It’s Already Happened — Yes on Proposition 8
Whether You Like It or Not — Yes on Proposition 8
Betty La Fea — No on Proposition 8
Nothing To Do with Schools — No on Proposition 8
Margaret Cho & Selene Luna — No on Proposition 8
Hello, I’m No on Prop 8
The Thorons – Don’t Eliminate Marriage for Anyone
The Obama campaign released this ad painting Senator McCain as “out of ideas,” “out of touch” and running “out of time.” The ad is 30 second spot.
A new poll from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Missouri (link is to US Census demographic data) points to a narrow one point lead for Senator Obama over Senator McCain. Previous recent polls showed the race in the Show Me State trending Obama by a mid single digit margin. In this poll by R2000 conducted for the St. Louis Post Dispatch of 800 likely Missouri voters, 48% backed Obama, while 47% favoured McCain. Three percent preferred one of three minor-party candidates, and 2% remained undecided.
When it comes to the nation’s troubled economy, Missouri’s likely voters put greater trust in Democrat Barack Obama than Republican John McCain.
That, in a nutshell, appears to be why Obama’s standing in this battleground state has improved since last summer — and why, less than two weeks before the Nov. 4 election, Obama is locked in a too-close-to-call presidential contest with McCain, a new poll shows.
“The economy is driving the presidential race, no question about it,” said Del Ali, head of Research 2000, which conducted the polls in Missouri and Illinois for the Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV (Channel 4).
Among the 800 likely Missouri voters polled last week, 48 percent backed Obama, while 47 percent favored McCain. Three percent preferred one of three minor-party candidates, and 2 percent were undecided.
The latest poll from Rasmussen Reports (SUSA) in Wisconsin points to a slight contraction of support for Senator Obama from polls at the beginning of October. Two polls from SUSA and Rasmussen Reports had given Obama a ten point lead. Today’s poll gives Obama a seven point lead, 51% to 44%.
For the past six months of polling in Wisconsin, one thing has remained constant: Barack Obama has been ahead of John McCain each and every time.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows Obama leading by seven percentage points—51% to 44%. Not surprisingly, Obama also has a seven-point advantage on the question of which candidate is trusted more on the economy. Economic issues are the most important of Election 2008, both in Wisconsin and throughout the nation.
Forty-eight percent (48%) of the state’s voters agree with Obama’s response to “Joe the Plumber.” Forty percent (40%) disagree with Obama’s comment that spreading the wealth around is good for everyone.
Overall, Obama is now viewed favorably by 57% of Wisconsin voters, McCain by 51%.
Obama leads by 13 points among women and by a single point among men.
¡Que alegría volver a tenerte entre nosotros! Ocho años, como pasa el tiempo pero bueno hoy ya gozas de la presencia de sus seres queridos y ojalá de un buen sancocho. Que te mejores pronto.
Kidnapped by the FARC on 4 August 2000 in Riosucio, Caldas, Colombian congressman Óscar Tulio Lizcano would spend eight years in the jungles of the Colombian Pacific coast before escaping with one of his captors earlier this week traversing one of the world’s most difficult and wettest terrains subsisting on nuts from palma de chontadurro before being rescued by a Colombian army patrol. In frail health, Óscar Tulio Lizcano was the longest held Colombia politician still in captivity. More in Spanish on his escape from Colombia’s El Tiempo.
From the New York Times:
A former Colombian lawmaker kidnapped more than eight years ago by FARC guerrillas escaped through the jungles with one of his rebel captors in a severe blow to Latin America’s oldest insurgency.
Wearing a tattered black T-shirt and sporting a tangled gray beard, ex-congressman Oscar Lizcano, 63, marched for three days with his FARC jailer before reaching an army post on Sunday where the guerrilla surrendered to troops.
“Thanks to the army post we found after that march through the harsh jungle, falling down, with my legs swollen,” Lizcano told reporters, slumped exhausted in a chair, his voice weak after he was forbidden to talk for so long by his captors.
His escape follows the rescue of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three Americans and a group of other hostages who were freed in a surprise military operation in July after years in jungle camps.
Lizcano’s flight illustrates the military pressure facing the FARC and how rebels have been hurt by informants, bounties for deserters and improved intelligence under President Alvaro Uribe, who has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid.
The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was once a powerful army that controlled large areas of the country. But the rebel group lost three leaders this year and hundreds of fighters have deserted.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said a rebel, known by his alias “Moroco,” from the group holding Lizcano escaped in early October and provided details about his camp. Troops and police began a rescue operation over the weekend but Lizcano was already on the run.
“The army were pressuring us, we were starving, that made me take the decision,” said the rebel deserter, known as “Isaza,” who escaped with Lizcano.
“Our group was abandoned, there wasn’t much choice,” he said in a video broadcast of him meeting with Uribe.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now speaks to Harpers Magazine publisher John “Rick” MacArthur about whether Senator Obama is a socialist and why being called one is considered a smear in American political culture. It is odd that Obama is being accused of being a “socialist” for arguing for an income tax increase for the top bracket from 35.0% to 39.6%, the rate under President Clinton, though granted it was his “spread the wealth” remark that has set off this maelstrom of debate.
Since Mr. MacArthur didn’t seem to realize why Alan Greenspan was shocked for discovering a flaw in his credo, I will spell it out for him. Mr. Greenspan, a firm believer that financial markets should be as unregulated as possible because banks will act in their own stakeholders’ interest ultimately, was wrong in that belief. Banks did not act in their shareholders’ interests; banks failed to self-regulate as Greenspan’s model would have predicted. Having lived through two mergers during my time on the Street, I can honestly say that I want a return to the Glass Steagall Era. And yes the derivative market needs to be regulated. To turn a phrase from Joseph Schumpeter, capitalism isn’t being killed by its success as he wrote in 1942. Capitalism in 2008 is being killed by its most fervent adherents.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is a Socialist; Senator Obama is not (by the way, I would pay to hear Bernie Sanders weigh in on this topic and say “I know Barack Obama and he’s no socialist.”). Barack Obama isn’t even the most liberal Senator in the US Senate. To be frank out of the field who ran for the Democratic nomination, he was the most conservative Democrat running. That’s part of the reason why I don’t have much confidence in him. He’s centrist who is abandoning long-cherished goals of the Democratic platform. Universal health care has been a goal since Harry Truman, Obama has jettisoned that core belief. Obama is a corporate Democrat from Steny Hoyer/Tom Daschle wing of the Democratic party. In my view, Obama is another Grover Cleveland. I’m looking for an FDR or an LBJ. I honestly have little confidence that a President Obama will do much to reverse the widening income distribution of the past 40 years. He may expand the social safety net but that’s not the same thing. I hope that I am pleasantly surprised on this score.
We need a national industrial policy akin to MITI in Japan. That may be “socialist” because it does involve “central planning” but I think it is just prudent to think about important sectors of the economy and how government can promote economic growth. To save capitalism may just require a few dashes of socialism.
Al Jazeera takes a road trip across the United States and talks to American voters about their thoughts as they ponder their choice. Each segment runs about three minutes.
Media, Pennsylvania
Media, PA has had its share of rallies this election cycle. The borough of Media is the county seat of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and is located 12 miles (19 km) west of Philadelphia. Media was incorporated in 1850 at the same time that it was named the county seat. The population was 5,533 at the 2000 census. It is also the first of two fair trade towns in America, the second being Brattleboro, Vermont. Media promotes itself as “Everybody’s Hometown.”
Detroit. Michigan
Michigan perhaps more than any other state has felt the impact of the troubled economy. It’s largest city, Detroit, is among the most liberal in America consistently voting overwhelmingly for Democrats. The population, which is mostly black, continues to decline as the auto industry shrinks and the city’s economic situation deteriorates.
Ashland, Ohio
Ashland, the self-described World Headquarters of Nice People is the county seat of one of the key counties in Ohio, perhaps the most important state in the 2008 presidential election. It is usually reliably Republican and the local university hosted George W. Bush on October 7. A day earlier the town’s Archway Cookie plant closed eliminating local 275 jobs. It is the fourth major plant closure in Ashland in recent years.
Chesterton, Indiana
Chesterton is factory town turned affluent suburb of Chicago. In recent years farm fields have turned to housing developments and big box stores have replaced Main Street as the commercial center of the town. The area is reliably Republican in the reliably Republican state of Indiana. But Obama has made inroads, opening a campaign office in Chesterton in the hopes of swinging the state that went to Bush by more than 20 points in 2004 into his column.
Hazel Green, Wisconsin
Hazel Green is a tiny community surrounded by soy bean and corn fields in the corner of Wisconsin with one gas station and no stoplights. The population, which is more than 99% white, is made up of farmers, truckers and factory employees who work in several of the larger cities nearby. John Kerry barely carried the county by less than 3% in 2004, while Wisconsin has voted marginally for the Democrats in the past two elections.
Denison, Iowa
Unlike much of Western Iowa, Denison’s population is expanding and its economy is thriving. Although the mid-sized town is far from the Mexican border 12% of its official population was born in Latin America, well above the state average. Locals believe the percentage is closer to 1/3 and growing with many of the new immigrants having entered the country illegally drawn to the town by its food processing plants. Iowa voted for Gore in 2000, but swung to Bush in 2004. Obama used a victory in Iowa to cement the viability of his candidacy in the Democratic primary.
Sterling, Colorado
Sterling is a small community on the edge of Eastern Colorado. The town is heavily Republican and has not changed much in the last decade. The household income is well below the Colorado average, with many people employed in construction or trucking. Sterling and the surrounding area went for Bush, but Colorado has gained the attention of the Democrats recently. On the day we visited Sterling the McCain campaign pulled out of Colorado, essentially ceding the state to Obama.
Frisco, Colorado
Frisco is a resort community an hour outside of Denver filled with enormous vacation homes and a transient community of young people drawn to the area by the hiking, snowboarding and skiing available in the surrounding mountains. Secondary residences make up two-thirds of the housing stock, keeping affordable housing out of reach for much of the local community. This includes much of the rapidly expanding Mexican immigrant population employed to construct the mansions. Registrations are split closely between Democrats and Republicans, but the largest percentage of voters are unaffiliated.
This last video has an OMG! moment. I was truly shocked (and appalled) by the rational of one voter who is voting for Senator Obama. You have to listen for yourself.
Mesquite, Nevada
Mesquite has grown from a sleepy highway down to burgeoning retirement destination. In the 1990s the population grew nearly 400% with an influx of Califonians and Mexicans. Recreation including gambling casinos and golf courses dominate the economy. Like much of Nevada, Mesquite has been hit by the housing crunch and is now trending Democratic like the rest of the state.
Here are eight articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.
Obama Swinging For The Fences
By Charlie Cook in the National Journal.
By every metric, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign appears headed for the upper deck. Polls (both national and state-by-state), organization, money, and momentum are all running strongly in Obama’s favor. At this point, one wonders whether Obama’s winning margin could be greater than Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s 5.6-point win over President George H.W. Bush in 1992, more than Bush’s 7.7-point win over Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988, or more than Clinton’s 8.5-point win over Sen. Bob Dole in 1996. Even higher on the landslide roster is California Gov. Ronald Reagan’s 9.7-point victory over President Carter in 1980 and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s 10.9-point win over Adlai Stevenson in 1952.
Certainly, the 2008 presidential contest could reverse direction and result in victory for John McCain. But at this point, he would have to be the beneficiary of something quite dramatic for that to happen.
Assessing McCain’s Closing Argument
By Andrew Romano in Newsweek. Mr. Romano is 25 and a Princeton Graduate. I was surprised to learn the former but not the latter. He’s quite the journalist and I suspect one day a Pulitzer Prize is in his future.
After struggling for weeks to present a coherent case against Barack Obama, John McCain has finally found a closing argument—and he’s sticking to it. The surprising thing, at least in light of his earlier sallies, may be that it’s worth sticking to.
Call it the Tale of Two Joes. Steering the “Straight Talk Express” through central Florida’s vote-rich I-4 corridor—pit stops included a doctor’s office, a diner, a farm and a sawdust-strewn lumberyard—the Republican presidential nominee hammered away yesterday at the two-man message that his strategists hope will carry him through Nov. 4.
On one hand, there was Joe the Plumber—the Ohio worker who confronted Obama about his tax plan earlier this month. “After months of campaign-trail eloquence, we finally learned Sen. Obama’s economic goal,” McCain told a crowd of 3,500 in Sarasota. “He wants to spread the wealth around.”
On the other, there was “Joe the Biden”—the Democratic vice-presidential nominee who recently informed Democratic donors in Seattle that if his “brilliant 47-year-old” boss is elected, “we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test [his] mettle.” “We don’t want a president that invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting in two wars,” said McCain in Ormond Beach. “[Sen. Biden] accidentally delivered some straight talk to America.”
Sorry, Senator. Let’s Salvage What We Can
By David Frum in the Washington Post.
There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.
A year ago, the Arizona senator’s team made a crucial strategic decision. McCain would run on his (impressive) personal biography. On policy, he’d hew mostly to conservative orthodoxy, with a few deviations — most notably, his support for legalization for illegal immigrants. But this strategy wasn’t yielding results in the general election. So in August, McCain tried a bold new gambit: He would reach out to independents and women with an exciting and unexpected vice presidential choice.
That didn’t work out so well either. Gov. Sarah Palin connected with neither independents nor women. She did, however, ignite the Republican base, which has come to support her passionately. And so, in this last month, the McCain campaign has Palinized itself to make the most of its last asset. To fire up the Republican base, the McCain team has hit at Barack Obama as an alien, a radical and a socialist.
Let’s give credit where it is due. McCain didn’t destroyed the GOP brand, Bush & Cheney et al. did. It’s to McCain’s credit that he is even this close at this juncture. True, his campaign rivals the Donna Brazile run Gore campaign of 2000 in terms of sheer abysmal under-performance but until the financial crisis hit McCain led in the polls and in some polls he is within five points.
What John McCain Needs to Do to Win
By Douglas Schoen writing for Politico.
There is only one thing McCain can do to change the dynamics of the election and be more competitive: He must frame the election as a choice about who is better-prepared to lead America in dealing with the unique challenges that undoubtedly will confront the next administration.
Those challenges are both international and domestic. McCain needs to wrap his personal narrative around his ability to overcome crises and manage conflict, and contrast it with what he believes is Obama’s lack of experience, job preparation and judgment. This argument must be the centerpiece of the final two weeks of the campaign in order for McCain to have any chance of winning.
Rasmussen, Gallup and virtually every other poll has found that McCain’s readiness to lead is the strongest argument for his candidacy. Without sending this overarching message, McCain does not explain the greatest advantage of his prospective presidency and the best reason to vote for him. This is something every victorious presidential candidate must do to win a national election — particularly in a time of crises.
Today, Obama’s message of change, his linking of McCain to the failed policies of the Bush administration, and his pledge to help the middle class are enough to win on Nov. 4.
Curiously enough, it was Joe Biden who brought home the need for McCain to recalibrate his strategy. When he told Democratic donors that the key challenge America will face in the first six months of an Obama administration will be an international crisis, Biden was speaking to a larger truth. The next president will face unique challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan, with North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs, as well as more generally with the world economic system and our own domestic economic problems.
I’d say beware of well-respected Democratic pollsters bringing Trojan gifts of advice but Schoen is well-worth listening to. My own view is that McCain has to focus his message on kitchen table issues and differentiate himself from Obama on those but really more have something to offer than simply attack Obama over this or that. The Biden rhetorical flourishes also likely provide an opening to make an experience argument. I must say that I have pondering ol’ smokin’ Joe’s pearls of wisdom. They’ve kept me up at night to be honest. How does he know that Obama’s policy response isn’t going to appear to the American public to be the “right” answer? What is Joe Biden not telling us? What security threat is lurking out there? And has President Obama — a title not yet earned — already opted for a course of action even before such an event has yet to occur? Are they already discussing policy alternatives to a still hypothetical event and if so why or is the event not so hypothetical?