Syndicated

Obama campaign unprepared for this debate

Mark has addressed some of Barack Obama’s campaign’s handling
of the “race card” issue. But it is worth watching the appearance.
It is astonishing that Axelrod was so unprepared for this:

Note that the closing argument that Obama has never proposed an
energy tax increase is laughably false with today’s
Politico story about funding a $1,000 rebate with a tax on
energy companies. Axelrod is just lying and making stuff up.
Totally unprepared and without a single compelling answer.

At the same time, Davis just drills away.

Real Clear Politics felt the same way:

I had the read the quotes from the AM Report posted
earlier today, but hadn’t watched the video until just now. This
was, to put it politely, not Axelrod’s best. He essentially
admitted that Obama was in fact making a reference to his race with
his “dollar bill” remarks and then – almost as if he recognized the
mistake and lost his train of thought – stumbled badly when trying
to answer on the question of energy and taxes.

So let’s stop talking about racism and follow Obama’s words

Strieff nicely handled the absurd charges of racism against
John McCain for the celebrity ad. Hopefully the blowhard press can
let that one lie.

But Barack Obama’s slip last night on Hillary Clinton is telling
and fits a pattern of mysogyny in his campaign. Visa CBS:

“At a time when we’ve got bigger challenges than any
time in our history and you’re running ads with Hillary and er –
with Britney and ah Paris in it. I mean come on. The American
people deserve better.”

Of course, this is par for the course. He diminished Hillary
Clinton with sexist attacks in the primary.
I wrote this a while back:

Jake Tapper first noted this when Obama said that Hillary was
“taking out the claws.” At the same time he noted that Obama would
use “[l]anguage such as ‘when she’s feeling down’ ‘periodically’
she ‘launches attacks.'” Tapper noted that a
number of female reporters and bloggers picked up on this.
Later Obama complained that Hillary was “throwing the China” at
him. Again,
Tapper heard the dog whistle. Tapper noted that this “feeds
into the ‘harridan‘ caricature
of Clinton.”

Obama’s slip was just more of the same.

For good reasons, the Democrats have successfully tarred Republicans with "corruption." We have and have had criminals in our midst like Ted Stevens, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, and others. We have done an inadequate job of shooting our own criminals in public, although the response to Stevens is encouraging.

In that context Sean makes an important point:

Voters who remember the results of liberal excess in the 1970s grow increasingly few and far between. Most voters don’t recall that the scandals which engulfed the GOP Congress were preceded by similar scandals that plagued Democrats for most of the 80s and early 90s; how many people today remember that the Democratic Speaker and Majority Whip both resigned as a result of separate ethical scandals in the 101st Congress?

People have certainly forgotten the old tales of Democratic corruption. We are also failing to tell today’s stories of the corruption of Democrats and their allies. Some of this is media bias, but some is that we are not doing a good enough job of generating our own content. We have had Nancy Pelosi raising the minimum wage for everywhere but where she has financial interest. We have Ben Nelson giving earmarks to companies run by his children. Paul Kanjorski, Chris Dodd, John Murtha, etc. We have systemic union corruption. We have groups like ACORN who, at the least, establish incentive structures that encourage election fraud.

Where are we telling these stories?

This morning, Barack Obama’s campaign woke to a headline that might have made the strategy guys nervous. Roll Call ran a piece entitled "Lobbyists Give to Obama Campaign" with the even better subtitle "Despite Policy, Their Checks Clear".

"So what?" you might ask.

When Obama was busy with his post-February primary losing streak, he ran ads against Hillary Clinton attacking her over this issue. "Obama doesn’t take money from lobbyists, but Hillary does. Not in the pocket of special interests." I never understood how this was supposed to help him win the votes of people who support corrupt machine politicians like Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA). Working class Democratic voters don’t care about this issue. But they care about liars.

So now, imagine the response ad that McCain would run.

First it starts with one of Obama’s statements about not taking money from lobbyists. Perhaps even using Obama’s own ad.

Then, put up headlines about him taking — and asking for — money from the spouses of lobbyists. (by the way, that’s another brilliantly titled piece "Obama’s K-street Project’)

And then one his former staffers emailed DC lobbying firms demanded contracts.

And now it turns out that he even takes money from lobbyists. "despite policy, checks clear."

And then you flash up the headline "Obama’s Lobbyist Connection", from Michael Isikoff’s piece earlier this year.

And then throw in Obama breaking his pledge on public financing. (I am sure that there’s a good headline here)

Then it ends with something like "Barack Obama: You can’t trust what he says"

The words need to be improved, of course. But the point is that the material is there to undermine his character and his trustworthiness, Obama’s only real assets in this race. And you do it at the same time as you rip off the "reformer" mask, a fundamental part of his "change" mantra.

The Scaredicrats in Congress won’t allow a vote on something
that all of the Secretaries of State support

I have written a bunch about
the
problems that our soldiers have voting. Currently, as it
stands, House Democrats, urged on by the unions, are blocking a
bill that would increase the likelihood of the votes of our
soldiers actually counting.

Last week
Bob Novak also wrote about this issue. Today there was a
significant advance. The National Association of Secretaries of
State (NASS), the analog of the National Governors Association,
endorsed Kevin McCarthy’s Military
Protection Voting Act of 2008, HR 5673.

None of the Democrats at NASS dared to vote no this, but House
and Senate Democratic leaders refuse to bring this to a vote. This
is a typical case of the Democrats putting their special interests
ahead of the troops.

This was pushed by Chris
Nelson, Secretary of State of North Dakota, and Sam Reed, Secretary of State of
Washington.

I have written a bunch about the problems that our soldiers have voting. Currently, as it stands, House Democrats, urged on by the unions, are blocking a bill that would increase the likelihood of the votes of our soldiers actually counting.

Last week Bob Novak also wrote about this issue. Today there was a significant advance. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), the analog of the National Governors Association, endorsed Kevin McCarthy’s Military Protection Voting Act of 2008, HR 5673.

None of the Democrats at NASS dared to vote no this, but House and Senate Democratic leaders refuse to bring this to a vote. This is a typical case of the Democrats putting their special interests ahead of the troops.

This was pushed by Chris Nelson, Secretary of State of North Dakota, and Sam Reed, Secretary of State of Washington.

The left’s strategy for delivering close states

Warner Todd Huston just wrote about ACORN embezzling issues.
Thankfully, we just gave a criminal organization another chunk of
change in the Housing Bill. Allegedly, it was to push more people
into subprime loans, which they have been doing for the last decade
or so. Of course, that was a bad idea.

Another big project of theirs is voter registration.  Like
so many voter-reg groups, like the one below, they are premised on
a business model that incentivizes illegality. Watch this:

If Barack Obama were to win Virginia by a handful of votes, this
would be a fundamental part of how it happened. The Obama campaign,
ACORN, and Congressional Democrats are planning for that.

Somehow it was a priority for Congressional Democrats to fund
people illegally register voters, but
it isn’t to defend the right to vote for our soldiers.

H/T
Election Journal.

The left’s strategy for delivering close states

Warner Todd Huston just wrote about ACORN embezzling issues.
Thankfully, we just gave a criminal organization another chunk of
change in the Housing Bill. Allegedly, it was to push more people
into subprime loans, which they have been doing for the last decade
or so. Of course, that was a bad idea.

Another big project of theirs is voter registration.  Like
so many voter-reg groups, like the one below, they are premised on
a business model that incentivizes illegality. Watch this:

If Barack Obama were to win Virginia by a handful of votes, this
would be a fundamental part of how it happened. The Obama campaign,
ACORN, and Congressional Democrats are planning for that.

Somehow it was a priority for Congressional Democrats to fund
people illegally register voters, but
it isn’t to defend the right to vote for our soldiers.

H/T
Election Journal.

Warner Todd Huston just wrote about ACORN embezzling issues. Thankfully, we just gave a criminal organization another chunk of change in the Housing Bill. Allegedly, it was to push more people into subprime loans, which they have been doing for the last decade or so. Of course, that was a bad idea.

Another big project of theirs is voter registration.  Like so many voter-reg groups, like the one below, they are premised on a business model that incentivizes illegality. Watch this:

If Barack Obama were to win Virginia by a handful of votes, this would be a fundamental part of how it happened. The Obama campaign, ACORN, and Congressional Democrats are planning for that.

Somehow it was a priority for Congressional Democrats to fund people illegally register voters, but it isn’t to defend the right to vote for our soldiers.

H/T Election Journal.

Let’s take him at his word. This time.

Compare these two. Speaking to a group of African-American
journalists,
he says:

What I would ask is that I am treated like other candidates in
terms of expectations and that people look at my entire
record.

But his staff is
“terrified” of people looking into his history:

Reporters who have covered Obama’s biography or his problems
with certain voter blocs have been challenged the most
aggressively. “They’re terrified of people poking around
Obama’s life,” one reporter says. “The whole Obama
narrative is built around this narrative that Obama and David
Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true. So
they have to be protective of the crown jewels.” Another reporter
notes that, during the last year, Obama’s old friends and
Harvard classmates were requested not to talk to the press without
permission.

Somehow, I think that the
lack of transparency may continue regardless of what Obama says
about his record