Obama Talks About The Future- Final Debate (VIDEO)

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McCain’s Childish Faces, Grunts and Eye Rolls Turned Off Voters During Debate (VIDEO)

McCain’s Eye Rolls: Raw Video Montage

Daily Kos-by Jed L

Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 09:45:36 PM PDT

Here’s a clip of about 90 seconds worth of John McCain’s condescending, snotty, and childish grimaces, grunts, and eye rolls that turned off so many voters during tonight’s debate.

I’m planning on using some of this video to make a shorter, snazzier video, but thought it’d be worth getting the raw video up right away. If you’ve got any ideas for music or other ways of making the video funny, please share!

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McCain’s Deer In The Headlights Moment- Final Debate (VIDEO)

Final Debate: McCain’s Deer In The Headlights Moment (VIDEO)

Huffington Post- Rachel Weiner

October 15, 2008 10:43 PM

McCain mentioned “Joe the Plumber” almost constantly throughout the final debate — even tying him into an attack on Obama’s health care plan. But the move led to a “deer in the headlights” moment for the Republican.

“Joe, Senator Obama’s plan … If you are out there, my friend, and you have got employees and you have got kids, if you don’t get a health care plan that Sen. Obama mandates, he is going to fine you,” McCain said.

“I’m happy to talk to you, Joe, too, if you’re out there,” Obama responded. “Here is your fine: Zero.”

McCain interrupted, asking “Zero?” He stayed frozen in the same position, blinking his eyes in confusion, as Obama continued his answer.

“Zero,” Obama said. “You won’t pay a fine because as I said in our last debate, and I’ll repeat John, I exempt small businesses from the requirement for large businesses that can afford to provide health care to their employees who are not doing it. I exempt small businesses from having to pay into a kitty.”

Obama then ripped McCain for proposing to tax the health care benefits individuals will receive from their employer — a winner for him in past debates.

The Washington Post Fact Checker confirmed Obama’s response:

McCain was wrong to state that small businessman “Joe the Plumber” would end up paying a fine if he refused to provide his workers with health insurance. Under the Obama plan, small businesses are specifically exempted from a requirement imposed on large companies that they contribute to a national health fund if they fail to make “a meaningful contribution” to their employees’ health care costs.

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Obama Trounces McCain In Third Debate

Who Won The Last Debate? Obama Dominates By Largest Margins Yet

Huffington Post- Sam Stein

October 15, 2008 11:09 PM

John McCain didn’t just fail to get the game-changer he needed — he was trounced in this third and final debate, if the instant post-debate polling provides any indication.

The results over at CBS show Obama to have scored the biggest victory to date: “Fifty-three percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed identified Democratic nominee Barack Obama as the winner of tonight’s debate. Twenty-two percent said Republican rival John McCain won. Twenty-four percent saw the debate as a draw.”

It is, the site writes, “a clean sweep” for the Illinois Democrat.

Over at CNN, a separate poll of several hundred debate watchers again favored the Democrat by large margins: 58 percent for Obama to McCain’s 31 percent. Perhaps more importantly, McCain’s favorable rating dropped 51 to 49 while his unfavorable rating increased from 45 percent to 49 percent. Obama ended up with 66 percent favorable rating.

Digging into the details the news is even worse for the Arizona Republican.

Asked who “expressed his views more clearly” 66 percent said Obama, 25 percent said McCain.
“Who spent their time attacking his opponent:” 80 percent said McCain, seven percent said Obama. “Who seemed to be the stronger leader:” 56 percent for Obama, 39 percent for McCain. And who was “more likeable:” 70 percent for Obama to McCain’s 22 percent.

CNN also conducted a smaller focus group of 25 undecided likely voters in Ohio, and Obama won that too, 15-10.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, meanwhile, conducted some polling before and after the debate and here are his findings.

Before the debate:

McCain: 54 favorable / 34 unfavorable

Obama: 42 favorable / 42 unfavorable

After the debate:

McCain: 50 favorable / 48 unfavorable

Obama: 72 favorable / 22 unfavorable

Meanwhile, virtually the entire Frank Luntz focus group on Fox News, which was staged tonight in Miami, said that Barack Obama won the debate. Luntz termed it a “clear majority,” but not one person raised their hand when asked if they thought McCain won.

Said Luntz: “None had made a decision to support Sen. Obama before the debate, but more than half supported him after the debate. It was a good night for Barack Obama.”

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Jon Stewart: McCain ‘Comeback’ Like Old McCain Speeches

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Via Raw Story

Jon Stewart finds comparisons between John McCain’s new speech on the economy and his convention speech from a few months ago.

This video is from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, broadcast October 14, 2008.

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Republican War Against Obama

By- Bob Cesca

Michelle Obama once called it “the ultimate fear bomb.”

I’m writing, of course, about the paranoid, psychopathic behavior we’ve witnessed over the last two weeks from the Republican Party and its presidential candidates. Be it the fire-eyed rants from the cowardly shrieking eel named Sarah Palin, or the ignorant and naïve witch-hunters in line at various McCain rallies, or the sanctioned Republican Party conspiracy to turn Senator Obama into an Islamic terrorist, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what the far-right is capable of — in broad daylight no less.

Remember the breathless, tinfoil hat attacks against President Clinton and Senator Clinton during the 1990s? Fun times compared to what’s surely on the way if Senator Obama wins this thing. I think we can agree that the last couple of weeks have made the far-right anti-Clinton attacks of the ’90s seem quaint by comparison.

Here’s this particular Republican fear bomb works. 1) The McCain campaign, the Republican Party and its supporters are systematically spreading the notion that Senator Obama is somehow a terrorist sympathizer — and therefore a de facto terrorist. 2) America is presently engaged in a shooting war against terrorists. 3) Therefore, by extrapolation, they’re allowing their more unhinged followers to imply that we’re in a shooting war against Senator Obama.

And we’re not just hearing this from the usual wackaloons and hoopleheads, either. This game is quite literally being played by both the legitimate Republican Party, along with the Republican nominees for president and vice president.

It began long ago, however, in that notorious “Who Is Barack Obama?” whisper e-mail and, as if on cue, the thoroughly debunked smears in the e-mail bled out to far-right talkers like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. In June of 2007, for example, Coulter used an appearance on Hannity & Colmes to say, “I think anyone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using “hijack” and “religion” in the same sentence.” Funny! And she punctuated it with, “Get ready for President Hussein!” This from a woman who wished for the New York Times building to be bombed by terrorists.

Elsewhere, Rush Limbaugh’s participation has involved everything from the possibly drug-induced yet deliberate “Osama-Obama” mispronunciation, to his present day and inexplicable “Arab-African” label for the senator’s heritage. The truth is that Limbaugh is more “Arab-African” than Senator Obama.

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Obama Says He’s Ready For Ayers In Tonight’s Debate

Final Presidential Debate: Obama Says He’s Ready For Ayers

Huffington Post- Sam Stein

October 15, 2008 10:15 AM

Honoring the pre-debate tradition, Barack Obama’s campaign is out with a memo on Wednesday raising the expectations for John McCain to ungodly heights. But in addition to setting the stage for tonight’s affair, the Illinois Democrat did something peculiar: he allowed a peek into internal strategy.

Spokesman Bill Burton lays out — in no small measure — how he believes the debate will proceed.

“Just this weekend, John McCain vowed to ‘whip Obama’s you-know-what’ at the debate,” he writes, “and he’s indicated that he’ll use Bill Ayers to attack Barack Obama… Senator Obama is going to use the debate to discuss his plan for the economy. That’s what he’s been doing this entire campaign.”

Such a prediction may appear, at once, over-simplistic and optimistic. But the Obama campaign has seemingly been engineering this scenario for the past week. Indeed, if John McCain brings up Ayers in tonight it may be because he was goaded into doing so.

Following the candidate’s second debate, both Obama and Joe Biden chided the Republican nominee for not making the personal character attacks he made on the stump to Obama’s face. Since then, however, polling data has shown voters recoiling from McCain’s use of Bill Ayers in political attacks. The Arizona Republican is left in a quandary: don’t bring up the former ’60s radical and risk being seen as squirmy and afraid; or bring him up and get bashed by Obama for not talking about the economy.

As Burton writes: “But after two debates in which John McCain didn’t mention the middle class once — and after his campaign declared openly that they want to turn the page on talking about the economy — the real question is not how many attacks McCain can land in the debate, but whether he can finally communicate a vision to turn this economy around.”

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The Hoover-Palin Ticket

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig, Posted on Oct 14, 2008

And the winner is … Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Remember him—the great Democratic president who saved capitalism from the capitalists by reining in their exorbitant greed? Forget the Reagan Revolution heralding a new era of small government, which turned out to be nothing more than a fig leaf for legalized corporate crime. The hero of the hour is FDR, as the essential wisdom of his New Deal is now embraced by most Republicans as well as Democrats.

Roosevelt’s legacy was acknowledged Monday when GOP presidential nominee John McCain absurdly accused his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, of advocating policies pursued by Herbert Hoover, the Republican incumbent whom Roosevelt defeated in 1932. While clueless GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin prattled on at the same rally about Reaganomics and getting government out of the way of business, most other Americans noticed—and are grateful—that the federal government now directly manages many of our biggest businesses in the all-important financial sector.

The banking bailout is pure FDR at his big-government best. Greedy bankers are being taken to the woodshed and read the riot act: If they behave, then they will once again have the opportunity to be filthy rich—that’s the American way.

As McCain put it Tuesday: “I will begin by making certain that the $700 billion already committed to economic recovery is not used to further enrich the very people and institutions that invited these troubles with their own reckless conduct.”

Yes, McCain finally gets it: “I will not play along with the same Washington games and gimmicks that got us into this terrible mess in the first place. I am going to Washington to fight for you.” I didn’t check whether this performance made it into the “Moment of Zen” in “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” but it should have. “I am going to Washington” is a classic proclamation of stupidity that assumes the rest of us are unaware of where McCain has been these past three decades.

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Economy Trumps Race in Ohio

By Bill Boyarsky, Truthdig, Posted on Oct 15, 2008

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., poses with worker during a tour of the RMI Titanium Company, Monday, Feb. 18, 2008, in Niles, Ohio. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio—From the Southern California suburbs to Ohio’s Appalachia, places that have not been especially friendly to African-American candidates, Sen. Barack Obama seems to be convincing a substantial number of whites that their votes should be determined by their economic troubles rather than race.

That’s what I am seeing three weeks before the presidential election. At present, I am in Portsmouth, a small city in Ohio across the Ohio River from Kentucky, where unemployment is almost in double digits. It is one of the hardest-hit areas in the state and the nation. Two weeks ago, I visited Riverside County in the Southern California suburbs east of Los Angeles. Foreclosure signs are commonplace and the unemployment rate is 9.7 percent.

I chose both places because they have a conservative tradition that makes them tough electoral territories for an African-American presidential candidate.

The immensity of the bad economy was clear when I visited Moreno Valley, a city in Riverside County. Immediately afterward, I posted this for the blog LA Observed:

“I had read about the foreclosures that have hit the area and seen television reports on them. But nothing I had seen or read prepared me for the sight of six houses for sale in a .4 mile stretch of a street, two of them now owned by banks. Disaster has struck in a random manner. Some blocks had no for-sale signs. Some just had one or two. Then I came across one with a big “Auction” sign, reminiscent of scenes from movies and books about the Great Depression. In some houses without for sale signs, neglected yards and generally shabby appearances suggested the owners had left and the occupants were renting.”

A few days later, I talked to Ronald O. Loveridge, the mayor of the city of Riverside, where Democrats hold just a slight margin over Republicans. “My sense is that Obama being African-American was more important six months ago than it is now,” he said. “It is old news.” What’s most important, he said, are “economic circumstances, when you talk to hairdressers, business folk, people at carwashes.” S. Cherylynn Glass, getting out the vote for Obama, said, “Most of the people I talk to are enthusiastic. But some are a little worried because he is African-American and they say he doesn’t have the experience.” She said she was cautiously optimistic.

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Glenn Beck Highlights Threat Of Martial Law Following Economic Crisis

posted @ 18:00 BST

Poses question “are we being purposefully led into a one world financial system?”

Steve Watson | Infowars.net | Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008

Like him or loathe him, last night CNN’s Glenn Beck became the only mainstream media source thus far to address on national TV the reality of the situation Americans are facing with the manufactured financial implosion – the direct threat of domestic martial law and a global financial dictatorship.

Beck’s guest, Peter Schiff, respected author of “Crash Proof” and president of the brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital, joined him in outlining that martial law, the use of armed troops on the streets to quell dissent, is a real possibility should the economic crisis not improve or worsen to the point where civil unrest is fomented.

The following exchange between Beck and Schiff, who was also economic adviser to Ron Paul during his presidential campaign, is from the CNN transcript of last night’s show:

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