Thread: US Presidential Campaign 2008

Just wondering out loud how a 46-year-old first term senator who's travel deficient (Americans are world-renowned for avoiding never travel within 20 miles of their birthplace) is capable of being better than GWB. Is this wishful thinking? Is this granting the chosen one carte blanch because he's a different hue? Can BO find your country in a 30-second quiz? Maybe. I'd give myself better odds.

Choose the pussy of your choice, I know whom I'm voting for. And it you're not voting ---




fuck off.

Interesting, I try to quote or multiquote Milkman's post about my "Canada" comparison and T Boone view, and I get Texpat's post...

Still beg to differ, Middle America will not vote for bambam.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

1.If you think Obama's the most liberal member of the senate you...may be a racist.

racist? who knows. more than a few racists here in the TD issues section that's for sure--but that's another thread.

anyway, if someone does believe that obama is the most liberal senator then they're just a buffoon who believes everything they read in the national journal. btw, guess who the national journal named the most liberal senator in 2003...john kerry....just in time for the 2004 election. shocking, huh?

honestly, how could anyone believe that obama is more liberal than russ feingold, ted kennedy, barbara boxer or bernie sanders---who's a socialist for god's sake.

and for a good laugh, take a look at what the national journal decided to be 'liberal' and 'conservative'. according to the national journal,

requiring 100% inspections of shipping containers for national security threats is a 'liberal' position.

establishing english as the official language of the US is a 'conservative' position.

and if you want to investigate further into what a joke this ranking is, take a look at how they dealt with missed votes.

i can't be bothered to knock down the remaining nonsensical points on the above list, but rest assured that they're equally ludicrous.

^ I think you missed the irony of it, Ray. Welcome back, BTW. Can I buy you a caps key or are you continuing your holier-than-thou spree?

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

^ I think you missed the irony of it, Ray. Welcome back, BTW. Can I buy you a caps key or are you continuing your holier-than-thou spree?

'Ol Jason is back from climbing mountains with Beth & Rafferty!

Can't they all just get along?

Obama partisans block Clinton faction bid to end caucuses -- chicagotribune.com

Obama partisans block Clinton faction bid to end caucuses

Party unity eludes Dems at platform meeting - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Party unity eludes Dems at platform meeting

And here is the party platform:
Marc Ambinder (August 07, 2008) - Obama's Democratic Platform Includes New Governance Planks, Emphases On Women, Fatherhood

More fodder provided by the Clinton camp:

Adviser told Hillary Clinton to attack Barack Obama on 'lack' of U.S. roots

Adviser told Hillary Clinton to attack Barack Obama on 'lack' of U.S. roots

Washington - Hilary Clinton was urged by her chief strategist to undermine Barack Obama as a quasi-American whose "lack of American roots" are outside the political mainstream.

According to an inside-the-bunker article being published in The Atlantic on Monday, key adviser Mark Penn ridiculed Obama's "boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii, " arguing Obama's multicultural diversity could be exploited.
Penn, in a memo to Clinton, urged that "every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America" and include "the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today.

"Let's explicitly own 'American' in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn't. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let's use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let's add flag symbols to the backgrounds."

Penn added, "I cannot imagine America electing a President during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

And some interesting hindsight on the Hillary fall:
Clinton told to portray Obama as foreign - Politico.com Print View

Clinton told to portray Obama as foreign

Mark Penn, the top campaign strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, advised her to portray Barack Obama as having a “limited” connection “to basic American values and culture,” according to a forthcoming article in The Atlantic.

The magazine reports Penn suggested getting much rougher with Obama in a memo on March 30, after her crucial wins in Texas and Ohio: “Does anyone believe that it is possible to win the nomination without, over these next two months, raising all these issues on him? ... Won’t a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?”...

...A key take-away from the article is that Clinton received a lot of accurate advice, including from Penn. He wrote a remarkably prescient memo in March 2007 about the importance of appealing to what he called “the Invisible Americans,” specifically “WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS” — exactly the groups that helped Clinton beat Obama in key states nearly a year later.

But no one synthesized and acted on the good advice...

...“What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make.”...

...The famous 3 a.m. ad, written by Penn and approved by Clinton, almost didn’t run: “In the days leading up to Ohio and Texas, the campaign kept arguing over whether to air the [3 a.m.] ad. With the deadline looming, Bill Clinton, speaking from a cell phone as his plane sat on a runway, led a conference call on Thursday, Feb. 28, in which he had both sides present their case. As his plane was about to lift off, it was Bill Clinton — not Hillary — who issued the decisive order: ‘Let’s go with it.’ "...

And the Clinton hits just keep on coming:

Point:
ABC News: Wolfson: Edwards' Cover-up Cost Clinton the Nomination

Wolfson: Edwards' Cover-up Cost Clinton the Nomination
Aides Say She Would Have Won Iowa if Edwards Affair was Exposed
By BRIAN ROSS and JAKE TAPPER
August 11, 2008

Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee if John Edwards had been caught in his lie about an extramarital affair and forced out of the race last year, insists a top Clinton campaign aide, making a charge that could exacerbate previously existing tensions between the camps of Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.....

Counter point:
Ta-Nehisi Coates (August 11, 2008) - These people are disgusting

These people are disgusting

In its specifics, this claim is preposterous. Recall that Clinton lost Iowa by almost ten points. Recall that the Clinton campaign's biggest weakness was an utter ignorance of caucuses. Recall that after Edwards dropped out, Clinton lost eleven straight primaries. But in broader terms, the worst thing about the Clinton campaign is/was their complete inability to come to terms with the fact that they were supposed to lose. Not because Barack Obama is more of a liberal, not because he'd make a better president, not because Clinton supported the war, not because Bill Clinton is amoral, but because they ran a losing campaign.

An interesting reader comment on the above:

Moreover, the Clinton campaign's inability to just fucking let it go speaks volumes. It's over, they lost, and spinning these what-if scenarios serves no purpose except to keep whatever resentment lingers alive and to assuage their egos. "Bush lite" is right, and the Clinton supporters who think this kind of hubris is OK as long as it's their guys who are doing it drive me up the wall.

Posted by Moff | August 11, 2008 12:13 PM

Maybe this year in Denver the head busting will take place inside the convention rather than outside like in Chi-town in '68?

Calling all Clinton supporters to pack your billy clubs for the trip to Denver?

The Ant & the Grasshopper

The Old Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all sum mer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!



The Democrat Version:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while
others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the
shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a
table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody
cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where
the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then
has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & Barack Obama exclaim in an interview with Larry King that
the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for
an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the 2007 summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green
bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is
confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal
judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare
recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just h appens to
be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain
it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house,
now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008

Shamlessly ripped from here

Tempted to put this in the 'why Obama will win' thread, but do you reckon this little snippet of information might have some bearing on the election, indeed on the marketability of Obamas tax reform policies :-

Two-thirds of firms avoid US income tax


Two-thirds of US corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office released on Monday said about 68 per cent of foreign companies doing business in the US avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of US dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan, who asked for the GAO study with Democratic Senator Carl Levin.

An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.

"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.

The GAO study did not investigate why corporations weren't paying federal income taxes or corporate taxes and it did not identify any corporations by name. It said companies may escape paying such taxes due to operating losses or because of tax credits.

More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million US companies, or 66.7 per cent of them, paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $US2.5 trillion ($A2.87 trillion) in sales. About 25 per cent of large US corporations - those with at least $US250 million ($A287 million) in assets or $US50 million ($A57 million) in receipts - did not pay corporate taxes.

The GAO said it analysed data from the Internal Revenue Service, examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005. For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the US.

Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices - amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities. The GAO did not suggest which companies might be doing this.

"It's time for the big corporations to pay their fair share," Dorgan said.

Two-thirds of firms avoid US income tax - Breaking News - Business - Breaking News

What does Mr and Mrs middle America think about this, I wonder?

It seems a strange dichotomy, but the staunchest Republican supporters seem often to be those decent, hard working folk who are actually the ones being most disadvantaged by the Bush admin's tax policies. I wonder why- the racial issue can only be a part of it.

^ Then those big companies must not be publicly listed (ie, with shares trading on a major exchange). I read P&Ls everyday and big companies DO pay taxes. Sure, every company looks for ways to reduce its tax burden, just like everyman does, but they pay plenty if they are based in the States and not Bermuda, etc.

I would guess some listed companies avoid tax, smaller ones no doubt, but the vast majority of these companies would undoubtably be private.

Originally Posted by Norton

Transfer pricing is not against the law but I do know some of the schemes in the companies I worked for would be questionable as to there legality.

Biggest con going. Shelf companies, nominee directors, nominee shareholders, dodgy jurisdictions- you name it. One gets investigated, just close it down and open another one- preferably in another tax haven, to keep the tax skunks a few steps behind you. No requirement for P&L accounts & balance sheets.

^ & ^^. True, guys. But auditors usually unravel stuff like Div A could not have sold this to Div B at this price, Norts. Sure, stuff can be hidden in shell cos and offshore biz and lots of other sneaky things. Still, big cos do pay pretty hefty taxes and hire lots of people that also pay taxes. The govt should still win if it had any brains.

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

The govt should still win if it had any brains.

nail on the head.

Heard on CNN this morning. Colin Powell is expected to announce his support of Obama. Should he do so, it would be a big boost to Obama. Now here would be an interesting VP choice. Too bad he is "black" or he would be a shoe in. A shame race is such an issue as Powell would be perfect VP for Obama.

Originally Posted by Norton

Heard on CNN this morning. Colin Powell is expected to announce his support of Obama. Should he do so, it would be a big boost to Obama. Now here would be an interesting VP choice. Too bad he is "black" or he would be a shoe in. A shame race is such an issue as Powell would be perfect VP for Obama.

Would agree Powell would make a good VP choice - actually for either candidate. Yet to be seen if Powell will endorse Obama, he has played it pretty tight to the chest.

But the original report about Powell making the endorsement appears to have indicated Powell would not only endorse Obama, but would do it at the convention with a speech.

Powell has seen come out to say he will not be attending the convention. But it did not directly address if he would be endoring Obama, or McCain for that matter:
Kristol: Colin Powell to Endorse Barack Obama - America’s Election HQ

Sources say former Secretary of State Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol told FOX News exclusively on Wednesday.

“He may well give a speech at the Democratic convention explaining his endorsement of Obama,” Kristol, a FOX News contributor, said, citing inside sources.

Powell immediately denied the report.
“I do not have time to waste on Bill Kristol’s musings,” Powell told ABC News. “I am not going to the convention. I have made this clear.”

Powell has unofficially advised Obama and Republican candidate John McCain but had not endorsed anyone. A spokesman said in July that he was undecided.

Edit in:
Optional linky for those that find it hard to accept anything FOX reports as being true or the news:
Colin Powell: Will he or won't he publicly back Barack Obama? | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

Powell is too classy to submit to politics, IMO.

Dead heat in the Pew Polls:
Overview: Presidential Race Draws Even

Presidential Race Draws Even
GOP Base Getting Behind McCain

With less than two weeks to go before the start of the presidential nominating conventions, Barack Obama's lead over John McCain has disappeared. Pew's latest survey finds 46% of registered voters saying they favor or lean to the putative Democratic candidate, while 43% back his likely Republican rival. In late June, Obama held a comfortable 48%-to-40% margin over McCain, which narrowed in mid-July to 47% to 42%.

Two factors appear to be at play in shifting voter sentiment. First, McCain is garnering more support from his base - including Republicans and white evangelical Protestants - than he was in June, and he also has steadily gained backing from white working class voters over this period. Secondly and more generally, the Arizona senator has made gains on his leadership image. An even greater percentage of voters than in June now see McCain as the candidate who would use the best judgment in a crisis, and an increasing percentage see him as the candidate who can get things done.

Conversely, Obama has made little progress in increasing his support among core Democrats since June - currently 83% favor him compared with 87% of Republicans who back McCain. The likely Democratic nominee is still getting relatively modest support from Hillary Clinton's former supporters: 72% of them support Obama, compared with the 88% support level that McCain receives from backers of his formal GOP rivals. Obama's strong points with voters are in being seen as the candidate with new ideas and as someone who connects well with ordinary people.

McCain finaling securing the GOP base. I think Obama will eventually get the blue base in line - once all those Clinton backers finally accept that she won't get the nomination. Thus giving Obama his boost after the convention.

Some noise has been made by both candidates about getting support from the other side of the aisle. But it seems both have the vast majority of thier party tied up:

Republicans For Obama , The Nation: "Obamicans" Are Throwbacks To The Days Of Traditional Republicanism - CBS News

Yet partisanship has hardened since the primary has ended (usually the opposite occurs), with both Obama and McCain now drawing 90 percent support from self-identified members of their parties.

The 90% number is a bit high, especially right now for Obama (see recent pew poll results). But I think both will lock up that 90% number when it counts - in the voting booth.

Originally Posted by Bugs

Thus giving Obama his boost after the convention.

Agree. Until the conventions are done both are probing and poking at one another searching for messages that bring the highest acceptance by the voters. McCain has been handed a golden opportunity to demonstrate his "crisis management" claim vis a vis the Russian/Georgian crisis. He needs to be careful though on a too hard line message as the public is certainly very war weary and the last thing they want is another military confrontation.