Category: 2008 Election

Looks like the AFL-CIO is coming out big time for Obama:

“We’re like the angel on the other shoulder, saying, ‘Remember, you’ve got to get your other kid through college,'” says Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director for the AFL-CIO.

We’re like an angel on your shoulder to tell you that your rights don’t matter.  Come to us, we’ll feed you, take care of you, make sure that kid can go off to college.  Don’t pay any attention that Obama wants to redact 1/10th of the Bill of Rights.  Don’t worry about that.  Don’t worry that he’ll have to raise your taxes to pay for everything he’s promised.  We got your back!  How’s this for condescending?

Those voters “need to connect to their need for economic change so that it’s stronger than their fear of cultural change,” says Karen Nussbaum, Working America’s executive director. “I think it’s a challenge for a lot of white people to vote for a black candidate. They’ve never been asked to do it before.”

Dammit!  If only we could get these racist white working class Pennsylvanians to vote for a black man, we’d have this election in the bag!  Don’t forget honey, it was the conservative parts of Pennsylvania that voted for Lynn Swann.  Last I checked, he was a black man.  Don’t say they have never been asked to vote for a black man before, they have, and they did.  It was Philadelphia and its suburbs that put Rendell into office.

Bitter and I just got back from counterattacking the Patrick Murphy Campaign.  We placed Tom Manion signs at an untouched main roadway where there was a good bit of public property.  We also counterattacked two Murphy positions at key exits.  We ran out of ammunition (signs) and were unable to continue the fight.  We will resupply, and attack the remaining positions sometime this week.  We cannot allow a sign gap!  Take that, you gun banning asshole!

People might argue that signage doesn’t matter, but it does.  A lot of people really aren’t very aware of congressional races, and you don’t want them to just see Murphy signs around.  You want your candidate’s name to stick in their heads, so when they start looking for election information, they remember.  This is epsecially important if you’re not an incumbent.

Signs are also a form of psychological warfare.  When the Murphy people drive by their signs tomorrow morning, they will know Manion people are in the area, ready to ambush their turf and match them sign for sign.  It’s incredibly demoralizing.  Manion supporters will also know that they have neighbors who support their candidate, and they aren’t freaks after all.  It’s always good to let your people know they aren’t freaks.

But most importantly, it’s a moral booster for you, the activist.  There’s fun in the attack, knowing it will anger Murphy’s Minions. As you thrust each sign into (hopefully) soft earth, you can take great satisfaction in thinking “Ha!  Here’s a nice little f*&k you from the NRA, Pat!  Stick that in your assault weapons ban and smoke it!”  If you don’t really like people, putting out signs is a great way to contribute.

Someone please tell me this isn’t real.  The more I talk to other people about Obama, the more I feel like I sound like a right wing whakjob.  Because this shit is the kind of thing that paranoid right-wing fantasies are made out of.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt6JWzBqLWs[/youtube]

Only I worry this time it’s not a fantasy.  Looking at the writing on the walls that’s visible for clues, it would appear this is the 18th and Vine District in Kansas City, MO.  The tag on the video says an Urban Community Leadership Academy, and that the teacher has been suspended.

I point this out not because I think Obama’s campaign is going around training the brownshirts, but because I do not wish to elect anyone who inspires this kind of regimented and blind loyalty.  That is dangerous to our Republic.  Think what you want about McCain, but he’s a typical politician.  He’s an evil I know.  I don’t know who Barack Obama really is, but I do know the depths of hell to which this kind of loyalty leads.

UPDATE: Sadly, it’s real.  It was done before Obama was the nominee, and the school seems to be taking appropriate action.

Simon of Classical Values talks about poll numbers, and why we should be skeptical, links to this post over at Stolen thunder, which says something that’s very true:

This is not a football game or a baseball game, it’s politics. Support is built up gradually and won bits at a time. Also, some of the best gains are not obvious at first, because some significant actions take time to develop. McCain and Obama both fell back a bit the last week of September, McCain because Republican support fell off a bit, Obama lost independents’ support. This is a salient factor in where the candidates’ opportunities and weaknesses lay.

And we can exploit these weaknesses.  They key to this election will be swinging independent voters away from Obama.  That will certainly be the key to winning Pennsylvania.  Simon says:

So do the right thing and give him a click. Plus his advice is critical: keep the faith. Do not give up. Make sure you and all your friends show up on election day.

And Simon said, so if you don’t do it, you’ll lose!

Jim Geraghty makes some good points about McCain’s campaign.  Though, I’d prefer to wait until the patient actually dies before starting the autopsy.

I should try to make this a regular feature up until the election, since it’s become abundantly clear that the media is in the tank for Obama.  Today’s was courtesy of the local news talker.  The issue was MCain’s new ads highlighting Obama’s ties with William Ayers.  You’d think they’d want to explain to the general public exactly who Ayers is, or even, you know, mention his name at least once in the story, to give the public some background information on the accusation.  I would argue, in fact, that it’s their duty to the citizens of this country to explain such things.

But they immediately cut to Obama’s retort that this attack is merely desperation, and an attempt to district Americans from the real issues.  Sorry, but I think associating, and owing your political career to a self-admitted domestic terrorist is something that’s a bit more than a distraction.  Apparently the media doesn’t think this is news.

Even this article, which offers decent coverage, tries to dismiss the assocation.  The Washington Post Fact Check dismisses the association.  The British press is getting in on it.  CNN is also is whitewashing the connection.  ABC News actually manages fairly good coverage.

The Corner has more on this here and here.

UPDATE: David Bernstein has more to say here.

First we had Bush Derangement Syndrome, now Dr. Helen talks about Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Well, we finished with our last gun show before the election. Overall, I think the Allentown show was pretty successful for us. I managed to keep my second day haul down to a few cleaning tools, some more beef jerky, some ammo, and a second Nagant bayonet — only about 40 more dollars.

We got a few more names for our list, many of them from Pennsylvania’s fifteenth district, which has no EVC currently. That gives us a good start if we decide to take it over, or help someone get started up there. Charlie Dent is the endorsed Congressional incumbent up there, and they have some good state reps, so it’s an easier district than ours.

We handed out all our McCain/Palin bumper stickers, which was quite a few of them. A Lehigh County GOP volunteer stopped by and dropped off a whole big stack of them, which we ran out of an hour before the show ended. I had one guy stop by looking for Palin stuff, and offered him a bumper stickers that were just McCain, and he said he’d stop by later when we had one with Palin on it. Can’t say I blame him.

I do appreciate the irony of shilling for McCain at a gun show. If you had told me even a year ago that would be the case, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. More than a few people I talked to were aware of his record on the issue, but were scared to death of Obama. We all are. For me it was Obama’s threatning to pull the licenses of TV and radio stations that really got me fired up to hand out McCain stuff. If NRA wants to jump on board later, that’s great, but we have to defeat Obama in Pennsylvania. We just have to.

What I’m learning from this is that people aren’t as well informed as you might think they are. To a large degree, I think a lot of gun owners wouldn’t pay much attention to politics if it were not for this issue, and that explains a lot of NRA’s electoral muscle. I was happy to inform more than a few gun owners about Attorney General Corbett (A+ rated and endorsed), and more importantly about his opponent. Corbett is the reason I can travel to Florida and be armed 90% of the way, and in Florida, after years of Pennsylvania having reciprocity with hardly anyone. Corbett also quickly handled the mess a year or so ago when local and state police were suggesting that they wouldn’t fully recognize reciprical permits. So for guns, he’s a good guy. I’m happy to help get his name out there.

Bitter and I have plenty of Tom Manion signs left over, since that show only got a few people from our district. A few places of public property in our area got tagged by Murphy drones, we’re going to go counter attack, and get the remaining out to gun stores, gun ranges, and gun clubs.

This week is going to be busy. I’m speaking at Branch Valley Fish, Game and Forestry Assocation on Tuesday, my own club on Wednesday, Silhouette match again on Thursday, and hopefully speaking to my club’s archers on Friday. Saturday we have the ANJRPC Annual Banquet, which Stephen Halbrook will be keynoting at, and Sunday will be the Sportsmen for McCain Rally in Oley. I will find time for blogging in there, I promise.