2008 Election Talk

[matilda]

Oct 9, 2008 0:49:16 GMT -5 mlm828 said:

Even if you haven't read anything at any of the other links I've posted, you must read this blog: Margaret and Helen. When I grow up, I want to be Helen. ;D

Well who doesn't??

mlm this is the best thing I've read in a long time. They are magnificent and I'm about to circulate the link to everyone I know.

Can we start a fan club?

Thanks so very much

Matilda

[Katryna]

Oct 9, 2008 0:49:16 GMT -5 mlm828 said:

Even if you haven't read anything at any of the other links I've posted, you must read this blog: Margaret and Helen. When I grow up, I want to be Helen. ;D

Well, this is a first...Don't faint Mary....I am posting in the Election Talk thread. I don't need any lectures about what I am going to say, but mostly I try to ignore the fact that this country elects ANYONE to office. I don't even read this thread. But, this little short one about this blog piqued my curiousity and I am glad I did. I agree, Martha, Helen is quite the character! Thanks for posting it.

[matilda]

Just a quickie update re Oz:

Unemployment figures out today - 4.3% for September, up 0.2% from August

That's a lot - we have been reasonably steady for ages and at levels we almost consider full employment so clearly things are already starting to hit ...

Yeah I know most normal people have better things to do than observe the unemployment figures, not Matilda ... if you really want to know I'll tell you by gender, my favourite statistic.

That poor woman should get a life!

M

[inuvik]

Canada's election is coming right up now, on Oct. 14. Needless to say, the economy has become THE election issue, surprise surprise.

The polls are still showing a Conservative minority (what we have now), and all the parties are getting closer in standings. Could be quite a nail biter when there is not much difference! And we have 5 major parties here!

www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/09/elxn-poll.html

[Kasman]

Oct 9, 2008 5:57:52 GMT -5 matilda said:

... if you really want to know I'll tell you by gender, my favourite statistic.

That poor woman should get a life!

M

"Life"? What is this "life"?

Heeeeeeeeeeeee!! ;D

[mlm828]

Here is what conservative columnist David Brooks has to say about Obama:

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So I say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

Brooks also described Palin as "a fatal cancer to the Republican party."

[matilda]

Yes Team I have NO LIFE when it comes to employment statistics, out and proud, tragic but true.

However, on David Brooks, I always think that when your own side starts baggin' ya, give the game away.

The thing is with people like Caribou Barbie they won't give the game away because they are right. In their own, sad, tiny twisted voids of minds, they are right.

Sometimes I think how nice it must be to wake up and think "Oh I know everything and I'm right".

Sadly, not to be - but hey the polls are looking good for those of us who know we're not - right, that is.

M

[housemouse]

Is it my imagination or does John McCain seem to be getting more desperate by the day? In every clip I see of him, he looks like he is really, really ticked off!

[mlm828]

Oct 10, 2008 19:14:44 GMT -5 housemouse said:

Is it my imagination or does John McCain seem to be getting more desperate by the day? In every clip I see of him, he looks like he is really, really ticked off!

There are some who think McCain's irascibility is caused by his discomfort with the ugly tactics his campaign is using. These people think there is still some vestige left of the McCain who denounced the "swift boat" attacks on Kerry in 2004 and was attacked in the same way by Bush-Rove in 2000. However, even if this is the case, his discomfort has not been sufficient for him to tell his campaign to back off on the fear- and hate-mongering. Apparently his lust for the White House and his desperation have overridden whatever shreds of decency he has left. Fasten your seat belts, folks, it's been a rough ride, and will probably get rougher.

[maggiethecat]

Well said (as usual) mlm. When I think that I once liked and had respect for John McCain . . . that is over, thanks to his nasty behavious of late. Um, did anyone else see his other Barbie -- his wife -- on the stump this week? Crowing and bitching and talking about Barack Obama as if he were Bin Laden? Disgusting. Interesting how McSame seems to think if he lets women say all the nasty stuff he can somehow remain above the fray. Personally, I think it's time to do an MRI on the man -- he's starting to display signs of dememtia.

I wish, wish, wish, I could ignore all this, which does little but depress me and fill my digestive track with ground glass.

And here's more, but it's very well written and so, I think, entertaining. Lord knows I'm "preaching to the choir" here, but a friend passed on this article on Caribou Barbie from The Guardian in the UK, and I had to share it. I wish the US press had been so blistieringly articulate. Here you go:

Friday October 3 2008
guardian.co.uk

At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable,
preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have been universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is
now deemed to have performed acceptably last night.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male
presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she
made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said. And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.

It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely
described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished.

There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example,is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies:

Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of
speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty.

Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't
understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?" None of Palin's children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and
self-described "fuckin' redneck".

Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most
quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008.

[housemouse]

mlm and maggie, after you read this article: www.truthout.org/100508A, I guarantee you will no longer have a single iota of respect for McCain. I was shocked and appalled.

[mlm828]

For some unknown reason, the link mouse posted didn't work for me, but I was able to find the article she was referring to.

And thanks to mags for posting the article from The Guardian. Our wimpy media have a lot to answer for.

[matilda]

Big fan of The Guardian and yet again they haven't let me down - what a great article - thank you.

So it's about Caribou Barbie's family-related bad behaviour - do you mob think it's impacting?

To my mind, the Republican pollsters have made the classic mistake the Conservatives always make in selecting her - that women will be impressed by any woman and vote for her on the basis that she's a woman. Well you know what, boys - we aren't that silly!

But aren't you on 6%?? That little figure heartened me no end today - maybe the hate- and scare-mongering is starting to bite on bottom?

On the economic front, we've bottomed out here - no more smirking anything - PM had kinda war cabinet meeting today so I sincerley hope it will be dealt with in a sensible fashion.

And yes, she just keeps getting fouler and fouler doesn't she? I still can't believe anyone will be silly enough to vote for her - mind you, we had Pauline Hanson, SP's fairy godmother. Google Pauline Hanson you US residents if you want to feel good about yourselves - I guarantee just a small bit of knowledge about old Pauline will cheer you up no end about what your own country's capable of producing. Tragically, we did better, if you know what I mean.

M

[mlm828]

Oct 12, 2008 5:20:56 GMT -5 matilda said:

But aren't you on 6%?? That little figure heartened me no end today - maybe the hate- and scare-mongering is starting to bite on bottom?

It's still too close for my taste. I think Obama's lead is more the result of the economy than a backlash against McCain's ugly tactics. McCain has not been able to convince people he won't continue Bush's failed policies, like massive tax cuts for the rich, and his flailing around trying to find some gimmick on the economy does not inspire confidence. I think people are turning to Obama because they realize we can't rely on the guys to got us into this mess to get us out of it, especially if they're going to keep doing the same thing, and because Obama comes across as a guy who won't panic in a crisis.

Oct 12, 2008 5:20:56 GMT -5 matilda said:

On the economic front, we've bottomed out here - no more smirking anything - PM had kinda war cabinet meeting today so I sincerely hope it will be dealt with in a sensible fashion.

I only hope we've bottomed out. I'm already thinking I'll probably have to keep working until I can't work any longer.

Maureen Dowd has done it again with her most recent article, "Are we Rome? Tu Betchus!"

[maggiethecat]

I just read Mouse's article on McCain.

Oh. My. God.

What a shallow duplicitous little stinker he is. Selfish, self-centered, immature and . . . I could go on and on but I won't. Let's just hope the polls hold and Obama continues to maintain a lead that will be enough to rise above vote-tampering. After reading this article I now know that McCain is no more intellectually curious or basically intelligent than Shrubby-Pooh. The last thing we need is another lightweight in the Oval Office.