Barack Obama may have been born in America, but he seems to have been “made” somewhere else.
From Byron York at NRO:
In the audience Saturday [at the McCain rally in Virginia], there were plenty of people who were mad about [Joe the Plumber]. There was real anger at this rally, but it wasn’t, as some erroneous press reports from other McCain rallies have suggested, aimed at Obama. It was aimed at the press. And that’s where Tito Munoz came in.
After McCain left, as the crowd filed out, Munoz made his way to an area near some loudspeakers. He attracted a few reporters when he started talking loudly, in heavily-accented English, about media mistreatment of Wurzelbacher. (It was clear that Spanish was Munoz’s native language, and he later told me he was born in Colombia.) When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree.
“Are you going to check my license, too?” he asked me. “Are you going to check my immigration status? I’m ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport — “
I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked.
“Yeah, I have my papers right here,” he said. “I’m an American citizen. Right here, right here.” With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose. “Right here,” he said. “In your face.”
Munoz said he owned a small construction business. “I have a license, if you guys want to check,” he said.
Someone asked why Munoz had come to the rally. “I support McCain, but I’ve come to face you guys because I’m disgusted with you guys,” he said. “Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber? Joe the Plumber has an idea. He has a future. He wants to be something else. Why is that wrong? Everything is possible in America. I made it. Joe the Plumber could make it even better than me. . . . I was born in Colombia, but I was made in the U.S.A.”
The scene turned into a mini-fracas when David Corn, of Mother Jones, defended press coverage. Munoz was having none of it. Why, he asked, would the press whack Joe the Plumber when it didn’t want to report on Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber? “How come that’s not in the news all the time?” Munoz said. “How come Joe the Plumber is every second? I’m talking about NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN.”A black woman with a strong Caribbean accent jumped in the fray. “Tell me,” she said to Corn, “why is it you can go and find out about Joe the Plumber’s tax lien and when he divorced his wife and you can’t tell me when Barack Obama met with William Ayers? Why? Why could you not tell us that? Joe the Plumber is me!”
“I am Joe the Plumber!” Munoz chimed in. “You’re attacking me.”
“Wait a second,” Corn said. “Do you pay your taxes?”
“Yes, I pay my taxes,” the woman said.
“Then you’re better than Joe the Plumber,” Corn said. That set off a general free-for-all. “I’m going to tell you something,” Munoz yelled at Corn. “I’m better than Obama. Why? Because I’m not associated with terrorists!”
The reporter from Mother Jones believes people who pay their taxes are “better” than people who owe the government money. That, Folks, in a nutshell is the NeoLiberal approach to ethics and morals — reflexively condescending and profoundly hypocritical at the same time, just exactly like the Radical Right.
Gosh darn the MSM and the DONC for putting our nation through this. First they gleefully swarmed Hillary out of the race like a pack of rabid, sexist dogs — just to show us that a woman’s job is ALWAYS to help a man, no matter how incompetent and inexperienced he may be. “Shut up, Hillary. Sit down, Hillary.” That’s what they fed us every single gosh darn day and night during the primaries. The overriding message, from February to August, was “When will Hillary GO AWAY??”
And now they’re going after little guys: Joe, Tito, even baby Trigg. And I am SO SICK of being forced to participate in the virtual group-sexual-assault that the MSM is perpetrating on Sarah Palin. Enough. The freaks in the Radical Leftwing, who share with us daily their sexual fantasies involving Palin and some instrument of humiliation, are beyond the pale to me.
If there is ANYTHING good that comes out of this horrible psychodrama of an election it will be the permanent EXILE of the NeoLiberals. The collosal failure and disaster perpetrated on our country by George and Dick and Donald succeeded in making neocon a dirty word. A very good thing. Obama and the DONC’s hit job on Hillary, their assault on the working class, and their exposure as actually being, at the end of the day when all is said and done, pretty freaking UNAMERICAN will similarly discredit the NeoLiberal Freaks who are still holding our party hostage.
But keep your eyes on the prize, Pumas. We pay the ransom on November 4th.
ACTION LIST for OCTOBER 21, 2008
Call the Obama Press Office and ask them when Sen. Obama will be releasing his Small Donors List. Hillary made hers available. So does John McCain. It is HOGWASH for the obama campaign to claim that they “don’t keep track of the information.” It is a LIE. Call today. Call often. Spread this phone number around and ask your friends to call: 312-819-2423.
Call the Obama Press Office and ask them when Sen. Obama will be making a public statement denouncing the Terry Tate Youtube, the Palin pornographic film, and the relentlessly sexist and degrading attacks by his followers on Gov. Palin. Ask the Press Office when the Senator will be calling for his supporters to STOP the attacks on voters who oppose him! Call today: 312-819-2423.
Go to our Action Center for graphics, flyers, postcards, and other ideas on getting the word out on the streets. JOIN Puma PAC for mass action alerts (always free and fun; we NEVER share email or spam you).
Meet Harriet Christian in Manhattan on Saturday and Sunday from now until the election. She is rounding up a posse to go to Scranton, PA to canvass in coordination with Democrat’s for McCain. If you’re interested, send her an email at hchristian at infnyc dot com. The buses leave from 31st Street and 8th Ave at 9:00AM.
Join Paulie and MariLu and Real Democrats on their canvassing Bus Tour of Ohio. They are having HUGE success reaching out to Democrats and Independents and also having HUGE fun doing it! Click HERE to join them.
Visit johnmccain.com to make phone calls from home. You don’t have to sell your soul to the Republican Party to take this action. Simply call voters in swing states and tell them the TRUTH about WHY you are not voting for Obama. If you’ve forgotten all the reasons, read through the comments HERE for succinct, heart-felt, and inspirational reasons.
Find a Puma Buddy to canvas or flyer with this weekend and next. In comments, shout out what area you’re in and ask for a buddy. If you are anywhere near a city in most of the 50 states, you will soon find at least one helpful Puma to join you. Greenfun and Billiejo in the Berkely CA area just got back from a weekend of canvassing in Reno and they had great fun while doing great work. You can too!
Tell your friends to tune into blogtalkradio programs. There are a wide variety to suit everyone’s taste and you will get to meet a lot of new friends from all over the country. Tonight, you can Chew the Fat with Ophelia, from The New Agenda tonight at 10PM EST. Join Amy Siskind and Dr. Violet Socks talk about how women from both sides of the aisle can find common ground, work towards the 30% solution and move women’s issues forward for a better society for all. Dr. Lynette Long will be on this week with Sheri Tagg. Tune your cat channels to Puma United Radio (PURrrr!) and spread the word!
Oh, and here’s a picture of Sarah Palin that reminds me of the famous Hillary in the rain in a shiny black leather jacket picture from the primaries. Sarah Palin is a woman in control. And that’s pretty awesome.
Losing my mind I seize weapons; not that there is any reason in weapons, but yet to gather a battalion for war and to make a run at the citadel with comrades sets my soul on fire. Madness and rage overthrow my mind, and it occurs to me that it is splendid to die in armor.
– Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 2, 348-352.
Hillbuzz makes the point I’ve been pushing for months — the DONC hates its base. They hate us. Don’t want to be seen with us; disdain our manners and our mores; distance themselves from our habits and our biases. When we got back from Denver and learned that McCain had pulled an upset by picking Sarah Palin as VP we offered the DONC for sale on EBay (remember bmw60’s priceless comments?) and got 1,500 inquiries in 24 hours. As I said then,
Oh, and the DONC still gets the willies when it gets in close contact with actual representatives of THE WORKING CLASS! EWWWW! I see poor people. YUCK! Why can’t they just go to the dentist for crying out loud? We don’t really have to associate with those freaks do we? (Great way to appeal to voters, Guys).
Yup, that’s them — our fearless leaders. Trashing and degrading every person who looks like us, thinks like us, or is disadvantaged in any way (not including being black — for obvious reasons, the DONC could NOT afford to throw black people under the bus this time (but if you’re black, don’t get comfy; Howard, Barack, and ACORN do NOT like you. They never intended to help you, and they never will. ACORN is a scam, just like obama and his upper middle-class (pretty much all-white male) backers, and they’ve perpetrated their fraud on you, at your expense.)).
Dare to disagree with or oppose The One? Be prepared for an onslaught unmitigated by decency, inclusive principles, or restraint of any kind. We’ve catalogued the insults and degradation many times here on this blog: the comments that cursed our loved ones to die in botched back-alley abortions, the threats of righteous violence if obama loses, the by-now toothless accusations of racism (yet they still sting). We’ve been called witches, bitches, and cunts — frequently and publicly. We watched how they portrayed Hillary, and we documented their pornographic degradation of Sarah Palin. (”my black brothers will gang rape Sarah Palin,” “fucking whore,” “dominatrix,” “pom-pom girl,” “sex slave,” and of course “cunt” over and over again).
And now they savage S. Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. Even Joe Biden is doing it. We’re told he’s stupid, ugly, racist, poor, dumb, a fraud, and a liar. He’s a guy so he probably won’t be gang-raped or figuratively f**cked by teh Boiz. He probably won’t be photo-shopped with a ball gag in his mouth being whipped by Markos in drag. That probably will never happen. Maybe Maureen Dowd will devote a column to how she’d never have sex with someone so poor. But probably the most humiliating thing he’ll have to live down is Diane Sawyer reminding him and millions of us that Joe the Plumber will probably NEVER make enough money to qualify for obama’s tax increases.
What a strange, strange beast the Democratic Party has become.
This is the new DNC, and it’s why we call them the DONC. They don’t represent us, our values, or our experiences. In fact, they represent everything we always thought we hated about Republicans. As Pumas, our eyes were opened back in February. We’ve known for a LONG time what the rest of the country is just learning — that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by a shrieking band of character assassins and thugs.
ACORN and obama thought they could get away with trashing our voters and our democratic processes in order to win. They succeeded in starting a fire, that’s for sure. But it’s not the one they meant to start.
As the evidence of massive fraud and ugly tactics mounts in every swing state in the last 3 weeks of this horrible election, the DONC will soon learn that most people hate arsonists. That instead of destroying their victims, obama and the DONC have ignited us to unite and fight. Not on their terms however, and not with their tools. We are fighting fire with water — the powerful and quiet undercurrent of decency, good will and courage which connects all average citizens and revitalizes our sense of community and shared purpose.
Our silent revolution will be quick and devastatingly effective. It will take place on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 beginning at 7am and ending at 9pm eastern. The only weapon we will use is a ballot, and there will be no casualties. We’re Pumas. We work quietly and without fuss or fanfare.
And once the Obama Movement’s incendiary assault on our voters has been permanently doused on that day, and he and his minions have been swept back to Chicago for good, we’ll begin the hard work of rebuilding our party and the reputation the BOIZ so recklessly tried to destroy.
It will be a long, difficult job. But there is no way in HELL that I’ll give up.
Every time I see a picture or description from DEMOCRATS of Sarah or Hillary in pornographic degradation I think of my daughters and a repulsive image of their heads photoshopped into a porn picture pops into mine. This is what will happen to them if you don’t fight, the voice in my head tells me.
And so, I’ll fight. Alongside every one of us who believes we have more in common with Joe the Plumber than Joe the Senator. More in common with the mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome than the father of the Daily Kos hate machine. And more in common with a brave, young Wellesley College graduate who dared to dream she could be president than with a cowardly, young Harvard graduate who dared to believe he might be the Messiah.
From the WSJ: “Then there’s Lake County, Indiana, which has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. ‘All the signatures looked exactly the same,’ said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board. Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn’s registrations were faulty. As of July, the city of Houston had rejected or put on hold about 40% of the 27,000 registration cards submitted by Acorn.”
ACORN led voter fraud is now being investigated in ten states: Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Connecticut, Missouri, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Indiana. Swing states all (well, no offense to Connecticut, but the Constitution State is likely NOT a key battleground this year, but I digress). Is it a coincidence that the Obama Machine paid Acorn EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to buy register new votes in critical swing states?
And the jokers from ACORN who told the nation yesterday that a) it’s not their fault if the people they hire to invent register new voters “steal” from them by passing in phony registration cards, and b) anyway the fraudulent registrations are only a tiny fraction of the massive number of new registrations ACORN has collected.
Yeah, right. In my math book 40% is NOT a tiny fraction. Neither is 20%; nor is 100% as has been reported in one Indiana county.
Not a tiny fraction. A tiny fraction is more like 3% or maybe even 6%, or to put it in practical terms, a tiny fraction is an amount that will have no discernible impact on the outcome. If close to HALF of the new registrations in Ohio and Indiana are fraudulent then we have a disaster in the making.
If the vote in Ohio and Indiana is close, as it surely will be, will the results be believable? Will the citizens of those states feel confident that their vote was counted fairly? If the outcome in either of those states determines the outcome in the electoral college, will the entire country feel confident that our election was fair and legitimate?
This is YET ANOTHER example of the PROFOUND FAILURE of Howard’s leadership of our party. In a democratic society it is both reckless and irresponsible to pursue a “win at any cost” strategy. Why didn’t Howard tell Obama to tell ACORN to knock it off?
If there is chaos on election day, and if (god forbid) the nation is forced to relive the 2000 post-election nightmare because of credible evidence of WIDESPREAD VOTER FRAUD, it will be Howard, Obama’s, and the DONC’s fault.
What the hell were they thinking anyway? That the republicans would be too intimidated to fight back? Too dazzled by the Messiah?
From today’s Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary:
“One of the funniest and most politically searing comedy sketches in years has vanished from the Web site of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Visitor comments asking about its disappearance are also being scrubbed from the Web site. The sketch — a harsh indictment of the housing meltdown that led to last week’s bailout bill — was clearly too much truth for someone to handle.
The seven-minute sketch featured a mock news conference of Democratic Congressional leaders on the bailout bill, during which Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank inadvertently acknowledge that it was Congress that blocked reform and effective oversight of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
-snip-
They were followed by actors portraying the real-life couple of Herbert and Marion Sandler. They explained how they built a mortgage company that specialized in subprime mortgages, which they sold to Wachovia Bank for $24.2 billion in 2006 — one of the worst acquisitions by any company ever. It helped precipitate the collapse of Wachovia last week.
The Sandlers were hustled off the stage by “Speaker Pelosi” after they said they couldn’t understand why they were invited to a news conference of “victims” since they had done so well out of the housing crisis.
They were followed by financier George Soros, identified as “Owner, Democratic Party.” The actor portraying Mr. Soros informs the group that the $700 billion bailout package “basically belongs to me” and that he has decided to short the U.S. dollar. That will trigger a devaluation “either Tuesday or Wednesday. I haven’t decided which yet. It will depend on how I feel.”
The brutally wicked sketch must have caused tremors in left-wing circles. The Sandlers and Mr. Soros have all been prime financial backers of independent political groups that have secured huge influence in the Democratic Party and helped fuel the rise of Barack Obama.
The Sandlers, for example, were major donors to the left-wing radio network Air America as well as the liberal housing lobby ACORN, a major player in pressuring banks into making more subprime mortgages. They also donated $2.5 million to MoveOn.org, the liberal group that insulted General David Petraeus as “General Betray Us” last year. Mr. Soros contributed a like amount. In turn, Eli Pariser, the head of MoveOn.org, was quite candid after the 2004 election about the influence this left-wing cabal hoped to exercise: “Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we are going to take it back.”
No doubt the Sandlers and Mr. Soros were displeased with the Saturday Night Live sketch. Herbert Sandler told the Associated Press that its portrayal of him as a predatory lender was “crap.” “We are being unfairly tarred. People have been telling us to speak out for some time, but we didn’t think it was appropriate. That was clearly a mistake.”
I suspect that some of the people the Sandlers have spoken to — or complained to — are the corporate overseers of NBC. That may explain why the bailout sketch has been airbrushed from the network’s Web site and will likely never be shown again.
That’s a shame, because rarely has political satire been more timely, pointed and, in many respects, so truthful.”
Time to grab your beat-up copy of 1984, Folks.
“The people who aspired to become this new aristocracy are described as ‘bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians’, with their origins in ‘the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class’.”
WELCOME TO OBAMA’S BASE (supported by the backs of the black poor)
“The first chapter, Ignorance is Strength, begins with the observation that throughout history, all societies have been divided into a caste system of three groups or classes: the High, who are the rulers; the Middle, who yearn to take over the position of the High; and the Low, who are typically so suppressed that in their drudgery they have no goals beyond day-to-day survival (if they are at all able to formulate any political agenda, it is to establish a society where all people are equal).
. . .”In each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century…had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality.” The real goal was to freeze history once the Middle had once again overthrown the High and become the new High themselves: This would be the last revolution ever; the new High would stay in power indefinitely by a conscious strategy. The people who aspired to become this new aristocracy are described as “bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists and professional politicians”, with their origins in “the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class”.”
DAILY UPDATE 10/7/08
1. Check out Puma PAC’s DAILY ALERT for today — all the links and info you need to get busy, HERE!
2. Get Freddie Brown’s NEW FLYER! Just send an email with your real name and address and blog name to: fred08puma@gmail.com. You’ll get 100 of these beauties in your mailbox in a matter of days! Thanks freddie brown and dwp!
3. Make this video VIRAL. Send it to your mailing lists. Drop the url in comments at the blogs you frequent. Get it out there Puma PAC Ambassadors.
4. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper today. Tell them what you think of Obama’s connections to radical extremists. Post your letter here after you mail it. Use the handy, dandy guide in our ACTION CENTER for links and tips.
5. Join Puma PAC today and be a part of the largest, most organized Citizens Action Network in the Pumasphere. It’s Free, Easy, and Fun! You will receive all of our Super Secret PROWLS, and we NEVER EVER spam you, bug you for money, or share your information. Never, ever. Join us HERE!
6. Contribute if you can to Puma PAC, so we can keep the lights on. Donations accepted HERE, and THANK you!
THE WASHINGTON HILLBILLIES
Come and listen to my story bout a man named Dodd
refied his house but it seemed kinda odd
saved eighty grand but he said he didn`t know
law makers get a break cause they`re friends of Angelo
Mozillo that is , CountryWide , Bad loans
Well the first thing ya know Angelo is in some trouble
he say`s HEY DODD NOW THEY SAY I CAUSED A BUBBLE!
Dodd say`s fine I`ll just sponsor us a bill
tell em that they need it and I`ll sell it on the Hill
Well the moral of the story that you all should know
better vote em out if they`re friends of Angelo
or one day soon we`ll be shootin at our food
Bernankes got us lookin at two hundred dollar crude
Oil that is , black gold , OPEC tea
And now it`s time to say goodbye to you and all your kin
and Dodd would like to thank you all for kindly chippin in
you`re all invited back again to this localitee
to pay another trillion for their bogus LTV
Loan to value, that is
Kick your shoes off
Ya`ll come back now ya hear?!
Thanks to RP, our Hillary Delegate and loyal friend in San Diego!
We’re Democrats, right? That means we’re the Party of the People — the working class and the middle class. People who have to go to work every day and do a good job in order to pay the bills every month. People who save and worry about college tuition. People who worry about health insurance. People who worry about inflation, unemployment, recession, layoffs, interest rates, and down payments. People who worry about car loans and car insurance and homeowner’s insurance. People who worry about hurricanes and floods and forest fires and earthquakes. People who worry about war because members of OUR families actually enlist and serve. People who worry about food additives and quality control in Chinese factories because we shop at Walmart and discount grocery stores. People who worry about violent crime because we take the bus to work; and who worry about public schools because we can’t afford private ones.
Jeez, seems like we do a LOT of worrying. Most of our worrying is about challenges that confront us directly — paying the bills today and maintaining our stability tomorrow. And that’s about all the worry we can handle. But then the Big Shots dump a whole ‘nother world of worry on us. Now we have to worry about what they screwed up, how they colossally failed to responsibly conduct their businesses, and how it’s going to blow back on us. And of course, this worry is compounded by intentionally complex and obfuscatory explanations and justifications by the Big Billionaire Boiz about how this happened and why we should save them. But, more importantly, the worry is exacerbated by an UNCONSCIONABLE lack of leadership on the part of our, um, LEADERS.
Harry and Nancy? No word from them. Barack? He’s still talking to himself in the mirror down in Clearwater, getting all ready for his BIG NIGHT tomorrow. He’s still trying to catch his plane back to Washington after George Freaking Bush nationally humiliated him by calling him to get his butt back to work.The DONC? Oh, please.
Nope, looks like the burden of leadership in the Democratic Party is once again being taken up by Hillary Clinton. The ONLY Democrat with national stature and a national constituency who has stood up and delivered a PLAN and a SOLUTION. And, even more importantly, the ONLY Democrat who remains committed to FIGHTING for protectionsfor middle and working-class Americans in the Bailout for Billionaires. Barack Obama, before even sitting down at the negotiating table, was savvy enough to give away the store right up front. He has already said he would be willing to give up homeowner protections in the interest of getting a deal done. Inspired yet?
Obama’s routine of ducking, postponing, hiding, and just plain MISSING IT is too discouraging to repeat here.
I’d rather listen to Hillary, the only national Democratic leader in Washigton right now.
“One of the most insulting outrages is how the Obama contingent continues to use racism as a weapon against us while at the same time setting free the societal restraints against sexism. Those restraints were already weak. What we have seen is a pandering to the neanderthal tendencies in men from the left that is no less disgusting and unacceptable than the pandering to the white segregationists of the south by the Republicans since Richard Nixon. In the process, it is the Obamaphiles who have voted against their own interests by passing on the true leader, a woman, in favor of a man who stroked their egos.”
For some reason this photo is my mental image of Riverdaughter. Is Democracy a woman? As Harold Ickes would say, “You bet your ass she is.”
And, in case you doubted Riv’s claims of sexist threats, bullying, and condescension, I’m reposting a comment we received yesterday from an enlightened, progressive, liberal Democrat. These sorts of comments are legion on the Boiz Blogz. We only receive a handful these days because the men who anonymously send open letters like this to women have learned they’ll get no quarter here. Their ugly views will NOT be aired, except in cases where we want to expose and mock them.
“As a progressive, I’m stunned by the self delusion and self inflicted destruction on the part of some (few) ill informed Clinton supporters who just can’t get over the fact that their candidate was beaten by a smarter, better prepared candidate. So, in a fit of pique and motivated by overblown and hysterical charges of sexism, you are prepared to vote for John McCain, a guy who cares nothing about women’s issues excepting his readiness to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Some of you even support Sarah Palin though her rightwing radicalism bears no similarity to your own politics. You are voting on gender. So why not Ann Coulter?
The very sad part of your efforts is that in trying to advance a women’s agenda, many of you resorted to racism, traces of which are reflected even in the posts here.
You should be really proud of yourselves. Stupidity has its consequences and I can only hope you or someone you love suffers the adverse consequences of a back alley abortion.”
Yeah, that’s true nitwit. Stupidity DOES have its consequences. Consequences like LOSING IN A LANDSLIDE ON NOVEMBER 4th.
This is an Open Thread while I get my political-economical act together. Be wonderful to each other! And check out the Puma PAC Action Center for PROWL ideas and resources. It’s quite LOVELY!
What’s PPP getting at here? Obviously, that a -12 point collapse in Palin’s net favorability will have an impact on McCain’s numbers.
With Palin neutralized (and there’s a reason they’re hiding her from view), it’s much easier to knock down McCain on the economy, his desire to deregulate healthcare just like Wall Street, his lies, and so on.
Again, for those who counseled leaving Palin alone because she was too popular and because it took attention off McCain, had we done so, she’d be entrenched as a woman of the people, propping up the Republican ticket. Instead, she’s been relegated to the far less glamorous (and helpful) task of keeping the GOP base intact, nothing more. She may be popular with the base, but people outside wingnut circles aren’t impressed.
Um, Satan, I know your job is to deliver the DONC Talking Points (Unqualified! Slut! Bimbo!) but damn! that must be one hell of a dose you have to take to quell the cognitive dissonance. “Hiding her from view”?? You mean like this,
Over 10,000 waited up to 5 hours to hear Palin yesterday in Florida. Biden’s biggest draw has been about 2,500. (Oh, and Biden, or King Gaffer as I like to call him, is now forced to walk back yesterday’s remarks about Obama’s “terrible” decision to air an ad ridiculing McCain’s war injuries. For some reason I have an image in my head of a dog chasing its tail in a panicked, out of control spin. Sigh. Should have picked Hillary.)
Jeralyn, for one, has heard her marching orders clearly and is “100%” on board with continuing the onslaught:
Palin Post-Peak: Favorability Slides
By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 01:33:00 AM EST
PPP will have a new Colorado poll out this morning. They offer one stat as a teaser. Palin’s favorability rating in the has dropped 3 points and her unfavorable rating has increased 9 points.
I’m 100% with Markos of Daily Kos on this. . .
Great, you can safely hold your breath while we wait for the first round of slime to be hurled from the Democratic Keepers of Swamp Misogyny. This is a good one, an ad currently running on several of Da Boiz’z blogs:
(get it? A “BUSH” we can’t trust? ha-ha! we said “bush”! Thanks to Melissa McKewan)
Oh, and the Freudian projection is almost too much to bear these days. Naomi Wolf, card-carrying member of the So-Called Reality Based Community (SCRBC), raises the Panic Flag about, get this, how our open society is being threatened by a weak figurehead candidate backed by a mysterious cabal and inserted into office using election fraud and corruption! Lordy, lordy. She also lets loose a Freudian slip at the end, corrected in my brackets:
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand “Palin Power.” A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections — but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you [can't] have freedom.
ALSO, Tonight we are hosting a fundraiser to help Heidi Li and her group, Democrats for Principles before Party, place an ad in Congressional Quarterly. The ads Heidi and her partner Marc Rubin have placed were tremendously effective at changing the pre-Denver narrative.
If everyone reading tonight donates just $5 (or $10 if you’ve got it) we can put Heidi over the top!
Forget about the Blogger Boiz. They are soo Bush-Era. With their blind and rabid obsession with all things Rovian and Republican they made themselves irrelevant. Rather than making the practical and principled political decision this primary season to back the most qualified Democratic candidate (as did the prescient and precious Riverdaughter, waaay back in January), the Boiz were so deafened by their own snarky echo chambers they could only hear the panderings of politicians cynical enough to speak their language.
John Edwards and Barack Obama lulled them with promises of RETRIBUTION, packaged up in boxes of hope and tied with pretty ribbons of change. The Blogger Boiz wanted PAYBACK. Payback for “being right about Iraq.” Payback for “being right about terrorism.” Payback for “being right about FISA.” Payback for “being right about the housing crisis.” And Katrina, and Guantanamo, and global warming. Obama (Edwards faded early), the Boiz believed, would be their white and shining knight aloft a rearing stallion of Change, smiting the Enemies of the Left with his righteous sword of glorious RIGHTNESS. Ha!
Obama would sweep into the White House like a mighty river of intellectual vengeance and the Boiz would get what they have always and only ever longed for: the ability to say with a face-splitting smirk, “We were right and you were WRONG.” nyah-nyah-na-na. That’s it. That’s ALL they care about.
And a look at what is important to them makes it clear why they will lose. The reason the promises of Hope and Change seem so empty to the rest of us is because they ARE empty, and more importantly, Obama and Axelrod and Dean KNOW this! The Boiz never wanted anything concrete. They didn’t want universal health care. They didn’t want sensible legislation for immigration. They didn’t want lower taxes or higher taxes; or good public schools or a solid plan for Iraq. They didn’t want reproductive choice for the women of Tennessee. They didn’t want adequate equipment for the troops. All they wanted was a Gold Star. An A+ for Stating the Obvious. Which is very easy to bestow. All Obama had to do was attend Yearly Kos and mouth the words FISA, Iraq pullout, and Guantanamo. All he had to do was DEIGN to write (or direct a staffer to write) a couple of posts for Huffington Post.
And then the Boiz and their minions would howl and stomp for him through the internets, the polling places, and the streets, drunk on the joy of being recognized as SMARTER than the rest of the country. And, in a strange and subtle twist, because of their own unexamined racism, spitefully glad that they would be using a BLACK Man and his even “blacker” wife to thumb their noses at the rest of us. A strange image, no? Barack and Michelle Obama as thumbs to prop up the collective noses of a bunch of self-righteous white men.
But the rest of the country has always been smarter than that. Always been more seasoned and practical. HATRED of George Bush and Dick Cheney is the habit and the hobby of the over-employed and the pampered. The rest of us have to get the kids to school and the bills paid. Yes, we know George Bush is a disaster. While driving to work or to the grocery store we sometimes fantasize about him being hauled before the World Court for crimes against humanity. But seriously, what has that got to do with which candidate will be able to make health care available for our mothers-in-law?
The Republicans, savvy strategists that they are, figured a toothless Obama would be easier to work around than a dead-serious Clinton. So they watched with glee as the Boiz savaged the more fearsome opponent. Ancient history now. But then came Sarah Palin, riding a REAL motorcycle, carrying a REAL rifle, and grinning a REAL grin of righteousness (yes, she scares me — I’m strong enough to admit it!). And now the Republicans have new hope, new energy, and new reason to believe that not only will they win the White House, they might change the political landscape for a generation. A little tweak to their reproductive choice platform and they may lose ten million fundamentalists but gain 50 million soccer moms. Hmmmm…
But, don’t lose heart O Stalwarts of the true Democratic Party! 2008 also marks the birth of the Puma Era in American politics. A movement in which average, every day voters like us started paying attention and taking action. We’ve been turning off our tv’s by the millions, putting down our newspapers, and heading out into the far reaches of the Internet like political pioneers, searching for common sense and practical solutions. We found outposts of sanity at The Confluence and Corrente and Shakesville. But we needed more. We started our own blogs, our own political action committees, our own virtual town squares.
On November 5th the Boiz will find themselves in the same position they’ve been in for a decade: with their heads spinning and with nothing practical to do with themselves except for looking back in anger — spewing ugliness and working their followers up into a froth of impotent, vile mania.
But not us! We’ll have WORK to do. Useful, pragmatic, and inclusive work. The work of rebuilding our party and electing representatives who put voters FIRST. The work of changing the media landscape so that NO woman who runs for office is subject to anything like THIS (from the liberal, progressive Blogosphere, natch). The work of Paying Attention and Sticking Together.
Oh, and don’t worry about the Boiz. They’re the kind of guys who bring a report card to a fist fight. They’re the kind of guys who might forget their mother’s birthday, but NEVER forget their own SAT scores. They’re the kind of guys for whom being RIGHT is always more important than being GOOD.
And people like that are easy to beat.
This is the Puma Era.
Welcome to the Pumaspere!
Please welcome these wonderful new additions to the Pumasphere. Several of these blogs and websites were founded by members of our very own Puma PAC! Visit and comment often. Remember what we’ve been saying since June 3rd? We are either all in this together, or all outside alone. Every inclusive voice is important in our Puma Movement. Every inclusive message is part of the Puma Platform. Start a blog. Start a radio show. Comment and write and think and act. We are American citizens. This is our JOB.
From today’s Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary:
Hey! Where’d everyone go?!
