(1) My question: Where did this girl learn to talk to her father like that? Just wondering … (as I chuckle wickedly to myself) …

Obama’s Daughter On Inaugural Speech: “It Better Be Good”

As the final preparations are made for his historic Inauguration on Tuesday, pressure is mounting for President-elect Barack Obama– including from his own children. Speaking to the Washington Post, Obama gives an account of his family “field trip” to the Lincoln Memorial where there is an inscribed copy of the 16th President’s famous Second Inaugural speech. At this point, Obama’s 7 year-old daughter Sasha asked her father if he would be giving a similar speech. Obama describes the interaction to the Post:

“And I said, ‘Well, actually, that’s a short version, but yeah, I will,’ ” Obama recalled. “And then Malia says, ‘First African American president — it better be good.’
“So I just want you to know the pressures I’m under here from my children.

The family’s “field trip” was a symbolic gesture to Lincoln, to whom Obama has frequently been compared. Obama’s children clearly have equally or even higher expectations of their father. This sets them somewhat apart from their mother, who throughout the campaign has insisted that her husband is merely human. Ta-Nahisi Coates, in the January/February Atlantic delves into this quirk extensively, explaining why Michelle Obama was initially viewed as an “Angry Black Woman” during the campaign and why that really isn’t the case at all. The article gives an enlightening account of the value the Obamas place on family. …

(2) SensibleWoman e-mailed this story to me. She noted in her e-mail, “It aggravated me to listen to Rick S. ‘calling out’ Joe the Plumber (whom we all KNOW isn’t a journalist) after going through the ’08 Election year NOT getting enough info from those we THOUGHT were journalists.”

The thoughts of Rick Sanchez, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you ask me.

(3) Did you know that film legend and environmental activist Robert Redford is an enemy of the poor, and a racist to boot? Nope? Me either.

Protesters label Redford an enemy of the poor
Oil and gas drilling » Clergymen link famed moviemaker’s stance to racism.

Hollywood’s Sundance Kid is hurting poor people.
So say some East Coast ministers and conservative activists, who took to the streets in front of a downtown Salt Lake City theater on the eve of Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival to accuse the actor of holding down low-income Americans with his opposition to oil and gas drilling near national parks in Utah.
The protesters, led by the Congress of Racial Equality’s national spokesman Niger Innis, suggested Redford should “relinquish his wealth” and live like a poor person. They complained that the filmmaker’s anti-drilling stance could lead to higher energy prices for inner-city residents, forcing them to accept a lower standard of living.
The clergymen prayed for Redford “to see the light” and linked his environmental activism with racism.
“The high energy prices we’re going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory,” said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., chairman of the High-Impact Leadership Coalition, a petroleum industry advocate.
A month ago, Redford, a trustee of the National Resources Defense Council, voiced support for a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the Bush administration’s “morally criminal” attempt to auction 103,000 acres of scenic redrock desert for oil and gas drilling near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Dinosaur National Monument. …

And what else is going on in the world?

There’s NO doubt about that ballot. Honest to god.

It’s rude to waste people’s time examining a ballot like that. The voter’s intent is utterly clear.

The info about Mr. Gore is interesting, eh?

And what else is going on in the world?

You’re a fascist, lady.

That was way harsh, huh. I mean every word of it.

You got anything you’d like to tell her?

(The Obamabot “Thought Police” monitor and spam our blog but who cares. Until at least January 20th, this is a free country …)

Our reluctant allies on the Right believe McCain was struck by the perfect storm. McCain’s loss was less about campaign strategy failures than an incredibly unpopular president of the same party and an economic October surprise which underscored his Party’s difficulties. It really was about Change. From the National Review:

1) 2008′S OUTCOME AND THE BANKING CRISIS AND STOCK MARKET CRASHES –
The media talk was wrong, the media talk that had gone on all year and reached its height in the summer and early September about an irresistable Democratic trend and unstoppable Obama. After a successful Republican convention and a week of campaigning by McCain-Palin capped by Obama`s “lipstick on a pig” gaffe, McCain had a nice national lead and one so strong in Ohio there were rumors Obama was pulling out. For purposes of perspective on last night’s results, it’s good to remember some of McCain’s numbers in various polls that second week in September:

Florida: +8

North Carolina: + 18

Georgia: + 18

Oklahoma: + 31

Idaho: + 39

New Jersey: – 3

New York: – 6

Michigan – dead heat

Wisc —dead heat

Minnesota — tied.

And the Gallup poll released September 11 showed a GOP five point lead in the generic question which could have translated into twenty to thirty seat pickup.

2) HARD TO CALL – This Fall’s political environment was unprecedented — an economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression. So there was no prior experience to fall back on. Campaign Spot readers and loyal Jedi warriors wanted Obi to make his unapologetic predictions of the past. That prediction was impossible. What could be said was that McCain was still very much in it despite the burdens he faced, including everyone’s 401(k) turning to cinders.

3) MCCAIN CAME BACK – Striding into one of the worst political headwinds ever McCain actually staged a comeback. A week after his last debate performance, his “Joe the Plumber” initiative and excellent performance at the Al Smith dinner in New York, four good polls showed him one or two points away from a lead. Even Rasmussen, who still gave Obama a four point advantage, noted McCain was shaving
the Democrat’s national lead and had moved back into a slight lead in Florida and Ohio. Then came more days of market crash. Yet, even after that, the survey data showed undecided voters were inclined towards McCain but also wanted to vote their frustration and anger over the economy and were inclined, rightly or wrongly, to take it out on Bush and the GOP.

4) THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IS A BLUNT BUT ULTIMATELY BENEFICENT INSTRUMENT — One place your Obi worked for Barry in 1964 was the New Hampshire primary and he vividly remembers that loss and then the carnage in November. (Even Sooners Coach Bud Wilkinson, one of the state’s religious figures, lost a Senate bid in Oklahoma.) But two years later came a GOP blowout marked by Ronald Reagan’s first election to political office. And back in `76 some of us thought
nothing was more important than electing Jerry Ford. But defeat that year ultimately led to a new Republican party and the Reagan era.

So when you ask: How could the American people do this? Don’t they know what they are getting? Well, unfortunately the blunt instrument approach — shock therapy — is like that. Lots of collateral damage in the hope the GOP will get itself together and give America a better time, a newer era.

6) FIGHT HARD; FIGHT FROM THE START TO STOP THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE – So the problem with the blunt instrument is the unintended consequences. The 1964 results meant the social tragedy, especially for the poor, of the Great Society programs. The 1974 Democratic Congressional blowout cost 13 million South Vietnamese their freedom. The 1976 defeat meant Carter era malaise at home and one of the most perilous periods for U.S, national security.

The liberals in Congress will soon push to discourage entrepreneurship and economic growth, nationalize the medical system, weaken the military, use state power to coerce Americans into removing mentions of God from the public square, accepting abortion on demand and the altering the definition of marriage. And an early test for President Obama will be his reaction to pressure in two areas from his own party that may brand his administration early as decidedly leftist. He will be pushed to take various measures to stifle dissent through enacting the Fairness Doctrine and ending the secret ballot in union elections. And he will be pushed to make a decision that cost the newly elected President Clinton his honeymoon period — changing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy about gays in the military. On all of this, the congressional liberals and their media allies will be unrelenting. And yet all this represents opportunity for the GOP. The last Congress was the most unpopular in history because of its radical liberalism. Yet the GOP failed entirely to enumerate for voters that Congress’s transgressions. That opportunity is coming again.

Also, the liberals know that neither in 2006 nor 2008 did the American people vote for the left-wing agenda. They are hoping conservatives will again go along after some polite demurrals. So, if loud and noisy but enlightened opposition is offered at every turn, much of the collateral damage can be avoided. And the American people will see the real agenda of the liberal elites.

7) REJOICE — Electing an African American president closes a painful but proud chapter in American history. What a country.

8 ) TOUJOURS L’AUDACE —We gather our armies. We go forward.

Finally, Dick Morris chimes in that McCain did better than the media predicted:

For political historians, it’s worth noting that Obama hasn’t scored the knockout that many predicted. As I write, it seems clear that John McCain will lose by a few points in the popular vote, not by the double digits so confidently predicted in the media polls. The fact is that most of the undecided voters went to the Republicans.

What do you think? Is there anything McCain could have done differently? Or were the conditions too unfavorable for any Republican?

But as I reviewed the history of the primary and the current issues facing us, it seemed increasingly like the only ethical, pragmatic and appropriate choice.

Consider the caucus fraud, stripping of Clinton’s votes and denial of a fair and open roll call. The relentless sexism from the media and the silence from Democratic Party. Obama’s refusal to have town halls with her and then McCain. Obama’s waffling on important issues like FISA and campaign finance reform. The obscene amounts of money that Obama’s campaign has spent when people are losing their homes. Over 680 million dollars of which we know. Probably more. His lack of judgment in choosing close associates and friends. Like Jeremiah Wright. Tony Rezko. William Ayers. Khalidi.

It is clear that the Democratic Party as we knew it, the Democratic Party of my parents, no longer exists. Its leadership does not support the most basic principle of one person, one vote. And they do not support women, the majority of its membership.

Clearly, it is time to look somewhere else.

And then the economy tanked and the choice became very clear. I have never voted Republican in my life. As I began to study the issues more closely, I grew to really appreciate what John McCain has to say. He understands that you cannot tax small businesses at a high rate, as Obama is proposing. Small businesses are what drive the economy. We need and must create opportunities for Joe (and Josie!) the Plumber. What can Obama be thinking? And how does he possibly plan to pay for all of the programs he is proposing? More taxes in a struggling economy?

Nobody gets this more than the Cuban community in Miami.

Traveling much of the time in Miami with Dr. Lynette Long, the leading expert on the caucus fraud perpetuated against Hillary Clinton by Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee, we did a lot of canvassing and shaking of hands, otherwise known as retail politics. Almost everyone we met were proudly, even vehemently pro McCain. Even the seniors who didn’t speak English would shake their heads and wag their fingers when we asked them about Obama. They are suspicious of charisma and empty promises. Families who had made the treacherous journey to come to America, often leaving behind everything they knew or had owned compared Obama to Castro. “Fidel said change, too,” one young woman said whose family’s property had been seized and whose father had been imprisoned in Cuba for six years. “I don’t want socialism. I know how bad it can be. Our families want to work hard. We want opportunities, not hand outs. We love John Mccain. We trust him.” America is the land of immigrants and opportunities. In honor of these wonderful Cuban Americans who are the soul of Miami and part of the extended heart of this great country, let’s get out the vote.

First, I want to address those supposed internal poll numbers that have McCain ahead in PA, MI, NJ and closing in on CA. I have not been able to verify those numbers. They could be true, they might not be. I said back during the primaries that a Pampers nomination would put PA, MI, and NJ in play. Since we know that the pollsters have not been releasing accurate numbers, as their models are weighted heavily to Pampers, with interviewees being mostly Democrats, I think it is safe to say that this race is tied, and will be decided by the undecided voters, which have been breaking for McCain, and will continue to do so. Why? Because if you haven’t made the commitment to Pampers by now you are nervous enough about his fraudulent fascist ass that you are going to hold your nose and vote for McCain; at least he is a known quantity. Internals cannot always be trusted either.

In NC internal numbers had Clinton within 5 points and shaving a point each day off Pampers lead; she lost by 15, but we know now that was due to double counted ballots, and other methods of fraud. Numbers can be given to motivate workers, volunteers, and voters. I think the best strategy is to not put faith in numbers and work your asses off in the next 24 hours to defeat Pampers. Keep making calls. Keep canvassing, get out the vote, and go vote yourselves. The Pampers fraud machine is in full force so we need every vote for McCain to count (we can deal with the “what should have been” with Hillary later). DO NOT ALLOW ANY POLL NUMBERS MAKE YOU FEEL THIS IS OVER.

And lay off the conscientious abstainers. They have made their decision based on their ethics. Respect it. If, in the privacy of the voting booth they have a change of heart, they will do that without being cajoled by us (my entire immediate family is voting for Pampers, guess how that feels?). Now, on to Pennsylvania.

I believe that John McCain is going to win the 21 electoral votes in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on Tuesday. In 2004 Bush lost the state by 144,248 votes (see the above map of the 2004 result). The cities of Philadelphia, Allentown, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Erie went to Kerry, while the entire rest of the state voted for the Shrub. Pampers will no doubt take Philadelphia. But McCain doesn’t need Philadelphia to win. He needs, and he’s going to get, Allegheny County.

In 2004 Kerry won Allegheny, and outlying counties, by slim margins:
Allegheny: 96,987

Beaver: 2,230
Washington: 552
Fayette: 4,075
That’s 103,844 votes. Leaving a margin of 40,044 votes in the 2004 totals.

There is one reason and one reason only that Kerry took these counties: Tereza Heinz-Kerry. Knowing this, Obama tried to trot her out in the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary. Her lack of enthusiasm for the candidate was pretty obvious. Obama has no such connection. In fact, the one thing he had going for him in the area, John Murtha, decided to pick the scab off the bitter/cling incident by calling his constituents racists, and then rednecks. Personally I think Murtha fell on a grenade, potentially ending his political career to prevent Obama from getting into the White House. Between that, Joe the Plumber, Bittergate, the Hillary/PUMA effect and Obama’s ever shrinking tax break income threshold (it used to be $250,000…now his ads say $200,000….his VP says $150,000….Bill Richardson says $120,000….we know it’s really around $42-50,000…middle class, get ready for the mugging) chances are McCain is going to win all four of those counties.

Another Kerry stronghold was Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties. Margins were not that wide there either.
Lackawanna County (Scranton is County Seat): 14,807
Luzerne County: 4,620

I believe that it is the PUMA effect that will have the greatest impact in drawing Democrats away from Obama. Forget Biden’s connection to Scranton. He hasn’t had any there in decades. No one is seeing his appearance there as a homecoming. It’s a hey I used to be from here vote for me kind of feeling. When Democrats for McCain and Harriet Christian are leading PUMAs on major canvassing safaris, reminding everyone what Obama and the DNC did to Hillary, the candidate they still love, what Obama said about them, etc. I see both counties in play big time. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication up there!

Joe the Plumber will also pull in votes in Allentown, and Erie. We hear time and time again that working class voters are “values voters,” meaning that they vote with the candidate whom they feel represents their beliefs, even if they are voting against their economic interests. In 2008 the McCain/Palin ticket not only speaks to them more, especially with a woman who comes directly from the working class, but will better serve their economic interests by not taxing them into the poor house, or taxing their employers into laying them off (and with those ever lowering tax thresholds that is exactly what is going to happen).

The simple fact of the matter is that if McCain’s internals didn’t have him in striking distance he and Palin wouldn’t be wasting their time. And if Camp Pampers didn’t think the same thing he and Biden wouldn’t be there either.

One final factor working for McCain: Pampers fatigue. Pennsylvania was the state that shocked the nation when polls came out saying they were sick and tired of hearing Pampers’ voice and seeing his face everywhere. They felt that way during the primaries. I can only guess how they feel now. I would imagine there are a lot of people in PA doing what I do…turning down the volume on the TV, changing the channel, or throwing random objects. No one overkills like Pampers whose motto must be, “Too much of me is never enough.” Pampers, I’ve got news for you; too little of you is too much of you. PA is also the state where Pampers told Ed Rendell, “We don’t need the people, we just need the checks.”

Don’t be surprised if it’s going to be Pennsylmania for McCain tomorrow. Sorry Pampers, you need the people, not just the checks.

[More of Shtuey Van Shtuey's superb writing can be found here]

Karel, also known as Charles Karel Bouley, is an evening and weekend host at KGO radio in San Francisco. This incident occurred during Saturday evening’s show.

Karel also writes for the Huffington Post website.

Source: Brian Maloney, Radio Equalizer

Looks like a guy you wouldn’t want to run into in the night without a gun and a dog, doesn’t he? ::shiver::

From my blog, Uppity Woman.

I have watched in horror and amazement as deeds, gaffes, falsehoods and gross errors in judgment that would have taken down any other politician just slide from Obama like Teflon, much like George Bush. Bush’s problem is not that he’s a Republican. It is that he is a petty, arrogant bully who thinks he is anointed by God, much like Barack Obama.

I believe Obama’s supporters are voting for a carefully crafted narrative; a symbol rather than a man. Symbols don’t govern. Men do. Women do. A symbol is nothing if there is no substance behind it. Here is my closing argument that he is “words, just words” and the substance of Barack Obama is as thin as tissue paper.

Campaign manager David Axelrod had to find a way to propel an affable but rather wishy-washy, under-achieving legislator from Illinois with only a couple of years in the Senate under his belt past a host of far more accomplished candidates. Therefore ‘experience’ became a dirty word.

With Senator Obama’s silvery speeches, his slick, evasive way around all direct questions and no policy decisions one could pin on him, he was able to move close to the front of the field. But he could not get past his biggest obstacle: the brilliant Joan of Arc in a pantsuit, Hillary Clinton. All eight guys sharing the debate stage piled on, including Obama, but still, she came out on top with her preparedness and smarts. So the narrative had to be amended. Not only is experience a dirty word, “Clinton” had to become a dirty word as well.

We were reminded of Republicans hunting Bill Clinton endlessly in the 90’s and told that we didn’t want to support political dynasties, i.e., Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Well, Hillary is Bill’s wife, so technically, she’s a Rodham. No dynasty there, but no matter. So first “experience” became a dirty word and “Clinton” became a dirty word, too.

After seven years of George Bush, Democrats, starved to retake the presidency, were sick and tired of partisan bickering and infighting. Whether people loved the Clintons or not, some were afraid that perhaps the Clinton name meant that the “hunt” would start all over again so they were willing to buy Axelrod’s first narrative in order to escape the second.

And then the third narrative was born: Barack Obama is post-racial, post-partisan and stands apart from inside-the-beltway politics. He will cut through the gristle and build consensus because he has no enemies and is not set in his ways like some old pol.

Axelrod then had to create a fourth narrative: Barack as rock star. He needed to draw the eye in order to bypass the Clintons’ rock star status within the Democratic Party and to distract the American public from the most important reason not to vote for him: he didn’t know what he was doing and had a paper-thin resume.

Hence we got the super-sized rallies, the soaring speeches, the ‘fainting,’ people screaming “I love you, Barack” from the throngs in the audience. We now know that many of his enormous rallies had freebie giveaways – rock concerts and the like. But that was a well kept secret, like the rest of this well-crafted stage farce. So the mystique of Obama was born.

The Democrats’ antipathy toward the Iraq war also helped to birth the fifth Obama narrative – Obama as the anti-war candidate, because of a speech he allegedly gave in the ultra liberal Hyde Park district of Illinois in 2002, at no political cost to himself. He was the man of “good judgment” for his war opposition. Not that he had the power to vote on any such a thing at the time. If he did, surely he would have found a way to do as he had always done in the State Senate when challenged by a politically risky vote: vote “present” as he did there 130 times.

But then, an all too compliant media started to get the collective tingle up their leg. Whether this was out of fear of being called racist if they didn’t ‘treat the black guy nicely’, or just their obsession with taking Hillary down or both, I don’t know. But they willfully decided not to do their jobs. He received no vetting whatsoever.

Still, Hillary Clinton had a formidable lead in the polls and was winning the majority of primaries before Super Tuesday (including Michigan and Florida), so he needed a new narrative to blunt her momentum and I’m sure everyone remembers what that was. It was born after Hillary’s unexpected win in New Hampshire and solidified with the South Carolina primary in January – ‘Bill Clinton is a racist and Hillary is insensitive to the plight of the African American community.’

When the campaign started, Obama was ‘bi-racial.’ That wasn’t working for him so well, so he became ‘African American.’ Another new narrative – is that number six? I am beginning to lose count.

Axelrod knew that Obama’s exotic background and dispassionate, professorial demeanor was not connecting well with the black community. Therefore, he had to drive a wedge between the Clintons and the AA community who were so fond of them. Professor Sean Wilentz published a brilliant article in the New Republic called “Race Man” detailing exactly how this was done. Again, the media played an important role here because they gave carte blanche to any nonsense that came out of Obama’s mouth, or that of his surrogates. This narrative of Hillary and her supporters as racist, low-information “Archie Bunkers” grew legs, although it had no basis in fact.

Even the clueless Senators John Kerry and the bloviating Joe Biden told us we had to vote for Obama because he is black. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is just as racist to vote for someone based on the color of their skin as it is not to. So I guess narrative three (post-racial, post-partisan) was discarded.

Then, against the will of most of the mainstream media in March and April, word of Obama’s malignant associations started to bleed out: the now convicted criminal Tony Rezko, Reverend Wright, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and more. Another new narrative was born: the “I didn’t know” or the “it was boneheaded” narrative: a convenient way for Obama to avoid taking personal responsibility for any of his past actions or associations. Good judgment, you say?

Sometimes I think Senator Obama gets up in the morning, walks to the mirror, smiles at it and challenges himself to see how many dissembling statements he can make to the press without getting called on them. I think it must be a game to him, otherwise, how could he dare to be so cavalier with the truth before the American people.

I’m not going to detail his lies about these close associations, or his involvement with ACORN, nor am I going to detail his reneging on his important policy promises like FISA, NAFTA, Iraq, Israel, don’t ask don’t tell, women’s rights, gun control, Bush’s faith based initiatives and so on. All of these are egregious breaks in faith and trust not only with his supporters but with the entire party. Worse still were the press and DNC elite riding shotgun for him at every turn helping him to steal the Democratic nomination through caucus fraud, blocking re-votes and illegitimately being awarded delegates he did not actually earn. Let’s leave that aside for the moment, too.

To me, the worst break in faith was his reneging on public financing, for one very simple reason: his entire candidacy was built on the notion that the American people needed a new way of doing business in Washington. That lobbyists, special interest groups or billionaires cannot buy the Presidency.

So far, he has spent nearly a billion dollars trying to buy the Presidency.

Much of this money has come to him from questionable – and untraceable – donations on the internet. He just spent millions blanketing five networks with a thirty minute infomercial; this after spending six million for his faux-Greek column event at Invesco Field bullying all into submission at the Convention; this after his Barack-apolooza celebrity European Tour, trying to overwhelm the multitudes, foreign and domestic, into believing he is the President without him actually having done anything to earn the title.

He has said that he rejects lobbyists but the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac scandal have revealed that aside from his ardent supporter, Senator Chris Dodd, head of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Obama has received more lobbying money from them than anyone. A new way of doing business?

Pollsters are cooking the numbers shamelessly in Obama’s favor. Until this last week, where we finally had the likes of CNN’s John King admitting to the ridiculously biased media coverage, it was a veritable love fest for Barack and a sandstorm for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Had Obama kept his word to accept public financing, as John McCain did, and just campaigned on the issues, as McCain has worked to do – do you think Obama would still be in this contest at all?

These are his fighting tools: Experience is a dirty word. Clinton is a dirty word. I take lobbying money but I pretend I don’t and no one calls me on it. I change my tune daily on different networks and no one bothers to compare my false statements. I am not bi-racial, I am black. I insult the white grandmother who raised me by labeling her a “typical white person.” I insult people who don’t vote for me by calling them “bitter voters who cling to God and guns.” The Clintons and their supporters are racists. Everyone who says anything bad about me must be racist. If the press does not write glowing reports about me, I kick them off my plane, although they have paid good money to be there. “I didn’t know” (about Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Pfleger, my aunt living illegally and in squalor in Boston). Everything you find wrong with me or my campaign I either didn’t know about or it was ‘boneheaded.’

This is a new, cleaner way of doing business in Washington? What is cleaner about trying to overwhelm everyone else out of the race before the American people notice that your policies won’t hold water, and that you won’t hold any position long enough to stand against the changing wind. Obama promised hope and change. He, like George Bush, proclaimed himself a great ‘uniter,’ yet he has rapidly emerged as the most divisive figure in politics. How ironic that he, and the media, tried to paint Hillary as ‘divisive and polarizing’ when he and his supporters are responsible for more hateful vitriol than I have yet seen. Friends and couples are actually breaking up over supporting or not supporting this man.

His careless ‘let’s throw money at the problem’ attitude is horrid, particularly in such difficult economic times.

Obama and Biden deriding the “Joe the Plumbers” of this world belies not only their rhetoric but basic Democratic principles. Further it shows Obama to be an elitist, out of touch with the needs and concerns of average Americans. He postulates on “spreading the wealth around” from the safety of his Chicago mansion, and says it is “selfish” not to do so, while he and his wife, millionaires, give relatively little to charity, and his ‘favorite aunt’ in allowed to contribute $260 to his campaign yet lives illegally and in squalor in Boston. Oh, he “didn’t know.”

More do as I say, not as I do. That is the most damning and devastating part of his candidacy. It was always built on a lie built upon yet another bunch of lies.

How can anyone run on their “good judgment,” yet say “I didn’t know” to breaking revelations at every turn and be given a pass? How can we trust such a man ‘to know’ enough to take care of us when he doesn’t know enough to take care of himself or his own? Or willfully turns a blind eye to crooked and divisive behavior?

A grossly inexperienced, under-qualified man is poised to take the most difficult job in the world at one of the most challenging times in our recent history. And the entire narrative the svengali Axelrod and the media have crafted for him is built on nothing but smoke and mirrors. Hope and change indeed.

Contrary to his image, he is nothing more than an old style politician, an opportunist borne of the Chicago Daley machine, a man who has worked to buy the presidency and changes his policy positions as one would change their socks. After the Joe the Plumber debacle, the myth of Mr. Hope and Change has been debunked. What was initially appealing about his candidacy no longer exists. What is left?

I can find no good reason to vote for him.

I certainly hope the American people will come to the same conclusion this Tuesday.

Earlier: We are counting down … At 10:00 p.m. ET sharp, Truthteller’s No Quarter radio show is on the air live!

Truthteller’s radio show entitled Political Montage will air at 10:00pm EST. Call in at 347.308.8644, and join the live chatroom during the show. (You’ll need to be registered at BlogTalkRadio to post comments in the live chat.)

po·lit·i·cal mon·tage (puh-lit-i-kuhl) (mŏn-täzh’, môɴ-)
- any combination of disparate elements that forms or is felt to form a unified whole of the current political situation with the aim of edifying and informing the listening public

Below are the topics to be discussed and analyzed:

The following topics will be discussed and analyzed: PUMA resurgence affects a poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports in Pennsylvania; Barack Obama’s immigration and campaign finance problems; Ohio state employee states she was ordered to pry into the confidential files of Joe the Plumber; the statements of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama in 2003 and 2004; and Obama campaign aggressively courts southwest Ohio and Cincinnati, where he trails McCain by a staggering 24 points.

Feel free to join the conversation by telephoning 347.308.8644 at 10:00pm EST tonight.

Here are my notes from the McCain/Palin conference call that ended moments ago. Rick Davis, McCain’s Campaign Manager, said the following:

• Watch for an unprecedented velocity of McCain TV ads this final week
• Obama was spending $40 million a week during housing crisis, he’s now to normal levels
• They will be spending $10 million more than Obama on the air this week
• They believe they have been winning the economy and tax argument over the last 10 ten days
• Of note for Hillary supporters, they have “learned from primaries, late breakers don’t go to Obama.”
• Just released closing ad, McCain talking about service to country
  and a contrast ad on economics and spending
• Continuing to run what they call the “Joe the Biden” ad about Obama being tested. Still on air; best closing argument ad
• They’re ready to win election
• In Florida and Nevada, early voting is the same as 2004, favorable to McCain.
• McCain is picking up a lot Democratic support in both states.
• John McCain always finishes very strong in New Hampshire
• Polls are all over the map. New Hampshire is a hard state to poll.
  New Hampshire is a low-tax state.
  Joe the Plumber has changed the dynamics of the race.
• Tight electoral college year, tight popular vote.
  Polling is not cumulative. Polls from 10 days ago do not mean anything.

Never underestimate a Republican operative in the last week of race who is outspending you by $10 million.

Here is the weak justification Obama supporter Helen Jones-Kelley, the Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, provides for her department’s questionable probing into Sam Wurzelbacher’s private records:

The checks were run after the news media reported that Wurzelbacher was considering buying a plumbing business with more than $250,000 in annual income, Jones-Kelley wrote.

“Given our understanding that Mr. Wurzelbacher had publicly indicated that he had the means to purchase a substantial business enterprise, ODJFS, consistent with past departmental practice, checked confidential databases ,” she wrote.

“Not surprisingly, when a person behind in child support payments or receiving public assistance is receiving significant media attention which suggests that the person appears to have available financial resources, the Department risks justifiable criticism if it fails to take note and respond,” Jones-Kelley wrote.

The results of the searches were not publicly released and remain confidential, she wrote. Wurzelbacher has said he is not involved in a child-support case and has not purchased any business.

Her argument is anything but compelling. Does her department perform a search on anyone and everyone who announces they may have funds? Do they perform searches on everyone who intends to purchase a business? Is everyone discussed on television a subject of a search of her department?

Or is this the reason Jones-Kelley and her department performed questionable searches into Joe the Plumber’s confidential records?

JONES-KELLEY, HELEN
DAYTON, OH 45415
STATE OF OHIO/DEPT DIRECTOR

OBAMA VICTORY FUND
07/30/2008 2500.00 28932562122

JONES-KELLEY, HELEN
DAYTON, OH 45415
STATE OF OHIO

OBAMA, BARACK
VIA OBAMA FOR AMERICA
07/31/2008 200.00 28932640375
07/31/2008 2300.00 28932640375

$5,000 is not one of those small contributions about which we hear from the Obamamedia. No wonder why the Ohio state Senate President who is launching an investigation into the potentially illegal probes into Joe the Plumber’s private financial records issued the following respone to Jones-Kelley’s statement:

Harris [the Ohio state Senate President] called the multiple records checks “questionable” and said he awaits more answers. “It’s kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket,” he said.

If state employees run checks on every person listed in newspaper stories as buying a business, “it must take a lot of people a lot of time to run these checks,” he said. “Where do you draw the line?”

I guess one draws the line along the partisan divide. Or at least this is where Jones-Kelley draws the line when her department rummages through the private lives of those they see on television.

I also found this statement by Jones-Kelley somewhat laughable:

The results of the searches were not publicly released and remain confidential, she wrote.

If this is the case, why did stories such as this diary and this diary surface on the Internet on 16 OCT, or just after Joe the Plumber became a topic of discussion in the media? Who leaked this information to news organizations? Who leaked this information to partisan bloggers?

According to the Dispatch, Jones-Kelley did perform a search in order to determine whether or not Joe the Plumber owed unemployment compensation taxes. What conclusion are we to make now that we know Jones-Kelley is an Obamabot who donated $5,000 to the Obama campaign? Did her office leak records regarding the taxes Wurzelbacher owed to Democratic operatives who then contacted blogs and the traditional media with information that could be used to intimidate and smear Joe the Plumber? What did her office do with this information, and why did they perform these searches?

Be afraid, be very afraid, especially if you reside in Ohio.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need–Karl Marx, 1875.

When asked on Good Morning America (October 24, around 2 minutes), Barack Obama said he did not regret his ‘spread the wealth’ comment. Why should he? His socialist and Marxist past and ideology is coming into sharp focus and out-of-the-closet so-to-speak (See, for example, my article, Obama is Hiding a Radical Past). Past complaints about Obama not having any discernable ideology can now be firmly laid to rest.

In a 2001 public radio interview (see below the fold), Obama clearly faulted the Supreme Court for not reinterpreting the U.S. Constitution to force redistribution of wealth and faulted the civil rights movement for not doing more “political and community organizing and activities on the ground….to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”

Obama aligned himself with a socialist party in 1996 and has longstanding ties to Marxists (e.g., Bill Ayers, Mike Klonsky) who have a record of attacking the United States.

In about one week the American public will have a choice of voting for Barack Obama, a man with personal and professional ties to people espousing Marxist and socialist ideologies, or John McCain, an American patriot who has fought Marxism.

Here are some points to consider:

• Obama’s childhood friend and mentor was avowed communist Frank Marshall Davis, a Soviet agent and member of the Communist Party USA
   
• Obama is a self-proclaimed Marxist
   
• Obama has indisputable ties to groups associated with, supporting, or supported by socialist and communist organizations
   
• Obama is a trained agitator, a disciple of Saul Alinsky. He in turned taught tactics to ACORN.
   
• Obama has close personal, professional, and political ties to terrorists (yes, plural)
   
• Obama has personal, professional, and business ties with a convicted and jailed felon, Antoine Rezko, and his financial patron, Auchi, a close associate of the late Saddam Hussein.
   
• Obama has a 20-year personal and private relationship with anti-American, hate-filled and racists preachers.
   
• Obama entered politics with the endorsement, funding, and support of terrorists, socialists, and others bent on undermining or overthrowing our country.
   

The details on each that substantiate Barack Obama’s long-held views and associations…

• Obama’s childhood friend and mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a black revolutionary who was a well known card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA and a “key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii” (See AIM). Davis even gets mention in one of Obama’s books. In refuting Jerome Corsi’s book, The Obama Nation, Barack Obama published Unfit for Publication that simply claims Davis was a poet and civil rights activist. (Note that Obama equates ‘civil rights activist’ with being a black revolutionary, a communist, and a Soviet agent. Nice.)
   
• In the 1980s after graduating from Columbia University and working in New York City for up to two years, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a “community organizer” for the Developing Communities Project (DCP). DCP employed Saul Alinsky’s approach wherein Obama was a community agitator. Mike Kruglik, an Alinsky desciple and Obama mentor said of Obama, “He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation.”
   

At the heart of the Alinsky method is the concept of “agitation”–making someone angry enough about the rotten state of his life that he agrees to take action to change it; or, as Alinsky himself described the job, to “rub raw the sores of discontent.”—Kruglik in The New Republic.

• In a 1990 interview by Associated Press in the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper, Obama discusses building organizations, as opposed to movements that dissipate. He described the 1960s as failures for raising issues but not offering a viable alternative. In discussing racism and sexism, he called for reshaping America to be, in apparent reference to economic redistribution and reparations, “less mean-spirited and more generous.”
   
• Obama is a self-proclaimed Marxist. Spreading the wealth is Marxism, pure and simple. It is not a casual statement on Obama’s part. Consider his 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview (including complete transcript) where he bemoans that the Supreme Court did not reinterpret the Constitution to force redistribution of wealth in America.
   

As this interview becomes widely viewed on the Internet, the McCain campaign already has out a response:

“The American people continue to learn more about Barack Obama. Now we know that the slogans ‘change you can believe in’ and ‘change we need’ are code words for Barack Obama’s ultimate goal: ‘redistributive change.’ In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the Court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench – as insurance in case a unified Democratic government under his control fails to meet his basic goal: taking money away from people who work for it and giving it to people who Barack Obama believes deserve it. Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change,” McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in a statement.—From Foon Rhee, Boston Globe.

• Obama has indisputable ties to groups associated with, supporting, or supported by socialist and communist organizations. As I wrote in Obama is Hiding a Radical Past, Obama was involved with the Illinois New Party, which was an umbrella group that included participation by the Chicago DSA, the lcoal affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America, the communist Committees of Correspondence, ACORN, and SEIU. Further, as noted in the DSA’s publication, New Ground, “When Obama participated in a 1996 UofC YDS Townhall Meeting on Economic Insecurity, much of what he had to say was well within the mainstream of European social democracy.”
   
• Obama is a trained agitator, a disciple of Saul Alinksy. He in turned taught tactics to Public Allies and to ACORN. In fact, contrary to Obama’s claims that he had no connection with ACORN, Ms. Foulkes, ACORN’s leader in Chicago and member of ACORN’s National Association Board, says, in the Winter 2003 issue of Social Policy (as quoted by Lynn Sweet), that “every year since 1992 until at least the winter of 2003, Mr. Obama taught a “session on power” for ACORN.”
   
• Barack and Michelle Obama have close personal, professional, and political ties to terrorists (yes, plural). William Ayers, along with his wife Bernadine Dohrn, and associates that include Michael Klonsky, a one-time Obama adviser, are domestic terrorists who bombed U.S. Capital, the Pentagon, and other locations. They backed up their calls for insurrection with violence against the United States. The Obamas individual or together worked for, worked with, collaborated with, sponsored, or helped each other. Barack helped Bill dispense $160 million on failed projects in Chicago. The New Yorker played on Obama’s ties much the same as many Obama supporters have adopted Hussein as part of the online names to neutralize the impact. Anyway, only Obama seems concerned about his middle name but everyone should be very concerned about what his association with terrorists suggest about his judgement.
   
• Obama has personal, professional, and business ties with a convicted felon, Antoine Rezko, through whom Obama has long financial dealings, including a self-proclaimed ‘boneheaded’ deal to buy a mansion in Chicago. More importantly Rezko involved Obama with his financial patron, Nadhmi Auchi, a close associate of the late Saddam Hussein.
   
• Obama also has a 20-year personal and private relationship with anti-American, hate-filled and racists preachers like Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Reverend James Meeks, and Father Michael Plfeger. His ties to Minister Farrakhan are unclear though Minister Farrakhan has mirrored his religious brethren in proclaiming Obama The One, The Messiah.
   

• Obama entered politics with the endorsement, funding, and support of terrorists, socialists, and others bent on undermining or overthrowing our country. The evidence is still coming out and is documented in numerous posts. This is no longer speculative or exceptions, it reflects the core of who Obama is and who he has chosen to surround himself with as he sought political office and sought higher office, inclduing now the U.S. presidency.
   

To go so far as to vote for a socialist and Marxist as president of the United States is, in my opinion, national suicide. The United States is a successful market-driven capitalist society. We fought and won the Cold War, fought in Korea, and fought in Vietnam to protect our values against socialism, Marxism, and communism. That we’d now consider voting for a candidate who actually supports the views of our enemies is unconsciousable and disrespecting everything we stand for as a nation. This touches on the very foundations of our country and truly transcends party labels.

Senator Biden today, regarding in particular questions he got last week (See Obama, the Marxist):

Karl Marx and says in a sense, isn’t Barack Obama Karl Marx? You know, I mean, folks, this stuff you’re hearing — this stuff you’re hearing in this campaign, some of it is pretty ugly and some of the innuendo is pretty ugly.”

With all due respect, Senator Biden, it is ugly. It is also in Obama’s own words–both to Joe the Plumber and in a 2001 interview. Not only ugly, but this does not represent what America is all about.

There can be no more patriotic choice for all Americans than to reject Barack Obama and vote instead for John McCain. He knows what America stands for, he has fought for America, and he believes in America.

Cross-posted at my blog, The Independent View.

If he’s a Democrat, I’ll pass. Thanks.

And since I registered as an Independent June 7th, the day Hillary suspended, as a protest to the ‘election selection’, I figure I am immune from the “Obama Collective.”

So there I was the other day, invited into a political debate via email, painstakingly composing all sorts of facts, figures and associations of Obama that would certainly give any reasonable person pause.

You know the litany: 130 present votes, 6 wrong votes, reneging on FISA, NAFTA, public financing, women’s rights, don’t ask don’t tell, Iraq, Israel. Bitter Gate. Sweetie Gate. I mention ACORN, the Fannie and Freddie scandal, caucus fraud, Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, Rezko Auchi, Pleger, Meeks, Pritzker, Khalidi, Al Mansour and the piece de resistance, picking the bloviating, endlessly gaffe prone – Joe Biden. Wow, what judgment, Barack!!!!

I send facts and figures together with, I must say, a rather cogent argument.

They counter with: McCain will croak in office within two months and Palin, spawn of the devil, will be President and ship us all back to the stone age.

I send more info. They reply with: lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala, but he’s a Democrat and we need change.

These are educated people. M’kay.

They tell me I am bitter than Hillary didn’t win. They tell me the people who are for McCain/Palin are from red states and are low-information voters. Oy vey!

I remind them that Howard Stern had an adorable little video out the other day interviewing NY Obama supporters who were very approving of the fact that Obama had selected Palin as his VP! Go listen for yourself. High information, indeed.

Boy, it must be nice to be a big city Dem and think you know every damned thing, huh? I sure found out from my 800+ GOTV phone calls for Hillary, speaking to plenty of red state voters of both parties, there are a lot of very interesting and well informed people out there.

So these big city slickers better get off their high horses and stop treating everybody else like “the fly-over people.”

To that end, one of our readers put up a wonderful comment in response to my story re Governor Palin’s great speech on behalf of women in Henderson, NV the other day.

To LJ, we thank you for a great post. Enjoy…

“Thank you No Quarter! It’s not easy being a young, female liberal-turned-conservative in New York City – your posts and your reader community keep me sane. I can’t wait to cast my vote for McCain/Palin ‘08!! I sincerely hope we use the momentum and inspiration of the 2008 campaign to better our country even after Election Day. Like Sarah said, “never again!” Do not forget how we’ve been duped by party politics and how our economy was wrecked by corrupt politicians and their social-engineering programs. We should scrutinize every politician who wants OUR vote the way we have scrutinized McCain and Obama…freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

I’ve been rooting for McCain since the first debate, when he offered insightful, realizable solutions and showed the depth of his foreign policy experience. He inspired me to get out in my community and help where I can (by volunteering mostly). My boyfriend was also a Navy man and served this country. There is something these boys have – honor, respect for “the office, not the man”, love of country, love of service – they don’t complain, they do something about it. McCain may not be right 100% of the time as President (no one is), but from what I have seen, he will lead our country with courage and pragmatism.

As for Governor Palin, I was intrigued by her at first. I didn’t know anything about her so I didn’t pre-judge. I think her personal story is compelling (despite my fancy education, I have a lot of respect for people who worked their way up and are self-made). I think she has demonstrated experience running an executive office and negotiating with powerful interests, like the Alaska legislature and the oil companies. When you actually listen to her on the campaign trail and read the FULL versions of her interviews (not that travesty of an interview done by Charles Gibson in which half of what she said was cut out so she sounded incoherent), she is insightful and pragmatic on many issues. Faced with the Democratic choice of an inexperienced, machine party politician from Chicago, a run-at-the-mouth career politician, and the triple threat of a liberal supermajority in the WH, Congress and the Supreme Court…I am willing to give Sarah a chance.

However, my office has become inflicted with Palin Derangement Syndrome. Every day, they drag in “news” about her SAT scores, about how many colleges she went to, about her “prom queen hair”, about how she has no “family values” because her daughter is pregnant. It’s constant “Harvard good!,” “state school bad!” I don’t want to shatter their delusions and tell them Obama probably got into Harvard due to affirmative action policies and since he won’t release his scores, you don’t know how poorly or well he did (btw – these are the same affirmative action policies the New Yorkers grumble about because it keeps their prep-schooled, Kaplan-tutored kids from getting into their mommy or daddy’s alma mater. Hypocrisy stinks.)

It is sad that the so-called “educated” New Yorkers who pride themselves on how many degrees they have and how many museums they attend in a weekend can only resort to insults, ridicule and their own brand of fear-mongering (“She’s a redneck! She shoots moose! she believes in creationism!”). The women who hate Sarah because she is a conservative are the flag carriers of the “femi-nazi” movement. They think because she thinks differently, she has somehow betrayed women.

I consider myself a strong, independent women who can fight my own battles and I’ll wear heels and lipstick while doing it – thank you very much.

I appreciate the feminists who have made it possible for us to keep breaking the glass ceiling, but these “femi-nazis” would just as readily tear down any woman or man who doesn’t fall in line with their agenda. They don’t stand up and cry “foul” when those awful shirts about Sarah are worn. They don’t say boo about violence toward women when there is an artist in NYC who has erected a cardboard cutout of Sarah in a gallery and participants can take a SHOTGUN and SHOOT at the cutout.

I am not for stopping their right to act like fools and rabid dogs under the 1st Amendment, but maybe a public condemnation against this exhibit from a WOMEN’S ADVOCACY GROUP might be in order?! Doesn’t this de-sensitize violence against women?! The ACLU brings legal action against Christmas displays and the military’s flag-folding ceremonies…and this behavior doesn’t even get a stern frown or a letter from NOW??!!! They should be called NOW WHAT because they have no idea what to fight for anymore.

The funniest thing is, when I ask these “intellectuals” to debate me on the issues (since I actually KNOW what I am talking about and can give them a run for their money , they don’t bite. It’s easier for them to sit in the warm glow of PDS, feeling oh-so-smart about themselves. Palin Derangement Syndrome is the new Bush Derangement Syndrome.”

Excellent, LJ.

And let us not forget Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Lord knows, we suffered through that one lo these many months. Brave Hillary and her family suffered most of all. How tragic that Hillary opened the door for Sarah Palin to step through, when Hillary, more than anyone, deserved to step through it herself. Hopefully, some years from now, Hillary will.

If McPalin can surmount the Obama Collective’s Money Printing Machine and the MSM, otherwise known as Barack’s personal PR firm, Hillary’s daily flogging may indirectly be an aid to getting them elected. We are now hyper aware and ready to fight back. We will never again be caught off guard.

I am ashamed of men so lacking in self awareness they would vilify a woman, revealing their own insecurity with themselves. Likewise, I am ashamed of women using sexist attacks to degrade yet another woman, not caring that they both degrade and betray themselves, and all of us, in the process.

How gratifying to know that there are high-information voters out there, on both coasts and everywhere in between, who know better than to drink the kool-aid and can think very well for themselves.

More power to you all.

I would like you to think about some numbers:

In the 2004 Presidential election there were more than 122,000,000 votes cast. In 2006 for the Congressional race, which put the Democrats in charge of both the House and the Senate, 80 plus million people voted. I was surprised that 42 million folks decided not to vote.

Now look at the media numbers. According to Drudge Report, the number of folks watching nightly network news is less than 22 million:

CBSNEWS w/ Couric shed a half a million viewers, falling from 6.4 million to 5.9 million;
ABCNEWS dropped from 8.1 million to 7.6 million;
NBCNEWS slumped from 8.2 million to 7.8 million.

The numbers for cable shows is even less. Fox News, with O’Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes, sits atop the heap with around 4.3 million viewers. CNN and MSNBC combined rarely exceed 4 million viewers. Let’s be generous and assume that no one watches more than one show and that the “viewers” are individual and unique. For the national news shows we are talking around 30 million people tops.

Radio, by contrast, reaches over 160 million people each day. And conservatives appear to continue to dominate in this market. Rush Limbaugh, for example, attracts around 14 million listeners. (Note–I have not located a comprehensive summary breaking down total numbers for conservative vice liberal radio stations. If you have it please post below or send me an email and I’ll update this piece)

So where are most of the people who are voting getting their information? It looks to me like radio, rather than network television, is the key medium. I’m also curious about the televised medias’ constant drumbeat against Sarah Palin while she continues to to draw record crowds to her events. Sarah’s authenticity, like that of Joe the Plumber, has struck a chord with average Americans that the media elites don’t comprehend.

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports:

As Election Day looms just over two weeks away, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Saturday that with Republicans firing “vicious” and “dangerous” attacks at Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voters are “having a difficult time” opting for the man who would become the nation’s first African American president.

Vicious and dangerous attacks? McCain/Palin are asking Obama to answer legitimate policy questions in re his revealing statement to Joe the Plumber that he wants to “spread the wealth around” and what that really means for Joe and Jane taxpayer.

They want Obama to explain to the American people why he launched his political career in the living room of unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. They want him to acknowledge his role in our economic mess as he was one of the people who “voted present” on stronger regulations re Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They want to know the extent of Obama’s ties with ACORN – and it has already been proven that there are many.

What is vicious and dangerous about that? Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. These are questions any other candidate would have to answer. But, in another effort to change the subject, here is Joe-the-Senator at his finest:

“Undecided people are having a difficult time just culturally making the change, making the move for the first African American president in the history of the United States of America,” the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said at a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday evening. “So we need to respond. We need to respond at the moment, immediately, not wait, not hang around, not assume any of this won’t stick.”

Culturally? What is Biden trying to say here? Perhaps he is playing the race card just like Senator Obama did a couple of months ago when he said ‘I know I don’t look like the face of most of the guys you see on the dollar bill.’

Culturally? Is Biden implying that those who haven’t yet bowed before the messiah are racist? Oh, no he didn’t! Ironic he made these comments at – you guessed it – another San Francisco fundraiser. Oh, this is too good to be true. Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Did he really open his big fat yaw before the hoi polloi in San Francisco at a fund raiser – the same way Obama did when he made his infamous ‘bitter voter’ comments back in April? Did Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden really infer that undecided voters are having trouble voting for Obama because they are having trouble ‘seeing’ a bi-racial man in the White House?

Yep. Joe played the race card yet again. Tell me Senator Biden, did you have an indoctrination session at Camp Obama and did they use the Alinsky method in training you how to employ the race card as an argument to buffer any and all legitimate questions about your unqualified and dissembling candidate?

“You see these vicious attacks on Barack’s character,” Biden told supporters. “I mean, this is dangerous stuff these guys are doing. This stuff is on the edge. It’s on the edge. You know, there’s some folks out there in the community nationwide that aren’t as stable as others. It’s a very small minority. But having these rallies where people are showing up saying, you know, the things they’re saying – I don’t even want to repeat them — it’s not a healthy thing.”

Biden cited automated GOP calls describing Obama as having “worked closely” with “domestic terrorist Bill Ayers”.

He did work closely with Ayers. This is the truth. They have known each other for years. They have served on boards together. Obama profited by his association with Ayers, repeatedly. Hello. These are legitimate concerns.

He doesn’t want to repeat the “things they are saying?” Repeat what? Senator Biden, I am calling you out on the carpet and I dare you to look me in the eye and say this same crap. The FBI already debunked the nonsense that anyone called Obama a terrorist – they were calling Ayers a terrorist – which admittedly, he is – and an unrepentant one at that.

But Joe doesn’t have a problem with people walking around threatening violence against Sarah Palin or wearing T-shirts that say “Sarah Palin is a c*nt.” Nor does the Obama campaign have problem with their supporters in Florida calling a twelve year old child a racist for wearing a Sarah Palin T-Shirt.

Is that not dangerous, Joe? I guess you “don’t want to repeat” those comments either huh, Joe? Is that not a healthy thing?

Let’s pretend for the sake of argument, I am an undecided voter. Here is a sampling of a few of my concerns:

• His voting record – 130 present votes and 6 ‘wrong’ votes in the IL State Senate. His lack of moral courage and skipping out on or capitulating on important votes in the U.S. Senate. FISA chief among them.
• His daily playing of the race card to advantage himself.
• His 20 years of nefarious, crooked, and divisive business and personal associations with Rezko, Wright, Ayers, Auchi, Khalidi, Al Mansour, Pritzker, Jarrett, Pfleger, Meeks and more.
• His major policy reversals on critical issues, i.e., FISA, Israel, don’t ask don’t tell, public financing, NAFTA, Iraq, women’s rights, gun control; touting Bush’s faith based initiatives, and wanting to keep Blackwater going.
• His desire to spread the wealth around with economic policies that do not work.
• His illegal activities to win the primary, including over 2,000 documented instances of caucus fraud and blocking re-votes in MI and FL.
• His receiving huge contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the organizations at the center of our current economic mess.
• His lack of any governing, or executive experience and his lack of knowledge on critical issues of domestic and foreign policy – as he has demonstrated repeatedly on the campaign trail. Russia’s recent aggression on Georgia comes to mind.
• The fact that you can never get a straight answer from him on any of his policies or associations – just more double talk and distraction.

These are just a few questions that might be giving people pause at the voting booth. Please tell me – someone, anyone – what does that have to do with “cultural” predisposition; or more accurately, race bias?

Biden hit the Bay Area for three fundraisers Saturday, helping rake in an estimated $2.2 million for the campaign. At his second event of the day, in Piedmont, Biden predicted that the ticket will experience a drop in polls this week.

“Mark my words, you’re going to see these polls drop this week,” Biden forecasted. “We got a bump. We’re going to be in good shape. You’re going to see them drop. There’s nothing automatic about this at all.”

Obviously, Biden knows that Obama’s gaffe with Joe the plumber hurt them; rightfully so. And by gaffe I mean, Obama had a rare unscripted moment without his teleprompter and he told the truth for once about his policies and his attitudes. And for that he is now going to pay a legitimate price. So, once again, they are trying to distract the voters.

Joe the Plumber is certainly paying a price – Obama showed up on Joe’s front lawn at a campaign stop. Joe asked a simple question and for that his entire life has been invaded and turned up side down. Not only has Obama belittled Joe the Plumber, but the media is out for blood. And Joe-everyman-working-guy-coal-miner-six-term-Senator-elitist-Biden has derided him as well. Shame on him. Shame on them all.

Make no mistake – these attacks on Joe everyman are also costing the elitists Obama/Biden in the polls. To reassure their rich donors, Biden said:

“It costs tens of millions of dollars to do this. And that’s our secret weapon. That is our equalizer to when anybody talks about the Bradley effect. This is the ultimate equalizer.”

That is very much in evidence – in this no lose year for Democrats, Obama is spending obscene amounts of money saturating the TV market to “counteract the Bradley effect.” He does not dare to tell the truth to their rich donors. It is not the Bradley effect people are having a problem with – it is the Obama effect – the effect of a dishonest, secretive, inexperienced man taking office at one of the most difficult junctures in our recent history. But Biden boasted that Obama has the capacity to withstand GOP attacks and win the White House.

“Barack Obama communicates an absolute sense and certainty that is the most typical American instinct that there is,” Biden said. …”That’s why he touched those people helping feed us tonight.”

Elitist! Is Biden referring to the folks serving him his expensive 5-course dinner? How nice of Biden to refer to the people waiting tables at this expensive fundraiser. How does he know Obama has touched them – did he ever ask?? I doubt it. Elitists of all stripes have a bad habit of being encapsulated in their rarified air, so sure they know what is best for everyone else.

And here is the icing on the cake from Biden:

“I never thought I could be part of it – a part of seeing to it that we for the first and significant, fundamentally significant way, put a lot of that past behind us and began to unite the nation.”

Imagine trying to ‘guilt’ the American people into electing someone who is completely unqualified and unreliable as Commander in Chief. Obama has never stood up to his party. He has never expended any political capital on a tough vote. He has never done anything but move with the prevailing wind.

How can we rely on him when our backs are to the wall? Isn’t it possible that we are worried about whether this man can and will protect us and have our best interests at heart? He has shown no need thus far to come clean and answer the questions burning in the minds of many Americans. Why should we trust him if he clearly does not trust us?

If this is the way that Obama/Biden and the svengali race-baiting David Axelrod are uniting the nation, by inferring that anyone not voting for Obama is a racist, then I will pass on their kind of unity.

Senator Biden is indeed the gift that keeps on giving. I am sure John McCain hopes that both he and Obama will keep showing their true nature to the American people. It’s a winning strategy – for the Republicans.

Once again, in closing, I must say, shame on you, Senator Biden.

Shame on you.