Palin: Rising Unfavorable Ratings A Major Drawback For McCain Candidacy

Palin’s Qualifications Now Top Concern About McCain Candidacy

October 21, 2008 07:54 PM

Huffington Post- Marcus Baram

Two polls released Tuesday provide striking evidence of Palin’s transformation over the course of two months from GOP energy boost to major drawback, as the Alaska governor’s rising unfavorability ratings have become a critical vulnerability for the McCain campaign.

Palin’s qualifications to be president now rank as voters’ top concern about John McCain’s candidacy – “ahead of continuing President Bush’s policies, enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich and keeping too high of a troop presence in Iraq,” according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

Fifty-five percent of respondents now say Palin is not qualified to serve as president, a five-point jump from the previous NBC/WSJ survey.

In addition, for the first time, more voters have a negative opinion of her than a positive one. In the survey, 47 percent view her negatively, versus 38 percent who see her in a positive light.
That’s a striking shift since McCain chose Palin as his running mate in early September, when she held a 47 to 27 percent positive rating.

According to another poll by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, opinions of Palin have flipped in the last month, especially among the female voters she was expected to attract to the McCain ticket.

Nearly half — 49% — of voters have an unfavorable opinion of her while 44% have a favorable view. A month ago, “favorable opinions of Palin outnumbered negative ones by 54% to 32%.”

Women, especially women under age 50, have become increasingly critical of Palin: 60% now express an unfavorable view of Palin, up from 36% in mid-September. Notably, opinions of Palin have a greater impact on voting intentions than do opinions of Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate.

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Jon Stewart: How To Tell If You Belong To The “Real America” (VIDEO)

Jon Stewart: How to tell if you’re a ‘real American’

Raw Story- David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday October 21, 2008

Jon Stewart offered some clues on Monday’s Daily Show for how to tell whether you belong to the “real America” where McCain supporters are in the majority and the fake America that lies everywhere else.

Stewart began by showing McCain advisor Nancy Pfotenhaurer describing northern Virginia — the Obama-supporting suburbs around Washington, DC — as not part of “real Virginia.”

“What the pfuck?” asked Stewart in astonishment.

Pfotenhauer went on to list “places in other states,” like “northern Wisconsin, the Iron Range of Minnesota … the rural areas of Missouri.”

“So, even if John McCain doesn’t win the ‘election’ in ‘America,'” Stewart summarized, “he’ll still be president of ‘real America’ — the America that matters, the one that Sarah Palin will still take questions from.”

Stewart then ran an audio clip of Palin stating, “We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.”

MORE HERE

This video is from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, broadcast October 20, 2008.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Recession: Most States Are Now In It

What started as a recession in just a few states has now spread to 27 with another 14 states near recession, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com. (ABC News Photo Illustration) More Photos

Majority of States Now in Recession

In March, 5 States Were in Recession; Now There are 27 With 14 More at Risk

By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
ABC NEWS Business Unit
Oct. 21, 2008

What started out as a housing problem in a few states has now exploded into a full-fledged recession with a majority of states now in or dangerously close to recession.

Just this weekend, President Bush’s top economic advisor used the much-avoided word “recession” to describe the economies in some states.

“We are seeing what I think anyone would characterize as a recession in certain parts of the country,” Edward P. Lazear, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

MORE HERE

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Afternoon Jukebox… For What It’s Worth

Buffalo Springfield- For What It’s Worth

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McCain Family: The Black McCains

Denied black relative urges McCain to accept ancestry

Raw Story- David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Monday October 20, 2008

The McCain family has a proud tradition in the United States. They fought for integration of the south, resisted the Ku Klux Klan, led civil rights campaigns and left a lasting mark on the politics of Mississippi.

But, despite contradictory statements made by Sen. John McCain, that branch of his family was once owned as slaves by the candidate’s ancestors

On Monday morning’s CNN Newsroom, reporter Kyra Phillips talked with Wall Street Journal’s Atlanta Bureau Chief Douglas Blackmon and Lillie McCain, a black relative of John McCain.

“We’ve had the pleasure of meeting Joe McCain,” explained Lillie. “He attends the reunions at Teoc [Mississippi] … I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Senator McCain.”

“Do you think it could make a difference with regard to diversity issues, issues of race, if John McCain did participate [in the reunions]?” asked Phillips.

“I think it probably could,” said Ms. McCain. “It would give him an opportunity to know us. I e-mailed him back in 2000 to remind him of his ties to Teoc, Mississippi.

“I heard him say on, I believe it was Meet the Press, that his ancestors owned no slaves. Well, I certainly have carried the name McCain from the beginning of my life, and I’ve known the ties to John McCain, and have tried to get him to communicate with me about that, but he has been unwilling at least to date.”

“The McCain campaign told me, when I talked to them about this, that he hasn’t been to any of the family reunions simply because of scheduling conflicts,” said Blackmon. “There’s not a decision not to do that.”

Lillie McCain urged John McCain to “acknowledge the reality of the relationship that we hold.”

“Why he hasn’t come [to the reunions] is anybody’s guess,” said Charles McCain Jr., 60, a distant cousin of John McCain, in a report published in the South Florida Times. “I think the best I can come up with, is that he doesn’t have time, or he has just distanced himself, or it doesn’t mean that much to him.”

“I am absolutely supporting Obama, and it’s not because he’s black,” said Lillie. “It’s because he is the best person at this time in our history.”

This video is from CNN’s Newsroom, broadcast October 20, 2008.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Palin: Vice President Is ‘In Charge Of The U.S. Senate’ (VIDEO)

Palin Claims The Vice President Is ‘In Charge Of The U.S. Senate’

Think Progress- By Ryan Powers at 12:00 pm

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sat for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. In response to a question sent to the network by a third grader at a local elementary school about what the Vice President does, Palin erroneously argued that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate“:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.

Indeed, while Palin suggests that questions about what the Vice President does is something only her daughter Piper would ask, Palin herself asked this very question on national television in July. Apparently, she still hasn’t learned the correct answer.

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.” ThinkProgress contacted Senior Assistant Paliamentarian Peter Robinson, who also disputed Palin’s characterization of the Vice President’s role:

In modern practice the Vice President doesn’t really control the Senate. … If anyone has a responsibility to try to govern the Senate, it’s the responsibility of the two leaders.

Watch Palin’s interview below (exchange 0:45 from the end):

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Palin’s “Real” America (VIDEO)

Do You Live In “Real” America?

Daily Kos- by Jed L

Tue Oct 21, 2008 at 09:10:03 AM PDT

Welcome to Sarah Palin’s America:

This video uses audio pulled from Monday night’s outstanding episode of The Daily Show. You can play the full audio excerpt here.

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Bush Has Decided To Keep Guantánamo Open

Bush Decides to Keep Guantánamo Open

The New York Times

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: October 20, 2008

WASHINGTON — Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.

Mr. Bush’s top advisers held a series of meetings at the White House this summer after a Supreme Court ruling in June cast doubt on the future of the American detention center. But Mr. Bush adopted the view of his most hawkish advisers that closing Guantánamo would involve too many legal and political risks to be acceptable, now or any time soon, the officials said.

The administration is proceeding on the assumption that Guantánamo will remain open not only for the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency but also well beyond, the officials said, as the site for military tribunals of those facing terrorism-related charges and for the long prison sentences that could follow convictions.

MORE HERE

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Attention Voters: Here’s What You Have to Do to Make Sure You Get to Vote

Steven Rosenfeld | AlterNet | Posted on October 21, 2008

Voters should verify their voter registrations are current and then vote early to avoid Election Day delays at polling places.

Ignore the partisan attacks on new voters and voter registration groups. Call your county election office to ensure your registration information is correct. Vote early to avoid Election Day delays, or use an absentee ballot if you know how to fill one out.

For those voting on Election Day, know where your polling place is located, what ID to bring (especially new voters) and expect lines. Call an election protection hotline if there is trouble. But be confident that you will vote if you have followed your state’s registration laws.

These are the messages from voting rights advocates as the partisan attacks on 2008’s newest voters and voter drives continue with two weeks to go before Election Day.

“People should not be worried,” said Tova Wang, vice president for research at Common Cause, “but they should educate themselves. For the overwhelming majority of people, there will be no problem … But people should not let any tactic that is intended to discourage them from voting stop them.”

“I would verify my registration,” said Gerry Hebert, executive director of Washington’s Campaign Legal Center and a former Voting Section chief at the Justice Department. “I would vote early… I would consider absentee voting. The only caution against that (means of voting) is if you make a mistake, it might not get to correct it.”

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A McCain “Win” Will Be Theft, Resistance Is Planned

David Swanson | Global Research | October 20, 2008

If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying. You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, D.C., which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed.

A McCain “win” will not be illegitimate because I disagree with his policies, but because he himself has rendered it illegitimate. He and his campaign and allied supporters have sought to illegally remove hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls, fraudulently registered people as Republicans without their knowledge and against their will, obstructed voter registration drives, falsely warned students against voting where they attend school, falsely accused community groups of voter registration fraud, falsely alleged the widespread existence of voter fraud, and encouraged supporters to falsely believe McCain’s opponent is a foreign terrorist through speeches, recorded phone messages, and flyers. Already in early voting in a number of states there have been cases of votes on electronic machines visibly flipping to McCain or McKinney when intended for Obama. We will see McCain supporters on November 4th challenging people’s right to vote, seeking to force people to vote on provisional ballots, and seeking to have provisional ballots discarded. And we will see electronic vote counts wildly out of step with the most recent polls, although not with exit polls — which we will be denied any access to unless they have been “adjusted” to match the official counts.

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