Heigh-Ho! 2008 USA Election Thread

[Mattus]

McCain's campaign is really pounding below the belt now, though. Moreso since Palin came on board. It's all well and good for Obama to stay out of the mud and keep delivering his sermons on the hill, but when you watch that recent ad where the McCain campaign basically calls him a pedophile for passing a bill that 'provides comprehensive sex education to preschoolers'* I think the average American wants to see Obama react with controlled but apparent anger. After all it's what they would do, right? Otherwise he smells like Dukakis.

So sure, stay out of the tit-for-tat and stay on message (changelol) but you gotta hit back when it's appropriate or he looks like a pussy.


* The bill actually was to protect young children. Teaching the difference between appropriate and non-appropriate touching and so forth.

[JW Frogen]

McCain did not call him a pedophile he claimed Obama wanted to expand sex education to lower age groups.

Technically this is true; Obama did support legislation that would provide sex education to very young children with an emphasis on how to protect themselves from sexual predators.

I actually agree with Obama here, kids should have this information. My mother and father gave me the birds and the bee’s lecture (or rather the bitch had puppies lesson) very young.

It has served me well, I have had a interesting sex life yet never got any woman pregnant I did not want to, never contracted any sexual disease.

Sex education works if the family also imparts a sense of responsibility.

Having said that McCain is definitely playing rough.

The change came just after Obama’s European tour. McCain finally listened to those advisors who had been telling him they will not be able to get Obama into a detailed policy argument, with town hall debates, nor could Mac get any airtime in the news cycle talking about policy, that the election was really going to hinge on Obama, it was about Obama. Obama made it so. Whether people wanted to take the risk on youth and change or did not.


So Mac took a new direction, attack the quirkier aspects of Obama’s perceived persona and life (the Reverend Wright ads will come late in the election), challenge his claim of change and talk about Mac’s actual record of change, and take control of the news cycle with a VP pick so audacious captured the news cycle and has turned the entire race around.


Obama himself is succumbing to the same sorts of attacks, falsely claiming Mac wanted to fight in Iraq for 100 years (Mac stated US peace keeping troops might need to be there for a long time, as they are in South Korea, indeed Europe) and his personal attacks that Mac does not use a computer, (his war injuries are so extensive he can not really use a keyboard.)

Obama needs to get back to highlighting his lofty rhetoric and make people believe he is above all that, if he does he can possibly make the attacks backfire.

One thing Obama is doing right, rarely talked about is saving money for operational offices in the states that are in play. This is largely how he won the nomination against the Clinton machine, Obama’s campaign carefully picked where they were going to intensely organize, and got out huge votes in those critical states where such organization can turn the tide while remaining close enough in the other states to nullify her victories.

He is setting up a far more extensive and efficient grass roots attack in the battle ground states than Mac is, Mac going for a strategy that he can damage Obama writ large with TV advertising (another benefit of Palin is she is bringing in large amounts of donations) and news coverage.

This election is still Obama’s to loose, Mac really has no other choice but to pursue this strategy and hope that it works, Obama has a choice, he can follow suite or take the high road.


Power is a serious business; the acquisition of power is rarely pretty.

This is the nature of power; the genius of democracy is it replaces bullets for words.

There will be time for healing and generosity when one is sitting in the Oval Office.

Given the personal nature of both men I would think either would run inclusive administrations, which seek as much bi-partisan support as they can possibly get.

A lesson Bush never learned.

[Mattus]

You know you fucked up when Karl Rove calls it a foul.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09 ... index.html

CNN) -- Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said Sunday that Sen. John McCain had gone "one step too far" in some of his recent ads attacking Sen. Barack Obama.
Karl Rove said both candidates are guilty of going too far in their attacks.

Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama.

"McCain has gone in some of his ads -- similarly gone one step too far," he told Fox News, "and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test."

The Obama campaign immediately leaped on the quote.

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove -- the man who held the previous record -- said McCain's ads have gone too far," said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement sent to reporters minutes after Rove's on-air comments. Rove masterminded both of President Bush's successful White House bids.

Rove said both candidates need to "be careful" about their attacks on each other.

"They ought to -- there ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and won't we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?' " he said.

[JW Frogen]

Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama.

Obama's campaign kinda missed this part.

The difference being Obama really controls the election, he has a choice and has spent two years claiming he wanted to change the nature of political discourse away form this sort of campaigning.

But then when offered the chance to do so in detailed debates before the American people he refused, hoped he could ride on scripted speeches, and when Palin entered and he could no longer control the newscycle, he panicked and went down the low road too.

[Mattus]

Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama.

Obama's campaign kinda missed this part.

The difference being Obama really controls the election.....

No, the difference is Karl Rove has been running cut throat republican campaigns, including the McCain-has-a-black-love-child campaign, since 1977. For him to call out McCain for dirty politics would make me laugh if it wasn't so sad.

[JW Frogen]

No, the difference is Karl Rove has been running cut throat republican campaigns, including the McCain-has-a-black-love-child campaign, since 1977. For him to call out McCain for dirty politics would make me laugh if it wasn't so sad.

Perhaps Rove found God has a brain tumour or wants to be the next regular lifestyle guest on Oprah?

[AiA in Atlanta]

Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama.

Obama's campaign kinda missed this part.

The difference being Obama really controls the election, he has a choice and has spent two years claiming he wanted to change the nature of political discourse away form this sort of campaigning.

But then when offered the chance to do so in detailed debates before the American people he refused, hoped he could ride on scripted speeches, and when Palin entered and he could no longer control the newscycle, he panicked and went down the low road too.

And then McCain pulled out of the debate ...

[AiA in Atlanta]

W The Movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEyJ2kda ... re=related

This is fucking funny. Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney. Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush!

[JW Frogen]

And then McCain pulled out of the debate ...

Do try to keep up AIA.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7638435.stm
"US presidential rivals Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are set to meet in their much-anticipated first head-to-head TV debate."

[AiA in Atlanta]

And then McCain pulled out of the debate ...

Do try to keep up AIA.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7638435.stm
"US presidential rivals Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are set to meet in their much-anticipated first head-to-head TV debate."

That is what I have you for.