Wow - I love his description of Father Pfleger as a “whacko” - perfect! His advice is solid, I think - and I agree that McCain SHOULD have been hammering away about Wright and Ayers long ago. Frankly, the MSM should have been as well, but I have given up expecting them to actually do their jobs anymore.

And with the debate coming up, one can expect questions about the economy. Needless to say, it has been BIG in the news of late. For some reason, the majority of people polled believe Obama will do better. Why, I don’t know - he has absolutely no track record on anything anywhere in the neighborhood of dealing with an issue of this magnitude. I think we can chalk that up to the MSM shilling for him shamelessly. But, many of this country’s CEOs do not think so. Out of 751 CEOs polled, 80% think McCain is better for the long term health of the economy, according to Chief Executive Magazine. This assertion was affirmed by the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain this morning. He said, in no uncertain terms, that John McCain is CLEARLY better for the economy. Oh, and since everyone is keeping score these days (thanks so much for that, Barack), Mr. Cain is African American.

Mr. Cain isn’t the only one who thinks McCain would be better. The following is basically a combination of Krauthammer and Cain in one Rudy Guiliani (I know - I cannot believe I am including him either, but I think he is right on this issue):

And while we are talking Economics, last night, a bunch of former Hillary Clinton supporters, led by Lady Lynn Forester de Rothchild, held a major fundraiser for John McCain and Sarah Palin. They raised $10,000,000 in that fundraiser. As to why these people decided to hold this fundraiser, the article contained the answer:

While Mrs. Clinton has implored her former supporters to back Senator Barack Obama, some still harbor ill will towards him, organizers said.

“These people want to give their vote of disapproval,” said Mr. Lausell. “This is a way they’re doing it.”

Well, yeah, that’s sure one way of voicing one’s disapproval - raising a cool $10 mil. Wowie zowie.

Gee willikers, who could not want to support someone as humble, warm, and supportive as these folks (h/t to Paul Villareal)??

Oh, yeah. Add in the “Bros Before Hos” t-shirts, and the more despicable ones Obamabots are wearing these days, and I simply cannot imagine how people like Lady Lynn and others aren’t supporting this guy? Sheesh - what sore losers. (That is major snark, just in case you were confused.)

Hmmm - I wonder if McCain will bring up those t-shirts tonight? That would sure be an interesting debate, wouldn’t it?? Can’t you just SEE Obama trying to WORM his way out of that one??

Anywho, those Hillary-Now-McCain supporters are not the only ones who are resistant to Obama as president. Not by a long shot. There was an interesting comment by Desgans - in French - overnight at No Quarter’s post, “Barack Obama- First President of the World“:

Bonjour je suis Française et je viens de penser à un feuilleton que j’adorai ici en France, les acteurs : Jane Badler, Marc Singer, Faye Grant pour le film Vqui me fait penser à ce qui se passe aux US, PUMA sont les résistants et BHO partisants les lézards !!

Mon Dieu! Basically (according to PA goes Red),those of us who will not support this Selected nominee, the one who espouses the ideologies of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, whose arrogance, hubris, and just plain condescension, coupled with a dearth of experience, are Freedom Fighters like in the movie, “V.” Or like John Connors and company from “The Terminator,” I’m thinking. Yep, I can buy that. I do feel like I am fighting for my country to not be overtaken by those who do not have her best interests at heart, or at the least, have primarily THEIR interests at heart. The way in which the Obama campaign treats citizens of this country, especially women (and don’t forget Donna Brazile’s concept of the New Democratic Party - none of you bitter, clingy, religious, rural, elderly, and Hispanics need apply) makes that pretty clear. At the very least, our presidents should have the nation’s best interest as their bottom line. Obama is not only unqualified for this position, he does not fulfill that qualification. So, yeah - resistance here I come!

Ya think McCain can work THAT into the debate?!

Peniel believes that Obama’s campaign is employing the same tactics they used in the primaries to overwhelm and dominate the caucus states and to intimidate and control how individual caucuses were conducted. Below is a quote from a Cleveland Plain Dealer news story that Peniel e-mailed to me:

From an A.P. story at the Cleveland paper on September 29, 2008:

A federal court has ruled that an Ohio county must allow same-day voting and registration

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio county must allow new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day during a weeklong period that begins Tuesday, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin in Cleveland issued a temporary restraining order forcing Madison County to follow Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s instructions.

… Ohio law requires voters to be registered for at least 30 days before they cast an absentee ballot. Republicans have said Ohio law doesn’t allow same-day registration and voting, and have accused Brunner, a Democrat, of reading a partisan interpretation into law to benefit her own party.

The disputed voting window results from an overlap between Tuesday’s beginning of absentee voting 35 days before Election Day, and the Oct. 6 end of voter registration period.

Obama’s campaign has extensive plans to get college students around the state to register and vote during the window. Other groups, including the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, have plans to drive the homeless, low-income and minority voters to the polls during the window. …

I know the RNC and McCain’s campaign are aware of all of this, and trying to counter it. But what it will take, most of all, is volunteers who are willing to register pro-McCain/Palin voters.

Throngs of volunteers will also be needed to recruit and drive older and elderly disabled voters to the polls (or make sure they receive their absentee ballots).

Every effort imaginable will be needed to counter Obama’s initiatives to register college students and the homeless for same-day registration and voting.

STAY TUNED for more revealing stories on this key concern.

I’ve been thinking about Liz Phair’s response to the rockin’ but boorish Rolling Stones after reading Jacob Weisberg’s If Obama Loses: Racism is the Only Reason McCain Might Beat Him in Slate. Unlike Phair, I won’t attempt a point-by-point rebuttal; Weisberg’s piece is so riddled with distortions and hyperbole that a laundry list argument cannot summarize my feelings.

Weisberg’s article is so bad on so many levels that it’s amazing it was published at all, but it does fit with the media’s love affair with Obama. It’s a deceptive piece of writing and it relies on faulty logic, which I show below. But of course that is not an accident. A strident media partisan like Weisberg cannot rely on facts. So let’s start from the beginning:

John McCain, a sub-par Republican nominee with a list of liabilities longer than a Joe Biden monologue. Obama has built a crack political operation, raised record sums, and inspired millions with his eloquence and vision. McCain has struggled with a fractious campaign team, lacks clarity and discipline, and remains a stranger to charisma. Yet at the moment, the two of them appear to be tied. What gives?

Weisberg overstates the effectiveness of Obama’s operation. The trip to Europe, the faux presidential seal, his many policy reversals, and his disastrous debate performance at Saddleback are not mentioned.

Now notice how Hillary’s name is not mentioned. Nor the fact that 18 million voters chose her, approximately 200,000 more than chose Obama. Obama did not win a decisive victory. He was pulled over the finish line by Reid and Pelosi.

In fact, Obama as a brand has actually been declining — if you look at primary results and polls — since March. McCain, on the other hand, has actually run a surprisingly nimble operation, releasing ads which deflate the self-important Obama.

He continues:

If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn’t ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

This would be a shocking conclusion if it were true. Older white voters, Weisberg is telling us, are racists. What’s his evidence?

Five percent of white voters acknowledge that they, personally, would not vote for a black candidate.

Five percent? Repeat. Five percent. Is Weisberg innumerate or does he think we’re stupid? That means 95 percent will not take race into consideration. Does this satisfy Weisberg? Of course not.

Five percent surely understates the reality. In the Pennsylvania primary, one in six white voters told exit pollsters race was a factor in his or her decision. Seventy-five percent of those people voted for Clinton. You can do the math: 12 percent of the Pennsylvania primary electorate acknowledged that it didn’t vote for Barack Obama in part because he is African-American.

Here he assures us that the number he just cited is wrong. Why did he cite the five percent to then just swat it down? Because it doesn’t serve the necessary condition of his argument; in fact, it refutes his thesis. Weisberg’s logic is not just twisted, it’s fabricated. Furthermore, just because Pennsylvania voters said race was a factor does not mean they view it as a problem. Indeed, the language of the polling is so vague that the race factor may have been Pennsylvanians voting for Obama because of his race. Does Weisberg mention Obama’s victory in lily-white Iowa ?, a state which is less diverse than Pennsylvania. No. Nor does he mention any of the deep-red and very white caucus states where Obama won. Because, as he says with a bit of sarcasm, “Obama may be too handsome, brilliant, and cool to be elected.” You see, Obama is really so wonderful that it must be racism.

Not once does Weisberg mention the sexism and misogyny directed at Hillary. Not once does he mention Hillary’s decidedly blue-collar appeal, her populist economic message, and the older, white female voters who fell hard for her. No, these ladies (and men) must be racists.

Except for health care, Weisberg does not consider issues important to older white voters:

You may or may not agree with Obama’s policy prescriptions, but they are, by and large, serious attempts to deal with the biggest issues we face: a failing health care system, oil dependency, income stagnation, and climate change.

He is silent on national security and terrorism, international relations, the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, job creation, and fuel prices. Weisberg’s litany, like Obama’s, is a distinctly Whole Foods Nation brand of liberalism, and it fails to address the economic insecurities of the poor and middle class. The blogger Anglachel writes:

Where has Obama lost ground among Democratic voters? In the populations most endangered by the faltering economy and the long term erosion of socio-economic standing. He did not address what mattered most to them, which was their increasing vulnerability to the ordinary dangers of life - insurance, health care, retirement, wages, job security, housing. To fail to do this was what makes Obama come across as elitist.

McCain is talking about drilling to reduce gas prices, and charging Obama with wanting to raise taxes. This message is gaining traction with many working Americans. As Anglachel puts it:

The [Obama] wing is all too enamored of its own moral superiority on race, too contemptuous of the Bubbas and the Bunkers, to make the slightest move to win back and thus defend this constituency.

Weisberg utterly fails to prove that the race is tied because of racism.

So let’s talk about what a vote for Obama actually signals: voting for Obama is condoning a culture that hates women (Keith Olbermann’s idea for Beating Hillary: Literally Beating Hillary). It’s a tacit acceptance for the media and the Democratic establishment giving preference to a far less qualified man over a much more qualified woman. It’s telegraphing to our daughters — to all women — that a man is rightfully at the front of the line, regardless if he lost nearly every important state and the popular vote. It’s telling our daughters — and all women — that violent imagery against a female candidate is acceptable if it benefits the male candidate. It is the familiar salt-in-the-wound for millions of women, the majority of the Democratic Party, that bullying and force — by the media, the liberal blogs, by the Democratic Party — is the way to crush a woman who tries to achieve too much.

Voting for Obama is to support a candidate who listens to and publicly references music which celebrates the degradation and abuse of women.

Voting for Obama is condoning race-baiting, like Weisberg’s. It’s accusing Hillary of suggesting that she was waiting for Obama to be assassinated because she mentioned RFK’s assassination in reference to the length of past campaigns when the media was trying to force her out; it’s having your surrogates imply that President Clinton’s remarks about Obama’s Iraq statements was racist (even producing a memo describing the plan), and it’s using coded language like “bamboozled” to mostly African Americans audiences in order to dislodge their support from the Clintons.

Voting for Obama is to embrace using race as a divisive strategy in a Democratic campaign.

Voting for Obama is being party to a rigged election. It condones voter intimidation, caucus fraud, and gaming your opponent’s states. It’s voting for outright bias by Party leaders like Dean, Pelosi, and Brazile. It’s an intentional violation of the one person, one vote ideal.

Voting for Obama is embracing intentional voter disenfranchisement.

Weisberg insists that Obama has a progressive agenda. But there’s nothing in the way Obama conducts his campaigns that would give us that idea. Many of us, Hillary supporters like myself, will vote for McCain because Obama’s treatment of Hillary goes against everything we believe in. And I want the Democratic Party to repudiate his tactics, and their own. Obama’s supporters must, some day, listen carefully to the very real reasons of why we’re angry, and they need to examine their consciences over their silence on the sexism towards Hillary and Obama’s race-baiting strategy.

Weisberg is wrong: Obama may lose because he conducted a despicable primary campaign, and he failed to offer a compelling economic message during the General Election.

Just what is the “error”?

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

It gets better, though:

The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

The flawed software is on both touch screen and optical scan voting machines made by Premier and the problem with vote counts is most likely to affect larger jurisdictions that feed many memory cards to a central counting database rapidly.

Whee!!! Ten years of potentially screwed up vote counts! Wowie zowie! That instills SO much confidence in our elections, doesn’t it?

Oh, you can just SEE the ad for the GOTV campaign, can’t you - “Register to vote! It’s your right as a citizen of the United States! Aren’t we so lucky??? There is no guarantee whatsoever that your actual vote will be COUNTED, but don’t let that dissuade you from tromping down to wherever the hell your polling place is, come rain or shine, or snow, and cast that vote! Isn’t it great to be an AMERICAN?!?!”

Oh, and make sure there are all these hip looking young people in it who don’t have to worry with transportation, or ability issues, with their iPods on, swinging into their funky polling places to get out their vote. It will be sunny, of course, and some great artist will be playing in the background. The ad can be provided by Premier Election Solutions, too, just for giggles.

Ahem. Oh, but get this from their spokesman:

Riggall said he was “confident” that elections officials through the years would have realized votes had been dropped when they crosschecked their tallies to certify final elections results and would have reloaded cards so as not to lose votes. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has said no Ohio votes were lost because the nine Ohio counties that found the problem caught it before primary results were finalized.

Boy, talk about passing the buck!

As recently as May, Premier said the problem was not of its making but stemmed from anti-virus software that Ohio had installed on its machines. It also briefly said the mistakes could have come from human mistakes. Further testing by Ohio elections officials and then high volume tests by Premier uncovered the programming error.

“We are indeed distressed that our previous analysis of this issue was in error,” Premier President Dave Byrd wrote Tuesday in a letter that was hand-delivered to Brunner. Premier and Brunner are in an ongoing court battle over the voting machines and whether Premier violated its contract with the state and warranties. Half of the Ohio’s 88 counties use the GEMS system. Brunner has been a vocal critic of electronic voting machines.

Both Brunner and Premier said that remedies to the problem will be in place for the November presidential election. A nationwide customer alert with recommended actions was issued Tuesday by Premier. Approximately 1,750 jurisdictions use the flawed system, Riggall said. Both Maryland and Virginia use it, he said, although Virginia does not relay its votes to a central counting point, which is where the problem surfaces, Riggall said. Maryland does use a central count, he said. The District of Columbia does not use the GEMS system.

Well, sure it will! And why in the world would we have reason to doubt them? Because they claimed it wasn’t their fault in the FIRST PLACE? Nah - that couldn’t be it. I am CERTAIN everything will be A-Okay by November. Cough, choke.

Here’s the thing:

The problem is most likely to affect larger jurisdictions that upload multiple memory cards during counts, Riggall said. The GEMS system is supposed to save information from one card at a time to be counted in order as the cards are read by a database that Riggall described as the “mother ship.” But a logic error in the program can cause incoming votes to essentially shove aside other votes that are waiting in the electronic line before they are counted. The mistake occurs in milliseconds, Premier’s customer notice says.

The mistake is not immediately apparent, Riggall said, and would have to be caught when elections officials went to match how many memory cards they fed into a central database against how many show as being read by that database. Each card carries a unique marker.

Officials in Butler County, Ohio — north of Cincinnati — were the first to raise the issue when 150 votes from a card dropped in March. Brunner’s office originally said that 11 counties had the same problem but has since revised that to nine. Her office was not able to say how many dropped votes were discovered in those jurisdictions.

Hmmm. Well, I reckon if they cannot tell how many votes were dropped, chances are probably GOOD that they don’t know for WHOM those votes were CAST!!! Funny thing about voting. The THEORY is that it helps us to ELECT our public servants. At least that’s how it USED to work. Not so much any more, apparently. It sure answers a lot of questions for me about the past few elections, though.

But wait - it gets better:

“I can’t provide odds on whether dropped votes were not recognized” during the decade GEMS has been used, Rigall said, “but based on what we know about how our customers run their elections and reconcile counts we believe any results not uploaded on election night would have been caught when elections were being certified.”

In his letter to Ohio’s Brunner, Premier’s president said, “Voters in jurisdictions Premier serves, both in Ohio and throughout the country, can be assured that election officials employing standard canvass and crosscheck procedures will count their votes completely and accurately.”

Gee - don’t YOU feel reassured?? I know I do…NOT. These people really do think we are freakin’ morons, don’t they?? Apparently, our concerns about the sanctity of our vote were well placed. With this kind of information coming out now, in between a close Primary season and a presidential election, it raises all kinds of questions in MY mind. I must be some kind of conspiracy nut or something to think this might just have been an issue in this close race. Oh, no - surely not, not when things like the CAUCUSES ran so smoothly…I am sure it was just fine…

And just one more issue:

Unlike other software, the problem acknowledged by Premier cannot be fixed by sending out a coding fix to its customers because of federal rules for certifying election systems, Rigall said. Changes to systems must go through the Election Assistance Commission, he said, and take two years on average for certification and approval — and that is apart from whatever approvals and reviews would be needed by each elections board throughout the country.

Brunner said she appreciated “the forthrightness” of Byrd in his letter to her and commended Butler County officials “who went above and beyond the call of duty” to pursue the problem.

“FORTHRIGHTNESS”??? Are you KIDDING me??? “Beyond the call of duty?” Seriously?? Oh, wow. Maybe I have been too narrow in my thinking about our elections. I thought they were supposed to be FAIR, that every vote was supposed to be RECORDED, and that the number of VOTES determined the WINNER. Silly me. I can be so black and white in my thinking sometimes…

Well, there seems to be one little piece of “good news” in this whole matter, if you live in Maryland, that is:

“As far as I know, we have not seen that problem,” with dropped votes, said Ross Goldstein, deputy administrator for Maryland’s State Board of Elections. Maryland counties do upload results to a central system — which is what generates county vote totals on election night — but state procedures call for counties to reload every memory card the day after the election to doublecheck results, Goldstein said.

The safeguards that Premier calls for its in customer alert, he said, already are in place in Maryland.

Is now when I mention that Kenneth Blackwell, the former Secretary of State in Ohio, the one who PUSHED for these machines against the requests of REPUBLICANS in Ohio, “accidentally” invested in Diebold? Uh, yeah. Pure accident. How could he POSSIBLY have known. Not like he had any kind of information about ELECTIONS and VOTING MACHINES. Ahem.

So, as we go forward into another presidential election season, with 34 of our states using these machines, which we have been ASSURED will be fixed by then - presuming they get through the respective certifications required, we can rest easy that our votes are going to count this time. No, really! They said! So, make sure you get out there and vote - it might actually count - this time.

Obama courts Middle America in attempt to counter ‘antiChrist’ image

If Obama thinks he has problems with us Just Say No Deal Pumas, he’s got much bigger problems with the very same Americans that he put down during the primaries, you know, those bitter, gun toting, bible clinging folks:

The Obama team’s strategy of picking up conservative, evangelical Christian voters has run into unexpectedly strong headwinds. This is especially true among the poor, white and working-class voters of Scots-Irish descent who live in the Appalachian mountain region that stretches across parts of seven states.

Barack Obama may wonder why many people aren’t falling in line behind him, but the truth is, he faces major public relation problems. Many people just don’t trust him to tell the truth about himself. Obama remains a mystery to millions of ordinary Americans. Who is he? What does he believe in? Is he a Christian? And if so, after 20 years in the church run by Jeremiah Wright, what kind of Christian is he? Doyle writes:

Along with Internet claims that he is a Muslim, some evangelical Christians have put it about that Obama may be the Antichrist. Glenda Kinzer, 41, from rural Ohio, believes the end of the world is about to occur. “A lot of people are talking about how Obama fits the description” of the Antichrist. “I always thought he will be from the Middle East.”

Obama is now advertising his Christianity by pushing Bush’s faith-based initiatives. Not long ago, liberal Democrats worried about Bush using religion, and now, Obama, the shape-shifter extraordinaire is hawking the same old wares (this is a new kind of politician?). Not only are these programs designed to replace social programs (and social programs have long been the mission of the Democratic party), even more troubling is that Obama’s plan “blurs the nation’s constitutional separation of church and state”:

Earlier in the week, he unexpectedly took a page from George W. Bush’s political playbook by embracing his controversial “faith-based initiatives.” He told voters in the evangelical heartland of Ohio that as president he would fund religious groups dealing with America’s social problems provided they did not discriminate in who they offer help.

He praises Ronald Reagan and copies George Bush. Yet Obama remains an unknown. Many of us will never vote for him because he is inexperienced, unproven and displays poor judgement. And Obama’s talking points consist of whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear. What are Obama’s positions? As they say about the weather, wait five minutes and they’ll change. Just last week Obama appeared to throw MoveOn under the bus. MoveOn is one of his major contributors, but for the sake of appearances, they went quietly under the bus. Obama’s followers embrace his political position of never allowing values to come in the way of winning:

In the run-up to the July 4th national holiday, Obama has been on a “values” tour of middle America as he seeks to counter Republican attempts to label him as too liberal.

That’s the thing: Obama will say and do anything for the sake of appearances. And the good folks of Middle America are wise to question who he is and to wonder about his motives.

The Reaction: Those horrible Clinton people! Note the comment that the remarks were “racist” even though the article says nothing of the sort. That’s not typical or anything is it?

Ok let’s recap here. Actual grown adults went out in the middle of the night. Then they spray painted cars and wrote things like “Obama smokes crack” on the cars. They left other messages such as:

“Legalize Marijuana/Stop Building Prisons”

“Ladies I’m Single Some Girl Step Up”

“How About Them Gators.”

Now we all know that legalizing marijuana and discussing Them Gators is a top priority of Hillary’s supporters. Not.

Baby boomers who still have fully grown (and very dependent!) kids at home would do this right? Well maybe if they hang out with Bill Ayers they might. Oh wait, that’s the other side.

How about Grandmothers and Grandfathers? That’s it! The Seniors did this!

I mean, nobody smells a rat here or anything, do you?

All righty then.

Psy Ops anyone?

It must have been done by these people, right?

….Or maybe these people…

Obama faces an additional problem that only half of the voters saying he has the necessary experience to be president.  

“If you look at the key question of experience, that may be what’s holding him back,” Stephanopoulos said. “Only 50 percent of voters say that Barack Obama has the experience to be president. A full 46 percent say, no, he doesn’t have the experience . . . That’s one of the reasons they are going on the foreign trips.”

According to the same ABC News today, Obama did not get the traditional bounce in the polls after “defeating” Hillary Clinton and receiving her endorsement:

No Bounce, Resistance from Clinton Supporters 

Apparently, Obama claims that his lack of bounce is due to McCain getting a free pass from the media. ABC sees the humor in this:

During the primary,”John McCain basically was getting a pass, both from the media . . . as well as from other opponents. And so I think that explains it,” said Obama of the close race. It is an ironic accusation from Obama.

Contrary to certain pundits (if we consider Frank Rich a pundit), Obama’s biggest problem comes from convincing women to vote for him.  And not just former Hillary supporters: 

Women, particularly married white women, however, may be a problem for Obama, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll. It showed that McCain has a 20 point advantage over Obama among married white women, a group that George Bush also won in the last two presidential elections.

As we know, Obama’s most loyal group of supporters are the young, many of whom are first-time voters. But these voters are not reliable, and the Obama campaign knows it. Moreover, older voters, who make going to the polls a priority, create another problem for him:

While Obama runs well among younger voters, they are not always reliable when it comes to showing up at the polls. Meanwhile, he is 12 points behind McCain among the more reliable older voters 

Adding to Obama’s woes, former Hillary supporters are not flocking to him now, as he claimed they would early in the primary.  Elections are won and lost with the votes of women: 

In addition, nearly a quarter of Clinton’s voters are holding back on their support, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll. ”If that number stays that high, it will be difficult for Barack Obama to win,” Stephanopoulos said.

Yes, this is what we’ve been saying, isn’t it?