Tag: 2008 (page 6)

A new CNN/Time Magazine poll came out today.

• In Indiana and North Carolina, McCain/Palin leads Obama/Biden, 51% to 45%, and 48% to 47%, respectively.

• Obama leads McCain in the states of Ohio and Wisconsin, 49% to 47% and 50% to 47%, respectively.

• The new poll finds the candidates in a dead heat in Florida, each with 48%.

Bottom line: Factoring in the margins of error, Florida, North Carolina and Ohio remain in a virtual tie between John McCain and Barack Obama. As to the electoral map, CNN says: [More...]

Here is a portion of the text of Sen. Barack Obama's prepared remarks at his rally today in Grand Junction, CO (received by e-mail, no link.)

This morning we woke up to some very serious and troubling news from Wall Street.

The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.

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Digby remembers.

John McCain has a long history with bank failures and financial scandals. He created his whole reform persona around the idea that he'd come too close to the flame and gotten burned. But he hasn't changed his philosophy or his policies one bit. He believes in the same scam his close advisor Phil "you're all a bunch of whiners" Gramm believes. He pretended for years that the problem was solely in the campaign finance system, burnishing his image with signature legislation that has proven to be completely useless. Meanwhile, he backs deregulation like it comes down from Mt Sinai.

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar this week laid out Obama's appeal to rural voters:

Obama has supported farm bills aimed at revitalizing rural America, Salazar said, while McCain has opposed all of them the last 15 years.

Obama has championed renewable energy, including biofuels that can be a way for America to help grow its way to energy independence, and McCain has not, Salazar said. The Bush administration has largely ignored rural America, home to 50 million people, the last eight years, Salazar said. What he calls "the forgotten America" includes 44 of Colorado's 65 counties. Those areas have lost jobs, health care facilities and schools, Salazar said.

What is McCain's message to rural voters? More politics of distortion. Today, at Gov. Palin's campaign rally, McCain's Colorado press spokesman Tom Kise falsely told local CBS news (video here) that Obama is against people owning guns.

Sen. Barack Obama got in a little campaigning on the David Letterman show Wednesday night:

Ultimately what we’ve seen over the last week is a concession on the part of the McCain campaign that this election is going to be about change. You’ll recall, you know, for the last two years, we’ve been talking about needing to change how Washington works, how the country is managed and people were saying, ‘No, it’s about experience, experience, experience,’ and over the last week and a half I think they recognized that, no, the American people want something fundamentally different and for a good reason. Because when you travel, it doesn’t matter whether you’re here in New York City or a tiny hamlet somewhere in the Midwest, what you find is people are just having a tough time right now.

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The Republicans are leaving no dirty stone unturned in their attempt to win in November.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

There are no words for how low they will sink.

The Washington Post reports on the smear campaign on multiple fronts Sen. John McCain has launched against Sen. Barack Obama. Most are clearly swift-boating.

Take this one. In the Illinois Senate, Obama voted for a bill that allowed school boards to determine appropriate sex education courses. It didn't specify what kind of program or what ages would receive it.

Kindergarten teachers were given the approval to teach about appropriate and inappropriate touching to combat molestation.

The McCain advertisement calls it "Obama's one accomplishment" in education: "legislation to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners." "Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama, wrong on education, wrong for your family," the ad concludes.

So, John McCain opposes teaching kindergartners how to recognize molestation. John McCain doesn't care about preventing sex assaults of children? If I were a parent of a kindergartner, he wouldn't get my vote based on that alone.

Let's face it. These attacks only matter in the swing states. McCain already has the evangelicals, the radical right and Republicans.

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Here's the actual results from the NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) that had good news for both candidates. Here's the article describing the results.

With eight weeks until Election Day, the Journal survey found a dead heat: 46% of registered voters favor Sens. Obama and Joe Biden, and 45% favor McCain-Palin.

...The survey had good news for Sen. Obama as well, showing that he improved his standing with the electorate in areas where he had been seen as weak. More voters found said they were comfortable with him as president that they did in a Journal poll three weeks ago, as did the portion who said they were confident in his ability to be commander in chief.

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Sen. Barack Obama has a strong record of support for veterans' rights, including legislation he passed and supported while serving on the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and in Illinois. Compare and contrast with that of Sen. John McCain:

• As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Obama passed legislation to improve care and slash red tape for our wounded warriors recovering at places like Walter Reed. He passed laws to help homeless veterans and offered an innovative solution to prevent at-risk veterans from falling into homelessness.

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In an earlier post I wrote about Saturday's McCain-Palin rally in Colorado Springs, and how the candidates and speakers, while stressing the importance of Colorado and El Paso County in particular this November, failed to give even a passing nod to the evangelical social agenda. That brings to mind a larger question.

Is El Paso County, with its high concentration of evangelical and military-oriented voters, enough to push McCain to victory in Colorado in November? Taking a look at various numbers, I would say it's a close question, but unlikely. [More...]

At a campaign rally Monday night, Sen. Barack Obama explained his views on why we need habeas corpus for everyone, even those suspected of terrorism:

"Habeas corpus ... is the foundation of Anglo-American law, which says very simply, if the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, `Why was I grabbed?' and say, `Maybe, you've got the wrong person.'

"The reason we have that safeguard is we don't always have the right person. We don't always catch the right person. "We may think this is Muhammad the terrorist. It might be Muhammad the cab driver. You may think it's Barack the bomb-thrower. But it might be Barack, the guy running for president."

As to Gov. Sarah Palin's "reading their rights" slam of him during her acceptance speech, he responded: [More...]

The LA Times reports today that McCain's blatant attempt to target working class women voters with his choice of Sarah Palin to be vice president isn't convincing many of them.

For many of these critical swing voters, economic interests trump any admiration of the Alaska governor's maternal grit, and some are repelled by her sarcastic jabs at Obama.

As one woman put it:

"I wanted Hillary to win so bad, but I saw Sarah, and it just didn't work for me," said Heckman, taking a break in the empty courtyard of J. Paul's restaurant in a downtown struggling to revive. "I have no retirement. Obama understands it's the economy. He knows how we live."

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