Tag: john mccain

an immodest proposal

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

while we are nationalizing businesses like aig and fannie mae and freddie mac and bear stearns, why don’t we just get it over with and nationalize the health care industry as well?

it’s ironically amusing to me that the bush administration now walks into the sunset having accomplished the most socialist acquisitions in american history. politicians who have screamed for decades about how inefficient it is to have government control and regulation of business are now screaming about the need to take on the financial industry’s bad debt, which was created by the lack of oversight those politicians promoted.

might as well add the entire health care industry to the total weight we assume, since this ship is going to sink anyway. we have spent $816 billion bailing out what we’ve bailed so far. add to that an estimated $1 trillion dollars for assuming the bad debt. add to that the annual deficit of about $500 billion, which does not include the cost of the war in iraq. so add $10 billion a day for that.

add that shit up.

send that shit to china, if we even still can, at who knows what ultimate cost.

and then realize that we’ve done nothing, nothing, nothing to address the financial insolvency of social security, medicare, and medicaid.

it doesn’t matter. no one is going to give you a truly comprehensive look at what’s wrong, so neither candidate is going to give us a truly comprehensive answer. neither obama or mccain. why not? because they can’t be honest about it. and they know it. because there is no fucking answer, that’s why not. actually there’s one answer — america is going to irretrievably sink under the weight of its own accumulated bloat.

how do these all numbers add up?

they add up to rome burning. and everyone has no choice except to fiddle.

all you need to know about republican campaign tactics

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

…is contained in this short post (with accompanying picture) by jake tapper:

The McCain campaign tells the media to stop intruding on the private life of the unmarried pregnant 17-year-old daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin while staging a photo op with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the 17-year-old’s fiance, Levi Johnston.

talk about have your cake and eat it too.

sarah palin is a very nice lady. her speech last night, if short on specifics, was certainly entertaining. shameless [how many people were passed that poor baby?], but entertaining. the base is no doubt fired up. everyone else probably ranges from horrified to indifferent.

i’m sure i’d enjoy having a beer with her.

i’m also sure that the majority of americans, after the last eight years, no longer see that as a valid electoral test.

laura mcgann

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

here’s a name you may be hearing from in days to come. i learned about her via talking points memo…she has reported on alaska politics in the past and seems to know the lay of the land.

she’s now in wasilla and has a series of posts at the washington independent. she’s doing the thing that most journalists don’t bother with anymore — shoe leather journalism. digging through archives and records.

here’s a great post as a sample:

I just got off the phone with the very helpful city clerk at the Wasilla City Clerk’s office, Kristie Smithers, who is pulling some documents for me from when Gov. Sarah Palin was mayor.

I told her I appreciated her help, since I’m sure she’s been bombarded with requests these last few weeks. The clerk’s office keeps all City Council meeting agendas, minutes, legislation, ordinances, etc. She chuckled. Then she told me that I’m the first person who has asked her office for anything.

that bears repeating.

“I’m the first person who has asked her office for anything.”

the incompetency is breathtaking.

joe klein nails the palin summary

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

in a must-read blog post about the desperately devious inanity of the mccain campaign’s newly-started “war on the media”, joe klein neatly summarizes what’s wrong [so far] with sarah palin:

Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.”

and that’s just the topline summary, which leaves out a few choice items. i have faith that american voters are smarter than to fall for yet another republican attempt to slice-and-dice a 50%+1 electoral victory.

obama breaks 50% in polling

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

for the first time, obama has broken through the 50% support barrier, in gallup and other polls.

a post-convention bounce that will dissipate? maybe. but given that the polling time period includes the beginning of the paling of palin, i’m guessing that 50% may be a new low water mark for obama’s polling.

or at least i’m hoping it is. we’ll see a week or so after the republicans finish their convention.

mccain unable to stay on message

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

even when the message itself is pretty idiotic:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday taunted Republican candidate John McCain for agreeing on the importance of keeping tires inflated as an energy-conservation measure after having joined the GOP in mocking the idea.

“It will be interesting to watch this debate between John McCain and John McCain,” Obama said as he campaigned in Indiana with Sen. Evan Bayh, widely considered a top-tier candidate for running mate.

When asked about the air-pressure issue during an appearance Tuesday night, McCain said: “I agree with the American Automobile Association. We should all inflate our tires.” Obama had noted that keeping tires inflated and cars tuned was endorsed by both NASCAR and AAA and should be part of any comprehensive plan to reduce reliance on imported oil.

However, McCain had spent recent days ridiculing Obama’s remarks about tire pressure, telling a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D.: “My opponent doesn’t want to drill, he doesn’t want nuclear power, he wants you to inflate your tires.” The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, poked fun at the idea, sending reporters tire gauges with “Obama Energy Plan” emblazoned on the side.

his campaign staff must be ready to slit their throats. completely undercutting your message must do wonders for staff morale. i’ll bet the guy who spent long hours sourcing and distributing those tire gauges must be especially pleased.

wake me up

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

…when john mccain breaks 44% in a national poll.

obama leads mccain 47% to 41% in this recent poll.

there have also been some polls that show mccain in the lead.

what do they all have in common? obama goes up and down, but i haven’t seen him go lower than 45% in any poll. mccain stays more steady, but never seems to break 44%. this tells me that there’s a significant chunk of people that lean toward obama, but haven’t solidly decided for him yet. if mccain’s percentage rises above 44% without a corresponding rise in the lead for obama, that means that those obama leaners are starting to break for mccain, which may be trouble. so i think 44% is the target to watch for. when he breaks that, everyone will need to take a hard look at what that means. until then, the polls can bounce around and it won’t mean much.

in my opinion. i’ll put the crystal ball away now.

hot water for dehydrated babies

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

the banality, bad planning, and hilarity of john mccain’s speech on tuesday has been discussed to death.

but i want to focus on one particular line that had kirk and me hooting with laughter.

and of course there’s a long hilarious discussion on digg.

hopefully by november this guy will, at a minimum, learn to read a teleprompter, a skill you think he would have acquired by now.

or, perhaps, i should hope that he won’t learn.

i can live with that

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

so mitt romney is out, which means that john mccain is the republican nominee.

I’ll probably still vote for whoever the democratic nominee is, although if hillary is the nominee i will give mccain a good hard look. if obama is the nominee then there’s no question — he’s my man.

(and to all that vice-presidential talk floated by the clintons to lessen obama’s perceived stature: don’t do it. i don’t want him tainted by them in any way, and anyway, he’d be #3 behind bill)

as someone said to me last night, it’s nice to know all your choices are decent candidates and you are choosing the best from among them, when usually you are holding your nose and picking the best of a bad lot.

there are few issues with which i am in complete agreement with john mccain, but most are moderate enough that i would not drive off a cliff if he were elected. we need a different direction in this country, and he would be different enough for me. he’s certainly a different republican than most we’ve been seeing, and his fical conservatism is right up my alley. god knows that just the fact that he drives right-wingers crazy is enough for me.

for me to actively vote for him, hillary would have to be the nominee, and i’d have to consider whether that fiscal conservatism was enough of a mitigating factor to outweigh his negatives. versus whether hillary’s positives on the issues are enough of a mitigating factor to outweigh what would be four/eight more years of slash-and-burn politics.

still, today, with these particular three little indians remaining standing, i’m pretty optimistic about the future of my country. each of the three has at least something i can like.

not bad after the last eight years of nonsense, i’d say.

listening to hillary

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

kirk and i don’t have cable tv, and our tv doesn’t have a tuner, so no television for us. but we have wanted to see one of the debates, so we tuned in to last night’s debate between hillary clinton and barack obama. tuned in via cnn.com, which provides a live feed.

a very tiny live feed, in a window that can’t be made full screen on the computer. a computer which is maybe 10 feet away from the couch. so, rather than crowding around the computer to watch micro-hillary and mini-obama, we just turned up the sound and listened.

and, i have to admit, hillary didn’t bug me as much when i wasn’t looking at her. kirk said the same thing. i’m sure it’s my prejudgment of her that i need to get past. but she sounded strong, effective, wise, informed, and remarkably relaxed. and she had the best line of the night:

“It did take a Clinton to clean after the first Bush and I think it might take another one to clean up after the second Bush.”

a bit too pat and rehearsed and poll-tested, but still, there’s a point there.

i’m still supporting obama. hillary still exhausts me. and, i never thought i’d say this, but after bill clinton’s recent antics i’d prefer to keep him away from the oval office in any capacity.

but.

i think i could live with her being president.

i think i could live with john mccain as well, though that bears further investigation.

obama would be a dream.

morning in america, indeed.

update: on the other hand, ann coulter said yesterday that if mccain is nominated, she will actively support hillary. maybe i need to rethink all this.