Chuck Todd: McCain And Palin- No Chemistry, No Trust And Possibly No Chance

Chuck Todd On McCain-Palin: No Chemistry, No Trust, Possibly No Chance

Huffington Post- Sam Stein
October 22, 2008 06:02 PM

Commenting on a new joint interview with John McCain and Sarah Palin, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd described the Republican ticket as lacking cohesion, chemistry, and (he hinted) trust.

“There was a tenseness,” Todd told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “I couldn’t see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said ‘here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.’ They are not comfortable with each other yet.”

Todd, who was remarking on the interview conducted by NBC’s Brian Williams (he was in the room), speculated that the candidates had come to the realization that “they are losing” the campaign, and guessed that McCain may have begun to hold his vice presidential choice responsible for his dwindling White House chances.

“When you see the two of them together, the chemistry is just not there. You do wonder, is John McCain starting to blame her for things? Blaming himself? Is she blaming him?” asked the widely regarded NBC newsman. “And maybe they don’t feel they can win right now, so they are missing that intensity. That was the thing that struck me more than anything. You almost wonder why they wanted the two of them sitting next to each other.”

MORE HERE

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Pew Poll: Obama Pulling Ahead Of McCain

Polls show Obama pulling away from McCain

Via Raw Story- Agence France-Presse
Published: Wednesday October 22, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The popularity gap between Barack Obama and John McCain has doubled from seven percent earlier this month to 14 percent, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest voters poll published Tuesday.

Conducted October 16-19 among 2,599 people and with a 2.5 point margin of error, the Pew poll found Democrat Obama’s support had grown to 52 percent of voters against 38 percent for his Republican White House rival.

A Pew poll at the beginning of October showed a seven-point gap between the two.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of 1,159 people showed Illinois Senator Obama ahead of Arizona Senator McCain by 10 points, 52-42 percent, up from six points two weeks ago. The survey was taken October 17-20 and had a 2.9-point margin of error.

Obama’s surging popularity, according to Pew, was mostly due to voters’ dwindling confidence in McCain, as witnessed after each of the candidates’ three TV debates.

The Pew poll found voters trusted Obama over McCain on all issues including Iraq and the war on terror.

On who is best suited to fix the economic crisis, Obama was picked by an overwhelming 53 percent of respondents, against 32 percent for MCain.

MORE HERE

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GOP Is Screwed… Says GOP

House “Death List” Leaked: GOP Screwed, Says GOP

Daily Kos- by brownsox

Wed Oct 22, 2008 at 02:48:06 PM PDT

The internal rumblings of the House GOP, it seems, reveal a caucus even more pessimistic about Republican chances this fall than we are optimistic about Democratic chances.

While we hope and expect to gain in excess of 20 seats in the House, the GOP is looking at even bigger numbers:

Voter displeasure with the war and economy, coupled with Sen. Barack Obama’s popularity, has the House GOP running for cover. Even though polls have shown that Americans don’t like congressional Democrats any more, a new internal GOP tally of House races suggests a Democratic route that could keep the Republicans in the minority for decades. A document provided to Washington Whispers from a House GOP official shows that they could lose a net 34 seats. That means the Democrats would have a 270-165 advantage in the 111th Congress. In the Senate, Republicans expect to lose also but to keep up to 44 seats, ensuring their ability to stage a filibuster.

34 seats! Is this simply a Republican trick, raising expectations for Democratic gains?

It doesn’t seem like it, considering they expect to “keep up to 44 seats” in the Senate. That would be a net loss of five seats, a scenario which frankly would be rather optimistic for Republicans.

MORE HERE

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Are The Days Of ‘Larry the Cable Guy Politics’ Over?

By- Bob Cesca

Larry the Cable Guy isn’t, you know, an actual cable guy. The reality is that he’s not a blue collar redneck either. The hooplehead accent is fake, and his name isn’t Larry. He’s just a normal stand-up comic named Dan Whitney who, before the ascension of George W. Bush and redneck chic in America, spoke in a non-specific American accent and wore non-redneck clothing.

But a lot of people believe Larry is genuine. Why wouldn’t they? When he’s in a movie, he’s credited as “Larry the Cable Guy,” and, in some sort of freaky Mark Wahlberg playing Eddie Adams playing Dirk Diggler playing Brock Landers meta-performance, Dan Whitney actually plays Larry the Cable Guy playing various movie character roles. For example, in Witless Protection, Dan Whitney plays Larry the Cable Guy playing Deputy Larry Stalder. Now sure, he’s made a nice career for himself and I don’t mean to begrudge him for his success, but it’s all pretty creepy, no?

Fortunately for America, Larry or Dan or whoever isn’t running for president. At least, not this time.

Be it Larry the Cable Guy or his Ohio cousin, Joe the Plumber, or their political and spiritual leader, Bushie the Commander Guy, or their newly discovered co-star Sarah the Hockey Mom, it should be obvious to anyone watching that the Republicans have been engaging in a seemingly endless game of dress up, and pretending to be something they’re clearly not.

Larry the Cable Guy Politics.

As we’ve all observed today with the news of Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe — purchased, I hasten to underscore, from stores based in the “anti-American” areas of the nation — the Republican “Joe Sixpack” flimflam appears to be crashing and burning faster than McCain’s poll numbers.

For the last eight years, we’ve observed in shocked horror as President Bush — this elite child of limitless family wealth — this pampered, bubble-boy cheerleader — marched around the world stage pretending to be some kind of shit-kicking cowpoke. His so-called Texas ranch, a strategically-timed purchase just prior to the launch of his 2000 presidential campaign, isn’t any more authentically “cowboy” than the invisible six-shooters he pretends to wear on his gigantic belt, making his arms dangle outwards in some sort of ridiculous Yosemite Sam “Draw!” pose. The Crawford ranch is, in fact, a multi-million-dollar estate on which he once shared a 16 mile bike ride with Lance Armstrong without ever leaving the boundaries of his property.

Meanwhile, most of us own houses that cost less than two months worth of Sarah Palin outfits. Lee Stranahan posted another spot-on video today in which he notes that $150,000 is enough to buy 50 snowmachines, 2,500 hockey sticks and over 20,000 six-packs. It’s more money, Lee reports, than the average American family spends on clothes over a span of 80 years.

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ACORN: Brave New Films Exposes The Truth (VIDEO)

Brave New Films Exposes the Truth About ACORN

Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Firedoglake at 7:28 AM on October 21, 2008.

BNF released a new short film yesterday debunking the McCain campaign’s smears against ACORN.

Brave New Films released a new short film yesterday debunking the McCain campaign’s smears against ACORN. The film argues that spurious charges against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are part of a larger Republican strategy to depress the turnount of low income, minority, and young voters in battleground states. If the propaganda onslaught succeeds, the Republicans could steal the election. If it fails, the GOP has laid the groundwork to contest the legitimacy of an Obama victory.

Watch the clip and pass it on.  Do your part to defuse these poisonous allegations before they hurt more people.

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Rove Nearly Handcuffed By Activist Who Tried To Put Him Under Citizen’s Arrest

Karl Rove Nearly Handcuffed by Activist Who Tried to Put Him Under Citizen’s Arrest for ‘Treason’

Posted by Isaac Fitzgerald, AlterNet at 7:00 PM on October 21, 2008.

A group of CODEPINK activists at a mortgage bankers’ meeting in San Francisco try to arrest Karl Rove.

Karl Rove slapped away a woman who tried to place him under citizen’s arrest during an event in San Francisco, CA. The following is a press release from CODEPINK, who organized the bold act of civil obedience.

When Karl Rove took the stage at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco today, CODEPINK women in the audience staged a citizen’s arrest of the former Bush Administration chief of staff, under California Code 837. This action follows on the heels of yesterday’s appearance on stage of Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, who disrupted the convention to ask for a moratorium on foreclosures.

Janine Boneparth, 58, of Ross, CA, walked on the stage with handcuffs and placed a cuff on Rove’s wrist before he yanked it away, while stating, “I have to make a citizens arrest. You are under arrest for treason.”

At the same moment, Nancy Mancias, 38, of San Francisco, CA, held a banner in front of the stage that read, “Rove (hearts) torture, treason and fraud!” “Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove is not fit to address you today,” Mancias said. “Karl Rove was involved in lying to the American people about the Iraq war.”

MORE HERE

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RNC Spent $150,000 On Clothing And Make-Up For Palin

Palin Clothes Spending Has Dems Salivating, Republicans Disgusted

October 22, 2008 01:30 AM

Huffington Post- Sam Stein

Since her selection as John McCain’s running mate, the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband, and even her infant son, it was reported on Tuesday evening.

That entertaining scoop — which came by way of Politico — sent almost immediate reverberations through the presidential race. A statement from McCain headquarters released hours after the article bemoaned the triviality of the whole affair.

“With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it’s remarkable that we’re spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses,” said spokesperson Tracey Schmitt. “It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign.”

But even the most timid of Democrats are unlikely to heed this call for civility. For starters, the story has the potential to dampen enthusiasm among GOP activists and donors at a critical point in the presidential race. It also creates a huge PR headache for the McCain ticket as it seeks to make inroads among voters worried about the current economic crisis.

Mainly, however, Democrats (in this scenario) are not prone to forgiveness. After all, it was during this same campaign cycle that Republicans belittled the $400 haircut that former Sen. John Edwards had paid for with his own campaign money (the funds were later reimbursed). And yet, the comparison to that once-dominant news story is hardly close: if Edwards had gotten one of his legendary haircuts every singe week, it would still take him 7.2 years to spend what Palin has spent. Palin has received the equivalent of $2,500 in clothes per day from places such as Saks Fifth Avenue (where RNC expenditures totaled nearly $50,000) and Neiman Marcus (where the governor had a $75,000 spree).

Beyond the political tit-for-tat, however, the revelation of the clothing expenditures offers what some Democrats see as a chance not just to win several news cycles during the campaign’s waning days but to severely damage Palin’s image as a small-town, ‘Joe Six-Pack’ American.

“It shows that Palin ain’t like the rest of us,” Tom Matzzie, a Democratic strategist told the Huffington Post, when asked how the party would or could use the issue. “It can help deflate her cultural populism with the Republican base. The plumber’s wife doesn’t go to Nieman’s or Saks.”

Indeed, the story could not come at a more inopportune time for the McCain campaign. During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class — and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber — it was revealed that Palin’s fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.

MORE HERE

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If Bush Pardons Himself or His Subordinates

Attorneys, Scholars, Activist Groups Call for Impeachment

Ross Associates | Global Research | October 21, 2008

The Steering Committee of the Justice Robert Jackson Conference On Prosecution of High Level War Criminals plans to demand the immediate impeachment of George W. Bush if he issues any last minute pardons covering himself or any of his subordinates. The president can be impeached and convicted even after leaving office.

The Steering Committee has released the following statement:

The presidential pardon power must not be distorted to include the power to self-pardon the president, or to pardon any staff or contractors of the executive branch, including the vice president, for crimes authorized by the president. The unconstitutionality of self pardons is discussed at length in “Pardon Me? The Constitutional Case Against Presidential Self-Pardons,” by Brian C. Kalt in the Yale Law Journal, December 1, 1996: http://www.jstor.org/pss/797310

A self pardon by the President for himself or those who carried out his illegal orders to commit war crimes, said the Steering Committee of the Robert Jackson Conference, would make a mockery of the rule of law. It would, in fact, largely put an end to the rule of law. It is frankly inconceivable, said the Steering Committee, that the framers, who sought the rule of law instead of kingly tyranny, could have intended this.

The Steering Committee noted that Bush’s commutation of the sentence of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who helped carry out Bush’s plans, suggests the possibility of an attempted self pardon by Bush in the future. Also, the famed journalist Stuart Taylor has suggested a self pardon covering war crimes committed by Bush and his colleagues. A self pardon covering Bush and/or his subordinates, however, would require an immediate impeachment and conviction of the culprits in order to disqualify them from holding any U.S. office in the future and to avoid setting an awful precedent for future presidents to pardon their own crimes and those of subordinates.

Groups and individuals wishing to add their name to this statement can do so at http://convictbushcheney.org # (Background release on Steering Committee follows)

Ross Associates, Suite 403, 102 S.W. 6th Ave., Miami, FL 33130 Sherwoodr1@yahoo.com

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