for the most part, turned off by Palin and turned to Obama instead. At least that was the case in the many undecided people that I spoke to before the election.
This is the last thing I'm posting on this subject. I have a life and a new President to worry about.Now that the McCain/Palin ticket found the bottom of the downward spiral to an electoral defeat of Mondale proportions, journalists, campaign operatives, and others looking to make names for themselves are all sagely pointing the finger of blame at Sarah Palin. Granted, she made things easier; I will enjoy few things more than seeing her consigned to the Dan Quayle Institute of Forgotten Novelty Candidates. One thing that she did not do, however, was cost the Republicans the election.
To assume that Sarah Palin cost the Republicans the election is to initially assume that they had a chance to win it. I contend that even if they had a small chance to do it, John McCain could never have done it running against Barack Obama. The basic formula for a victory is turning out the base of your party, some independent and undecided voters, and some amount of the other party's voters for you. John McCain has never had a lock on the GOP base:
Nearly five months after John McCain effectively locked down the Republican presidential nomination, many leaders of the religious right remain underwhelmed. A new Newsweek article asserts that McCain's candidacy has "tamped down" enthusiasm among these conservatives, "exposing fractures that make a rallying of the troops in the pews unlikely."
The recent L.A. Times/Bloomberg national poll spotlighted a pronounced "passion gap" in the presidential race, with fully 81% of Barack Obama supporters declaring themselves fired up about his candidacy and only 45% of the McCain backers feeling likewise about their man.
And here's an even more concrete sign of the difficulty McCain has been having rallying core Republicans, courtesy of a Gannett News Service story published Monday:
"Of the more than 900 Hoosiers who contributed at least $2,000 to President Bush's re-election campaign, only about 50 had contributed to the Arizona senator by the end of [May], according to a review of campaign disclosure reports...."
Part of this is not McCain's fault. The base of the GOP changed drastically between the 1980's, when McCain's political career began, and 2008, when he finally got his chance to run. Had the GOP still been able to get Sunbelt voters, Latinos, and Yankee Republicans and blue collar manufacturing sector white workers in addition to Southerners, as Reagan did, he would have been able to assemble a massive coalition. Had he been able to work with the Bush coalition, which had a Republican "Solid South", higher Latino margins, and the remnants of Yankee Republicans, he would have had a formidable base from which to work. But Republicans threw away all the gains that President Bush made with Latinos and Hispanics during their immigration meltdown of the last three years. Yankee Republicans are now voting Democratic, and the Sunbelt Republican is slowly being converted to a Sunbelt Democrat as well. All that was left for him to build on was The Solid South.
This, of course, is the rub. McCain was the candidate of every Republican coalition partner except the Southern moralists and the religious right that make up the Solid South. He has famously spat on them over and over again, and they were only happy to return the favor:
A prominent Christian leader whose radio and magazine outreaches are solidly in support of biblically-based marriages – and keeps in touch with millions of constituents daily – says he cannot consider Arizona Sen. John McCain a viable candidate for president.
"Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson, founder of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family as well as the Focus Action cultural action organization set up specifically to provide a platform for informing and rallying constituents.
Dobson, who always is careful to note that he's not speaking for the non-profit ministry, which cannot advocate for or against candidates legally, also doesn't hesitate to state his personal opinions on social or political issues and agendas.
Several times he's talked to Republicans, the traditionally conservative political party, about the need to maintain the values of that large part of the U.S. population, or lose the support of those people.
The important thing to note here is that McCain was the candidate of the traditional Republican coalition as it looked prior to 1980 — in other words, he was the candidate of the base to which Southerners and the religious right were added on. Unfortunately, by an operation similar to Gresham's Law, the party that relied on the religious right and Southern conservatives as the biggest partner in their coalition saw the other partners of their coalition marginalized or driven out. Their swelled ranks allowed them to wield a lot of power in the nineties, but the people who then nominated and elected Bush in 2000 were different from those that nominated and elected Reagan in 1980. While Reagan had once famously said, "You can't endorse me, but I can endorse you" to the religious right, Bush ran as one of them. The party that McCain inherited, while paying nominal allegiance to Reagan, now barely resembled the party that he had helped put together, and there was no way for a Sunbelt Republican like McCain to fully capture the allegiance of this transformed party.
Without going too deeply into the particulars of the Republican primary, we can all agree that it was a circular firing squad of conservative-approved candidates that allowed McCain to squeak through, which he did while repudiating every position that made him popular to the pre-Reagan Republican coalition. While the Democratic primary was going on without an end in sight, McCain was taking the time to try and convince everyone in the new GOP that he was their guy. From making "appropriate" speeches on the judiciary to cravenly backing down from his comprehensive immigration reform legislation, McCain gave it everything he had. Having inherited a Dixie revival tent party, he then spent months trying to recast himself as their champion, but to no avail. If you lie to everyone, no one will trust you.
Going into August, he still hadn't put the base of the Republican Party behind him, and, after a massively successful Democratic National Convention, he panicked. There is no other explanation for picking Sarah Palin. She gave him what no one else was able to: the base. Within minutes of her announcement, the entire tone of the Republican base changed. Whereas once they were putting up websites about getting drunk enough to vote for McCain, they were suddenly turning up in massive numbers to write blogs, volunteer, etc.
The problem? There just weren't enough of them to make up the difference. The Republican base is the analogue to bad money: it drove the moderates and soft Democrats out.
Sarah Palin is a noxious political figure who should be returned to obscurity as soon as humanly possible, and with luck, will be defeated in Alaska in 2010. But she should not be blamed for the catastrophe that was the McCain campaign.
This is a valid point. McCain may not have won regardless of who he picked. I am not blaming the loss on Palin. I just think she had an overall detremental impact. Did her impact make any overall difference in the final outcome? Probably not.JackDog wrote:
To assume that Sarah Palin cost the Republicans the election is to initially assume that they had a chance to win it.
JackB1 wrote:This is a valid point. McCain may not have won regardless of who he picked. I am not blaming the loss on Palin. I just think she had an overall detremental impact. Did her impact make any overall difference in the final outcome? Probably not.JackDog wrote:
To assume that Sarah Palin cost the Republicans the election is to initially assume that they had a chance to win it.
...Talk about talking in circles. Can I get that translated into english please.
Yes, it's probably not the best use of one's time (unless you're a Republican strategist) to think too much about the margin McCain loses by in the alternate universe where Palin was not picked. As for her not going away, just accept that she is a total MILF who is better-equipped to lead of band of survivors in a post-apocalyptic wasteland than most of us, and revel in the good that comes with that.XXXIV wrote:If it didnt influence the outcome...It was detrimental to what?
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/20 ... -post.html
Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post
WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch.
"I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet."
Clinton said he was "excited and honored" by the appointment, and would work "day and night" to defeat all the key policy objectives proposed by Mr. Obama during the campaign.
"I am gratified that the President-Elect has entrusted me with this important responsibility," said Clinton. "I'm looking forward to getting back behind, and under, the Oval Office desk again. As I have told the President-Elect, I pledge to do whatever I can to serve his historic administration by making sure that none of that bullshit he talked about during the campaign will ever see the light of day. Americans can rest assured that he will be safely confined to the East Wing, as far away as possible from any potentially dangerous office equipment or nuclear buttons."
The long anticipated naming of Clinton to head Obama's Oval Office team comes after a week that saw Obama appoint dozens of Clinton associates to his transition team including John Podesta, Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Larry Summers, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hundreds of other Clinton Administration holdovers are rumored to be in line for remaining appointments, including Bill Richardson, Janet Reno, Webb Hubbell, Chelsea Clinton, zombie Vince Foster, and zombie Socks the cat.
"Let's face it, it's obvious I'm in way over my head here," explained Obama. "Anyone paying attention knows I am a disaster waiting to happen, and who can blame them? I mean, just look at the stock market. That's why I think it's in the best interest of the country that I hand over the reins to people who, whatever their ethical shortcomings, at least have a faint clue about what they're doing. Come on, man. I've got a 401-k, too."
While the naming of Clinton appears to have momentarily calmed jittery financial markets, it sparked ripples of disapproval at liberal websites like Huffington Post and DailyKos. The progressive blogosphere was an early key source of support for Mr. Obama's candidacy, but a steady stream of Clinton-era appointees since the election has left some charging that he had betrayed his campaign promises to bring them to Washington as part of a sweeping culture of change -- a charge that Mr. Obama vehemently accepted.
"Oh, for crissakes. Are you kidding me? Are you friggin' kidding me?" asked Obama. "Of course I betrayed those goddamned idiots. Have any of you actually spent five minutes with them? I have, unfortunately. Nothing personal, but I wouldn't trust these internet windowlickers with a plastic spork from Taco Bell, let alone a freaking $3 trillion dollar budget global superpower. Look, I may be naive, but I'm not stupid. And if Kose or Koz or whatever the f*** his name is thinks for one second I give a rat's ass about who he wants in charge of the Treasury Department, he's even stupider than he looks."
"Look, I'm sorry I kinda snapped there, and pardon my French," added Obama. "But I just spent the last two years surrounded by these starstruck moonbat retards, and I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna spend the next four with them parked in the next cubicle over."
Obama also announced that he had accepted his own appointment of himself as an Assistant Undersecretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"It's a fairly low-stress job that I'm reasonably qualified for," said Obama. "I really can't do much damage there, and it will give me plenty of free time for Oprah specials. Plus work on my next autobiography and re-election campaign."
I think she had a negative effect, based on this polling data done shortly before the election by the Pew Research Center. The fact that two weeks before the election she was the only one of the four candidates to have a higher unfavorable rating than favorable is pretty hard to ignore.GameSeven wrote:I'm not an ardent defender of Palin. I think she had a net-zero effect on the campaign.
Im going to ignore it...and take a more logical and less emotional route.Feanor wrote:LOL, that's funny stuff. Although, Volcker is more a back-to-the-80s choice since he ran the Fed under Reagan and he's 81 years old.
I think she had a negative effect, based on this polling data done shortly before the election by the Pew Research Center. The fact that two weeks before the election she was the only one of the four candidates to have a higher unfavorable rating than favorable is pretty hard to ignore.GameSeven wrote:I'm not an ardent defender of Palin. I think she had a net-zero effect on the campaign.
They should put him on a chain gang to work on open tolling construction.RobVarak wrote:Blago finally goes down! Not only does the complaint detail some of the dozens of investigations that have plagued his administration for years, but he also brazenly tried to sell Obama's US Senate seat.
I had him pegged for years having a junior high intellect. Turns out I was grossly overestimating him. This guy has been the open target of Federal prosecutors for over 5 years and he's still stupid enough to try a stunt like this?
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008 ... stody.html
He was an embarassment from the day he was elected, so the prospect of impeachment and conviction is truly a relief.
I don't think he's smart enough to take instruction on which end of a shovel to use.Brando70 wrote:
They should put him on a chain gang to work on open tolling construction.
