2008 Presidental Election: Obama v McCain

Rather than Vetting Palin, McCain Will Orchestrate a Cover-Up of Her Abuse of Power

Re: Media Coverage of the Campaign
About time, these two are complete Hacks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/media/08msnbc.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

September 8, 2008
MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat
By BRIAN STELTER

MSNBC tried a bold experiment this year by putting two politically incendiary hosts, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, in the anchor chair to lead the cable news channel’s coverage of the election.

That experiment appears to be over.

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

The change — which comes in the home stretch of the long election cycle — is a direct result of tensions associated with the channel’s perceived shift to the political left.

“The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime time into what’s supposed to be straight news programming,” said Davidson Goldin, formerly the editorial director of MSNBC and a co-founder of the reputation management firm DolceGoldin.

Executives at the channel’s parent company, NBC Universal, had high hopes for MSNBC’s coverage of the political conventions. Instead, the coverage frequently descended into on-air squabbles between the anchors, embarrassing some workers at NBC’s news division, and quite possibly alienating viewers. Although MSNBC nearly doubled its total audience compared with the 2004 conventions, its competitive position did not improve, as it remained in last place among the broadcast and cable news networks. In prime time, the channel averaged 2.2 million viewers during the Democratic convention and 1.7 million viewers during the Republican convention.

The success of the Fox News Channel in the past decade along with the growth of political blogs have convinced many media companies that provocative commentary attracts viewers and lures Web browsers more than straight news delivered dispassionately.

“In a rapidly changing media environment, this is the great philosophical debate,” Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said in a telephone interview Saturday. Fighting the ratings game, he added, “the bottom line is that we’re experiencing incredible success.”

But as the past two weeks have shown, that success has a downside. When the vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin lamented media bias during her speech, attendees of the Republican convention loudly chanted “NBC.”

In interviews, 10 current and former staff members said that long-simmering tensions between MSNBC and NBC reached a boiling point during the conventions. “MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict,” one senior staff member observed. “They’re living from fix to fix and swearing they’ll go into rehab the next week.” ...continues

Man I miss Tim Russert....tough but fair.

Obama did very well with O'Reilly last week and came off strong.
However, he DID change his position on the surge's success and those comments were NOT taken out of context - I've watch them 3 times and read the transcript. He acknowledged that it is time for the Iraqi people to step up now (my position as well). This is why he also took it off of his web site...

Plain appears to have energized the republican base and apparently independents are in the mix too.
Post Palin:

Rasmussen:
Sunday, September 07, 2008
48% McCain and 48% Obama - tied baby, tied.

USA Today/Gallop:
http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx
48% McCain and 45% Obama

(Scary.But remember kids, there is "no evidence that supports any of this")

And there is still a lot of "gray" on that electoral map: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan...and I think we will find think some states that are colored are are, in fact, still in play.

http://www.270towin.com/

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/09/07/how-the-2008-electoral-map-has-changed/

How the 2008 electoral map has changed
Virginia could be a bellwether in a year that is likely to see a few more battleground states.

It's getting good!
(But there is "no proof" of any of this and all of this is "meaningless"...)


:roll:

Lock yo doors!

Monday, September 8th, National, USA Today/Gallup Poll, among likely voters McCain 54, Obama 44, McCain +10.

lol.

Any theories on why Obama had such a weak bounce, and McCain's so strong. Despite McCain's speech being half that of Obama's. Did McCain undercut Obama's bounce with his Palin announcement?

BTW, surprise surprise: "McCain's acceptance speech Thursday received lower ratings than the one Obama gave a week earlier: 15% called McCain's speech "excellent" compared with 35% for Obama."

Doesn't seem to have hurt the polls though. Wonder what would have happened had he given a decent speech.

Interesting. But what does it MEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAANNNN???????

"If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house." -Al Sharpton

If you can't read it, the "classy blue suede yarmulkes apparently designed for the discriminating Jewish Republican" "are emblazoned with the word 'McCippah' (a cippah, or kippah, is another name for a yarmulke) and the phrase 'John McCain is Zayer Shain' (translated: John McCain is great.)"

Al Sharpton - Buy yer own McCippah

Boygabriel wrote: McCain's convention speech fibs, does anybody care?

They did Obama's too, FWIW, does anybody care?

* Obama said he could “pay for every dime” of his spending and tax cut proposals “by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens.” That’s wrong – his proposed tax increases on upper-income individuals are key components of paying for his program, as well. And his plan, like McCain’s, would leave the U.S. facing big budget deficits, according to independent experts.

* He twisted McCain’s words about Afghanistan, saying, “When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources.” Actually, McCain said in 2003 we “may” muddle through, and he recently also called for more troops there.

* He said McCain would fail to lower taxes for 100 million Americans while his own plan would cut taxes for 95 percent of “working” families. But an independent analysis puts the number who would see no benefit from McCain’s plan at 66 million and finds that Obama’s plan would benefit 81 percent of all households when retirees and those without children are figured in.

* Obama asked why McCain would "define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year"? Actually, McCain meant that comment as a joke, getting a laugh and following up by saying, "But seriously ..."

* Obama noted that McCain’s health care plan would "tax people’s benefits" but didn’t say that it also would provide up to a $5,000 tax credit for families.

* He said McCain, far from being a maverick who’s "broken with his party," has voted to support Bush policies 90 percent of the time. True enough, but by the same measure Obama has voted with fellow Democrats in the Senate 97 percent of the time.

* Obama said "average family income" went down $2,000 under Bush, which isn't correct. An aide said he was really talking only about "working" families and not retired couples. And – math teachers, please note – he meant median (or midpoint) and not really the mean or average. Median family income actually has inched up slightly under Bush.

Full analysis here.

Oh please, are we playing this? OK then...

- McCain claimed that Obama’s health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor." In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have.

Obama's plan drastically increases government provided health care. How could that possibly _not_ add more bureaucrats into the process? It is the nature of the beast. It also requires further commitment for paying premiums for employers. Yes, Obama has proposed exempting "small businesses," but he has yet to define _what_ a small business is. Does it not stand to reason that increasing the cost of paying employees will cause some businesses to have fewer employees?

- McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels.

Eye of the beholder. The bill held a net increase of $300 million. It also had $2.6 billion corporate welfare for oil companies, which yes, is $300 million less than the $2.9 billion they got previously. McCain stated that $2.6 billion was too much. Obama swallowed it because he liked the $5.8 billion for alternatives. *shrug* Obama voted for $2.6 billion in subsidies to the oil companies, McCain voted against it. They both had their reasons.

- McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

81%, 95%... The thrust that OBama plans calls for continuing to pay large amounts of money to fairly hostile foreign countries isn't inaccurate.

- He promised to increase use of "wind, tide [and] solar" energy, though his actual energy plan contains no new money for renewable energy. He has said elsewhere that renewable sources won’t produce as much as people think.

McCain proposed making a single workable program out of the bits and pieces currently existing for those particular technologies, and was clear as to what he proposed for others.

- He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs," but as in the past failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce.

He proposed nuking earmarks, as always, and a comprehensive review to get rid of crap. Typical. Obama has done similar in instances.

- He said Obama would "close" markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it.

Well shoot, this one is kind of a moving target, ya know? First OBama says he wants to pull out of NAFTA, then he says he doesn't. Then he votes for some freer trade agreements, then he votes against some. Sure McCain is stretching a bit, but it isn't entirely untrue.

i dunno daver, not sure i'm totally with you on this one.

olbermann and o'reilly are roughly equivalent, i'd say, because both are the equivalent of opinion columnists. they're expected to be biased and annoying, albeit to different groups. if mccain was refusing an interview (or what have you) with olbermann, i'd agree.

brokaw, though, is a straight-up news guy. this is who always moderates debates. pbs is generally thought to have a left-ish viewpoint (maybe cuz they don't like their jobs being threatened every 3 months, but who knows?) or at least a lefty audience, but gwen ifill is nonetheless a good debate moderator, imo.

Boygabriel wrote: ABC News finds there's no jump in female support for the McCain ticket. Looks like you'll have to change your talking point from "Palin's going to attract Hillary Democrats"

Given the sharp political divisions she inspires, Palin’s initial impact on vote preferences and on views of McCain looks like a wash, and, contrary to some prognostication, she does not draw disproportionate support from women. But she could potentially assist McCain by energizing the GOP base, in which her reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

Check it though. The _new_ ABC/WP poll shows a big twenty point white female swing.

Before the Democratic National Convention in late August, Obama held an 8 percentage point lead among white women voters, 50 percent to 42 percent, but after the Republican convention in early September, McCain was ahead by 12 points among white women, 53 percent to 41 percent, the poll found.

But no worries! Obama's campaign manager has an explanation:

Asked about the findings during a briefing on Monday before the poll was published, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told a Washington Post reporter, "Well, your poll is wrong."

Poll shows big shift to McCain among white women

(pulled from the Palin thread, since it seems to fit better here...)

Boygabriel wrote: [quote=daver]Man, when I read that quote from Bush, all I can think of is, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

And I suspect you disagree, but there is no love lost between Bush and McCain, these guys are NOT buddies. Well, except that they DO conceal it. To further their evil ends! Lol.

Oh I don't think they like each other all, but man do they like each other's policies, even if neither will admit it.
Interesting data. The Obama ads keep touting that McCain supported Bush's position 90% of the time. Here is a little more to that number:

The score is based entirely on recorded roll-call votes in Congress. CQ identifies those votes where the president has taken a clear stand and then records whether a senator or representative voted in the president's preferred direction. The votes need not be key on the president's agenda or be anything the president encouraged Congress to do--they are simply cases where CQ has determined a clear presidential position. In the Senate, the president's nominations, which are usually noncontroversial, are a sizable portion of the votes used by CQ to compile its support score.

You wanna guess how often Biden support ole Bushie by the same measure? 70% of the time. I don't see _that_ in their ads though. By the same measure, Obama supports Bush 50% of the time, FWIW.

More interesting, though, is the data they compiled regarding the number of times the Senators voted with their party on "party votes," those votes where the majority of Republicans voted on one side, and the majority of Democrats on the other.

Maverick? For the years of the Bush presidency, McCain consistently voted with his party 75-85% of the time, and was far more likely to vote with the Democrats than the average Republican senator. During this time, Biden supported the party line 90-95% of the time. Obama? Well, obviously he hasn't been there long, but he has certainly proven loyal, supporting the party line 97% of the time.

Maverick? McCain was 5-10% (or more) more likely than the average Republican senator to vote AGAINST his party, while Biden was 5-12% more likely to vote WITH his party, and Obama was 10% more supportive of the party line than the average Democratic Senator.

Coleman: Maverick or McSame?