Some Interesting Dynamics

Even though I find our choices for President to be putrid, the race is starting to get more interesting. Why? I think we could be on the verge of the Democrats self-destructing again. They are in position to lose the un-losable race.*

I really don’t care who wins. Election night is already a funeral as far as I’m concerned. I hate McCain and I hate Obama’s philosophy. I was briefly tempted to vote for McCain just out of spite because the media has been so horrendous to Sarah Palin. They have manufactured controversy about her while refusing to touch skeletons in Joe Biden’s closet that are much more concerning. This is nothing new. Take McCain’s alleged affair of the heart, which the NYT jumped on without proof. Compare that with the John Edwards scandal that they took nearly a year to even acknowledge even though the evidence was much more convincing. They still haven’t followed up the baby part by the way.

I was tempted. In the end, I can’t vote for John McCain. And that is the point.

John McCain has totally baited the Obama campaign, and they took the bait hard. Polls have shown that overwhelmingly (nearly unanimously) that in the end, voters vote for the name on the top of the ticket. It’s only common sense.

John McCain has set up a straw (wo)man of sorts. The Democrats are giving body blows to Palin now. Who cares? They are letting the guy that is running for President get off basically unscathed. And this guy is horrible!

Look at it this way, the voters that McCain has picked up because of Palin are going to be pretty small in number. He is going to pick up a hand full of jaded Clinton voters and some evangelicals who couldn’t stomach McCain by himself.

What does Obama gain by cutting Sarah Palin’s legs off? He may sway an infinitely smaller number of voters by doing this. Like I said, at the end of it all, you are voting for President, not VP. Obama is not going to convince evangelical Republicans to vote for him. He won’t. McCain – as wretched as he is – is a slightly better choice than Obama in their minds. He just wasn’t better to the point to vote for him without Palin. AT BEST Obama can convince some of them to not vote at all. This is remote, and it is only a 1 vote swing. A waste of time and money!

No current John McCain voter is going to be convinced to flip to Obama because Sarah Palin handled the firing of a police officer badly. Not if they think little enough of Obama to vote against him in the first place.

It’s also funny that he attacks her (a former Mayor and current Governor) for being inexperienced and “a heartbeat away” from being President. Okay, and what do we get if we elect you? A less than one term Senator with no “heartbeat” clause to protect us from your inexperience.

Instead of wasting his time attacking Palin, he should be spending his time attacking the big fish. McCain has plenty to be attacked on - he was basically dead in the primaries one year ago, there was just nobody that had enough name recognition and good ideas to hold him down. They only had one or the other (or neither.) Obama should be swaying skeptical Independents and angry moderate Republicans. There are much more of these people, and if you sway them from one side to the other, that is a 2 vote swing.

And by the way, if you think George Bush is bad with the outtakes – have you seen Barack Obama without a teleprompter? He is right up there with W. He doesn’t say anything funny really, he just stutters and stammers and generally loses his train of thought. I doubt we’ll see this every week on Letterman though.

Not that I think public speaking matters. In fact, it’s the least important thing GWB screws up on a daily basis. Yet, that is what the Democrats have been fixated on for the last 9 years or so. And that is why they lose. Instead of attacking him on something like his disastrous immigration policy (which has basically sunk the state of California) they instead spend their time making village idiot shirts, and making masturbatory books filled with Bush-isms that they can giggle at all day.

Instead of capitalizing on what was probably the biggest change of policy enacted by THE PEOPLE in my lifetime, they are content with making witty bumper stickers. The failed amnesty bill last year had the support of the President, half the Republicans, pretty much all of the Democrats AND the media - yet it went down in flames. A victory strictly won by the people. No, we didn’t make signs and march in the streets. We called our representatives, we emailed them, we faxed them, we screamed at them, we cancelled political donations. They caved. They feared the wrath people for once. The Democrats are running against one of the figure heads of that bill! They cannot capitalize. Upset conservatives were ripe for the picking (myself included) but Obama & Co. failed to move.

As is their M.O. for the last 12 years, they’ve decided to try to win by default. Aside from the previous mid-term election (in which the Republicans had gotten just too, too bad to take) this tactic has failed. It failed in the mid-terms of Clinton’s Presidency, it failed with a bumbling John Kerry, it failed when Tom Daschle became a human road block, and with Harry Reid crowned himself King Filibuster. They haven’t had an original idea since Clinton defeated Bush.

Now they are taking the default posture again. Obama presents only complaints, no solutions. The Reid/Pelosi era Congress has sat on their hands, not wanting to make a mistake in the run up to the election.

I don’t think it is good enough in a Presidential election to just say “The other guy sucks.” Say what you will about McCain, he puts himself out there, and he makes his views known.

The Democrats are never about ideas. Obama has been specific on precious few things. He loves to say in an interview “Now let’s be specific” and then goes on to give a totally vague answer. The bottom line is that Obama ™ is really a well packaged marketing campaign. He is an interesting experiment in guerilla promotions. He is our first internet sensation candidate. Howard Dean doesn’t count because even the best campaign strategy wouldn’t help him beat a slug.

This campaign is about the cult of personality. What we are watching here is pretty much a glorified season of American Idol. Who looks the best? Who’s potential Presidency do you like the idea of?

“I like the idea of a black President. It shows we are making progress.”

“I like the idea of a woman on the ticket.”

Well, that is all fine. But really, it’s a beauty contest. If it’s a black Democrat we really want; Harold Ford, Jr. is a better choice.

Do we want a conservative female? Condi Rice is way more qualified than Sarah Palin.

We don’t want better choices and more qualified people. We want to vote for an image. Nothing crystallizes this more than Obama’s Hollywood supporters. They don’t know crap about crap – but Obama is “in.” Obama is the new Kennedy.

This from people who must have their i-phone to go along with their Von Dutch hat. Not only do they need to shop at Whole Foods, but they have to have the cloth bag as well. They must drive a Prius with an Apple sticker on the bumper. Don’t tell them that the 1998 Toyota Tercel and the 1994 Geo Metro XFi are much better for the environment. That wouldn’t look cool. Plus, if you were driving one of those, nobody would know you are doing your part to help the earth. And if nobody knows you are doing you part to save the planet…

“Well, like, what’s the point? Right?”

 

* Which would undoubtedly be followed by a barrage of lame excuses as per usual.

- “Voting irregularities”

- “Voter intimidation”

- “Voter disenfranchisement”

- Diebold

And a new one but old one:

- Racism

Miscellaneous Praise and Complaints

Red Eye is pretty much the only show I make sure to watch everyday. Okay, that is a lie – I also watch Mohegan Sun Sports Tonight, but sports don’t count.

Red Eye is kind of like the Daily Show…but funny. It is political, but with more pop culture involved. It is on Fox News, so you know it comes from a refreshing angle as far as comedy goes – yet it’s a lot fairer. They rotate their contributors every night and always have people on who are liberal or less defined. The rotating keeps the show fresh and having people with opposing views on doesn’t spook them. Not to mention the three mainstays on the show are a conservative, a liberal and a libertarian.

I’ve been meaning to do a blog post about how in love I am on any given night several of their frequent guests. One night it could be Courtney Friel, the next Kerry Howley…also Alison Rosen. But that posting will have to come some other time.

Somewhere near the top of the show, Greg Gutfeld (the host) will give a monologue. This is the most political part of the show – usually 3/4 serious with some humor thrown in. But he makes real points, and he makes them in a way that a news show not dare try, but they ring a little more true than some stiff droning on about policy.

Fair and Balanced ™  as Fox News is, that monologue is followed by a rebuttal from a more liberal Bill Schulz.

It’s all in fun really, but a couple of Gutfeld’s “Gregalogues” really made some nice points in the last few days and I feel like posting them.

9.9.08

PALIN WORSE THAN HITLER

According to the media and many blogs, we truly have discovered someone worse than Hitler – and it`s Sarah Palin. Head to any leftwing blog, or even CNN for that matter, and you’ll find the zaniest of conspiracies – froth that even a dude with rabies would find unseemly. For some reason, this basically attractive and determined lady has the power to expose every progressive for what they are: loons one step away from a battered soapbox at Hyde Park`s Speakers Corner.

So how can one person create so much bile among folks who proclaim themselves to be the most tolerant in the universe? I mean – liberals are THE GOOD PEOPLE – priding themselves on being open-minded, caring, and of course, fair. But somehow, a Republican lady in her forties is exempt from this treatment – and open game for the grisliest of rumors. Perhaps, she truly is the devil in a dress, put here on this planet to eat children and pollute the planet – and possibly beat Barack Obama, the patron saint of every customer buying wheat germ in bulk at GNC.

But I know the real reason why every single elitist media type is so scared of her. They have never met her. And by her, I don`t mean Sarah Palin – I mean “her” – an actual normal woman with a bunch of kids, an average husband, no desire to watch “the L Word,” and definitely not up on her Chakras. She`s scary to these folks the way Walmart is scary to them: both are alien to someone accustomed to blogging about Project Runway and alternative medicine. They won`t go there, because they`ve never been there.

To them, hating Sarah Palin is a symptom of larger bigotry against “the rest of us.” The normal. If they saw her at a cocktail party, they would run away from her with a smirk. She’s the anti-Obama, the anti-New York Times, the anti-Alec Baldwin. the anti-”everything that can be ordered in the back pages of the Utne Reader.”

Which is why I love her – and you should too.

9.15.08

MCCAIN AND EMAIL

So right now Obama supporters are worried that the election has become less about the issues, and more about a war between personalities.

This is hilarious, given that the latest Obama attack ad paints John McCain as an old man who doesn’t know how to use email. Oh poor, funny old John – he’s just a dithering, odd-smelling coot, who still uses a land line and thinks the Samoan maid is stealing from him.

Let’s get some things straight. The entire Obama campaign has never been about issues – it’s always been a cult of personality – the personality being Obama, and the cult being his slavish followers, with Chris Matthews as a far less stable version of David Koresh. It’s only been since Palin entered the picture that the Democrats have started screaming about issues. Which, oddly, have been there all along.

And it’s the same ones that have been around for the last forty years. Taxes. War. Security. Unicorns. But the fact is, on these issues, Obama is not a reformer – he’s as conventional as a bloated, butt-pinching bureaucrat – except he’s thin and doesn’t pinch butts. The biggest issue in the world is staring him right in the face – it’s called terror – but he’s lost in the rhetoric of root causes.

And as for being internet savvy, I’d rather have a president who talks tough, instead of some dude known for his snarky emails. I don’t want my president Googling his name, reading celebrity sightings on Gawker, or leaving anonymous comments on TMZ. Our country is already turning into a nation of twelve year old girls, looking for popular kids to sign their yearbook – except those yearbooks are now blogs.

And one more thing on the subject of Sarah Palin. Keith Olbermann is such a deceiving scumbag.

Video Here:

From Newsbusters:

Sadly, what’s on display here is either a shocking ignorance concerning budgets, or a willful intent to deceive. 

If you click on the link embedded above inside “Palin vetoed $275,000 in Special Olympics Alaska funds,” what you find is the 2008 Alaska budget. What ThinkProgress and Olbermann are pointing to is an item on page 100 for “Special Olympics Alaska” with the number “550,000″ lined out, and the number “275,000″ written above it.

That DOES NOT mean this operating budget was cut in half. Instead, it means what was PROPOSED, or, as we’ll see in a moment, what was ASKED for by Special Olympics Alaska at the beginning of the budget process was approved for half the initial request.

Yet, most importantly, the final approval represented an increase from the previous year.

So If I’m making $750,000 a year and I ask my boss for 2 million dollars for next year and he/she settled on 1 million dollars instead – was my salary cut if half? That is some fine math, jackass.

Talk about sick, Keith. This is a disgusting tactic that is often used by the teacher’s union and the Democrats in California. Republicans want to restrain spending just a touch so the state doesn’t go deeper down the rabbit hole of out of control debt. So they cut some of the increase of the education budget. THE INCREASE not THE BUDGET. The education budget still goes up, just not as much. And Democrats go wacko, claiming that the Republicans despise all the children and want them to go without desks and food. What a crock.

This along with the fact that clearly the education dollars can’t be tied to results (in a positive way anyway) because money spent on education continues to go up every year, and test scores drop every year. This on top of the fact that enrollment in California schools is dropping over the past 10 years (despite the influx of millions of illegal alien children) because Americans are getting the hell out of the failing state as quickly as possible.

So what you have is actually a skyrocketing dollars per student ratio – but the Democrats still cry foul. Why? Well, they want to funnel more tax money to the teachers union who in turn gives much of it back in political donations of course.

Back to Red Eye. They are known for their comical and racy introductions to their guests. Usually using “if _____ were _____ I’d _____ him/her with a _____” type formula.

Some examples:

I’ve had several of my submitted intros used on the show in the last couple months, and I’ve got another one for you.

Greg Gutfeld, if witty commentary were pathetic self loathing, he’d be Keith Olbermann.

Jesus Was A Community Organizer?

Really?

I’ve heard him called a lot of things – but this is a new one. A convenient “gotcha” slogan, but like much of the garbage coming out of the Obama camp, it doesn’t have any substance.

First of all, it is offensive to compare Barack Obama to Jesus Christ (which he was borderline doing all campaign anyway) not to mention comparing Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate.

The liberal rallying cry this week has been “Jesus was a community organizer!“

Okay. Let’s assume this is true. He was a carpenter too. Would being a carpenter qualify Barack Obama for being President also? Being a “community organizer” would be way down on the list for Christ’s qualifications for President. For Obama? It is right at the top of the resume (Probably 2nd or 3rd item down.)

Now let’s get serious. When has Christ ever been called a community organizer? I’ve heard him called a carpenter, healer, clergyman, Son of God, teacher, etc.

Aside from organizing his 12 disciples, the guy was a radical. He was a loner. He didn’t organize – he caused chaos! This unrest ultimately let to his death! Many of these same screamers blame wars on the “organization” skills of Jesus Christ. More likely Jesus Christ was a “loony fundamentalist member of the religious right.”

Bottom line – I’ve developed a simple rule of thumb for Presidential elections:

Don’t vote for someone less qualified than your own father.

So for me, that rules Obama out. McCain qualifies, but I hate him. So Bob Barr it is…

A Whole Lot Of Hypocrisy Going On

*** First, a disclaimer. I’m voting for Bob Barr this November. I just cannot support John McCain because of his idiotic stance on immigration among other things. I like Barack Obama, I would vote for him if his ideas (the very few he specifies) weren’t garbage. ***

I don’t even know where to start with this really. Just a lot of stuff floating around in my head the last few days that I feel like I have to get out of my system. The current Republican party sucks. Most of them need to go home. This does not change the fact that they are held to an infuriating double standard on a million different issues. I’m going to try and point out just a couple that have come up the last week or two.

• When Democrats nominate Barack Obama for President, it is because of his ideas. When someone who votes for Hillary Clinton, it is to advance a great cause.

Michael Steele is an “Oreo” and an Uncle Tom. Condoleezza Rice is Aunt Jemima. Colin Powell is a house slave. Sarah Palin is “an affirmative action pick.” This coming from the party that champions affirmative action by the way.

• I noticed plenty of people watching the hurricane coverage this week that were borderline giddy. After all, it is proof that God really exists. They wanted President Bush and his cronies to be embarrassed. If that means a few hundred thousand black people lose their homes or die…so be it.

So what is worse? Failing to help folks in Louisiana because you are an inept administration? Or cheering for it to happen again because it will make people look bad with its ironic timing?

• I don’t give a rat’s ass about Sarah Palin’s daughter being pregnant. What does that have to do with anything? People say this undermines her “family values” appeal. Is she supposed to control every action of her kid? Parents teach their children the best they can, and then eventually the kids make their own choices. This happens in every family. Are we now going to start disqualifying Presidential candidates based on the choices of their teenage children? The pickings are already slim as it is!

Of course, were Al Gore to run, I have a feeling his son would not be an issue. He is addicted to every drug known to man, and has been known to drive at high speeds while on said drugs. This puts people’s lives in danger – but it is nothing nearly as bad as being pregnant. Gore’s kid got a half day in the news cycle – if that. Throw Howard Dean’s son in there too.

I have to wonder. What if it came out that Palin’s son does coke? Do you think it would get more play in the media than the fact that Obama did coke and wrote about it in his own book? If you don’t, you are a moron.

Not to mention Joe Biden’s daughter has been arrested. His son was being paid as a lobbyist for a credit card company while Biden pushed for legislation that would make it harder for people to get relief from credit card debt. Biden himself has received over $200,000 in campaign donations from employees of said credit card company.

As for undermining her family values – how? She has supported her daughter and encouraged her to not abort the child. You may disagree with her views, but under pressure she has walked the walk. She has been consistent with her platform. She is a true believer in what she says. I don’t see the problem here.

• Speaking of coke, apparently nobody cares. Wasn’t this the same group of Democrats/media that was killing themselves (unsuccessfully) to find some evidence that George W. Bush used coke? Now they have it right in front of them with another candidate and they don’t even blink. Not shocking though, you had a draft dodger in Bill Clinton, and one in Howard Dean who got just about no scrutiny at all when they ran, yet the media again KILLS itself to find (or make up) some evidence to show that George W. Bush didn’t give it his all.
• Back to Sarah Palin. Last night, after her speech, I must have heard ten media commentators and Democratic strategists (including the Obama campaign’s press release) point out the fact that she didn’t write her own speech. Yeah? Neither does Barack Obama. Neither does any politician. Why would they feel the need to point this out? Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

They also keep saying, “shouldn’t she be home with the kids?” Really? What if it were Todd Palin that was running? Would it be okay then? What if Hillary had younger children when she was running? What would the reaction have been if Republicans had mentioned that her family might be better off if she stayed home with the kiddies like a good woman should? Do we even have to wonder?

CNN’s Campbell Brown made an interesting point about Harry Reid’s rebuttal to Palin’s speech last night.

• Where the hell does Barack Obama get off making fun of her experience by the way? The guy is a glorified State Senator. He has never authored any important legislation, and according to professors who worked with him, he never penned any law papers either. Then, in his criticism, he brags about how small her Mayoral budget was, and that he dwarfs that number monthly in his campaign. Leave it to a Democrat to brag about how much money he is blowing through. A great sign of things to come.

You have to love Anderson Cooper last night defending Obama’s lack of executive experience by pointing out that he has some – he has run this campaign, hasn’t he? As my good friend The Red Lion pointed out:

I’m running for President. I guess all the experience you need is the experience you gain running your own campaign, so count me in!

• Are people really getting bent out of shape about Palin wanting to fire a cop who tased a ten year old boy and threatened to kill her father? Wow, we are reaching, aren’t we?
• CNN’s John King made an excellent point as well. One of the clowns on their broadcast kept pointing out that the religious right was “running this campaign.” King thoughtfully mentioned how the Democratic campaign hall was filled with members of the AFL-CIO and the Teachers Union, yet nobody said they were “running the Obama campaign.” If it goes down anything like how they do things in California, then they most certainly are running the campaign.
• A lot of talk about Republicans and fear. They want to scare you. They want to vote for them because you are afraid. Hmmmm, Democrats are only using the biggest scare campaign in the history of the country. The world is going to end! Al Gore told us global warming ™ was going to melt the polar ice caps during the next administration. And hey – if that doesn’t kill us, the Republicans will kill us all by starting a nuclear war!
• A couple final smaller points.

The New York Times prints a speculative story about John McCain “spending too much time with a lobbyist,” yet they take 9 months to acknowledge an affair with proof (John Edwards.)

The media refuses to touch Edwards, freezing out the story for nearly a year, yet they are already starting to report on a Palin affair story that is based on one unnamed source. Wow.

As for the lobbyist and McCain, nothing has been proven. Meanwhile, Barack Obama makes shady land deals with a guy who is now in prison. Yawn. No biggie.

This year we are seeing the media’s true colors like we have never seen before. They are going all out. If Bill Maher can see this stuff, it is pretty obvious.

I’m just glad I’m not a McCain supporter. If this is how worked up I get when I don’t care – Imagine what I’d do if I did!

Wondering…

…why ladies are apparently exempt from having to take their hats off for prayer and the national anthem.