“OBAMA SUPPORTERS” DAILY NEWS Wednesday June 11, 2008

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

WELCOME TO “OBAMA SUPPORTERS” DAILY NEWS

Wednesday June 11, 2008


Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., carries a tray of food
into a room as he follows registered nurse Kate Marzluf, Tuesday, June 10, 2008,
at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. Who's missing from this list?

Who's missing from this list?
Tue Jun 10 Jed Report

NBC's Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro take a look at Barack Obama's "very long" VP short list:

Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Kathleen Sebelius, Ted Strickland, Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Jim Webb, Bill Nelson, Jack Reed, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Tom Daschle, and Sam Nunn. You'll notice a few names NOT on this list (that's not my exclusion -- hint hint).

Conspicuously absent: Bill Richardson. Update: Also, Wes Clark and Brian Schweitzer, both of whom would be interesting picks. (I especially like Schweitzer.)

Meanwhile, Kent Conrad tells CNN there are about 20 names on the list.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. Giving a head fake vs. spreading the field

Giving a head fake vs. spreading the field
Tue Jun 10 Jed Report

I was just doing some dishes and listening to a panel discussion on MSNBC about Obama's 50-state strategy. The assumption of all four panelists seemed to be that Obama was trying to put a head-fake on McCain, luring McCain in a direction that Obama never intended to go. To the panelists, the question was whether or not McCain would fall for Obama's bluff, wasting resources on a state that he's already got locked up.

Doesn't that completely miss the point, though? Sure, if Obama puts up ads in Utah and McCain buy $5 million of ads on Salt Lake TV, then McCain's dumb as a brick. But we're not really talking about Utah -- we're talking about states like Mississippi that could go for Obama if everything aligned perfectly.

By investing his resources in states like that, Obama is forcing McCain to follow suit. Assuming that McCain does allocate resources to these states, he'll probably end up winning them, but that doesn't mean that he'll be falling for a trick. McCain's problem is that if he does not defend these states, he'll probably end up losing 1 or 2 of them, even in a moderately close election, and he really can't afford to do that and still expect to win.

This isn't a case of a head-fake -- it's a case of spreading the field, and Obama, with his resources, will be able to dictate the way the election plays out in a way that no presidential candidate in recent history has.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

3. Veepstakes, by the numbers

Veepstakes, by the numbers
By the Jed Report Tue Jun 10

Here's a simpler version of the table I posted earlier summarizing the SurveyUSA vice presidential pairings poll data.



This table summarizes polls taken in 17 states from May 16 to June 3.

I've also posted a table with more details, including matchup-by-matchup performance.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Politically Unsavvy Mendacious Asshats

Politically Unsavvy Mendacious Asshats
Kevin K. on 06/09/08 at RumpRoast Monday, June 09, 2008

Two PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) pity party poopers, Thuc Nguyen and Harriet Christian’s BFF Will Bower, recently made an appearance on Fox with Neil Cavuto to explain why they will not, will not, WILL NOT vote for Barack Obama in November. This exchange had me rolling on the floor:

NEIL CAVUTO: How many do you think share your views? I know there are eighteen million--

THUC NGUYEN: Right now?

CAVUTO: --Hillary Clinton supporters, mug’s game though it might be. How many do you think will jump to John McCain?

NGUYEN: Well, over this weekend we had a big conference call with a bunch of groups and formed a coalition. It’s justsaynodeal.com. And right now we have millions and millions. They’re all coming together.

CAVUTO: Wait a minute, how many? Millions and millions couldn’t have been on the conference call, so Will, how many do you think--

NGUYEN: No, but there were about fifty.

CAVUTO: But fifty. Alright. Eighteen million. Fifty. Alright.

And this quote from Cavuto was pretty funny, too:

..more at the link

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. Country Club McCain

Country Club McCain
The Personal IS Political June 10 2008

Remember when Bush said he gave up golf out of respect for the thousands of dead soldiers he sent over to Iraq? (They were alive when he sent them, just to be clear) And then it turned out that he was lying and was filmed golfing a couple months later? I guess the Republicans just love golf, which is probably why golf is one of McCain's major issues, up there with creating jobs (by shipping them overseas and building bombs, and then shipping them overseas and dropping them on people who were no threat to us):



It really does show you the audience McCain caters to, the white rich old men at exclusive country clubs from sea to shining sea. Yeah, not aristocratic at all. Just one of the guys.

And you can be sure he won't be losing any sleep or giving up any golf out of respect for the American men and women (or the Iraqi men, women and children) dying in the war he wants to keep going for 5-100 years.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. Retiring the Debt (Clinton's)

Retiring the Debt
By: John Cole June 1 2008

Via the Carpetbagger, it seems that the Clinton campaign debt is record-breaking, and it is not clear how it can be paid off:


With her campaign now officially suspended, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is confronting still another challenge: whittling down what is believed to be the largest presidential campaign debt in history.

Besides the $11.4 million of her own money that Mrs. Clinton lent her campaign, she had about $9.5 million in unpaid bills to vendors at the end of April, according to her most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission.
It is unclear how much debt she will ultimately report, because the campaign is still adding up the figures for May, which it must file to the commission by June 20. But Mo Elleithee, a campaign spokesman, said, “We don’t expect the debt number to look significantly different than it did on our last report.”


Should we set up an ActBlue account to try to offset some of the debt, or will that not go to retiring the debt? Does anyone know? If it does, maybe if we start an ActBlue account, perhaps others will follow. It certainly seems like Clinton has been acting in very good faith, and we should as well. If anyone can definitively state that money donated today will pay down her debt, I will set one up ASAP.

I can’t believe I am contemplating fund-raising for the Clinton campaign.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. Hooray! We're ALL Not Rich!

Hooray! We're ALL Not Rich!
Princess Sparkle Pony June 10

This is, like, totally the kind of thing that makes us all feel so charitable towards the GOP:

June 10, 2008 -- WE'RE in for taxing times if Barack Obama wins the White House, says CNBC's Maria Bartiromo. "He's going to take the capital gains tax at 15 percent right now all the way up to 25 to 28 percent," the "Money Honey" tells Avenue. "Sell anything, like a home or stocks, and make a profit . . . 30 percent of the profit will go to the government instead of 15." The income tax is also in for a bump. Bartiromo says, "Right now is 35 percent, Obama wants to take that to 39 percent . . . We're talking about people who make over $200,000. That's not rich. So it's actually going to impact more people than you may think."

Wow, if making $200,000 is "not rich," what does that make all the rest of us? OMG, and I thought I was doing OK!

Think Progress helpfully points out that, to be fair, Ms. Bartiromo makes over a million dollars a year and was delighted to receive a $500,000 advance (!!) for her sure-to-be-riveting book, so I suppose, to her, a year living on a low six-figure sum would seem like slumming.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. The Wife U.S. Republican John McCain Callously Left Behind

The Wife U.S. Republican John McCain Callously Left Behind
SHARON CHURCHER Daily Mail UK Tuesday, June 10, 2008

...Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

...But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

...more at the link

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. Your Whiteness is Showing

Tim Wise Stirring the Pot
Jack and Jill Politics June 10 2008

Evita's comment was worthy of a post of its own, and I give her the Hat tip for the following post. If there were any white man worthy of telling his people unpleasant but truthful things, it's Tim Wise.

An Open Letter to Certain White Women Who Are Threatening to Withhold Support from Obama in November
Your Whiteness is Showing
By TIM WISE

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.

That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.

First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...

Your whiteness is showing.

When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.

...more at the link

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

10. G*d damn. Can we afford a computer illiterate doofus as POTUS?

G*d damn. Can we afford a computer illiterate doofus as POTUS?
by: Pam Spaulding Tue Jun 10, 2008

Sorry to bring up this guy again, but this is the living end. After posting about McSame's idiotic reference to his campaign using "a Google" to vet his VP candidates, I come across this video (from early on in GOP primary) that I hadn't seen. If anything should disqualify a person from leading us into the future, it should be this level of computer illiteracy. Voters, meet unashamed Luddite John McCain....


Interviewer: Are you a Mac or a PC user?
McCain: Neither. I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance that I can get.

There are plenty of "seasoned" citizens out there who surf the web and know how to use email, so he doesn't get a pass for playing the crusty old coot card. There is zero excuse for John McCain to be completely helpless at the keyboard. If he cannot grasp the basic concept of email, the Internet, blogs or even a word processor on his own, we know the man is living in the past. You cannot delegate out knowledge about 21st century communication and technology that you would need to make critical decisions about the direction you want to take this country, and how to protect and secure it in the digital age. Completely unacceptable.

He also mentions his favorite movie is Viva Zapata, btw.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. Don't be a dummy. Know Obama's record

Be smart, book mark this daily kos diary so you will have Obama's record.

Don't be a dummy. Know Obama's record
by droogie6655321 at Daily Kos
Tue Jun 10, 2008

My heart just sinks every time some well-meaning (but ignorant) Obama supporter calls into a radio show and gets heckled by Sean Hannity or whoever about Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments.

This happened just yesterday. Hannity offered an Obama supporter a steak dinner if he could name three pieces of legislation that had Obama's name on them. The caller clumsily changed the subject.

Sensing he had the caller on the ropes, Hannity lowered the bar to a single piece of legislation. And alas, the caller could not name the legislation.

Hannity smugly switched off the caller's volume and said directly to the audience, "Ladies and Gentlemen, checkmate." And Droogie exited his car, entered his house and ate tacos sadly.

...more at the link, including Obama's record!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

12. McCain committed to overturning Roe V Wade

(((((((((((((((((( The RBC Update: McCain and abortion ))))))))))))))))))

2008.06.10 21:48:56


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, he's committed to overturning Roe v. Wade. The capacity
of some liberals for self-deception about the intentions of our
opponents is truly breathtaking.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://WWW.samefacts.com/archives/john_mccain_moderate_/2008/06/mccain_and_abortion.php

[FrenchieCat]

13. The UAW has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3346795&mesg_id=3346795