Things you really don't want, but that you have to say thank you for anyway
To the delight of the Obama campaign, Darth Cheney endorses the McCain-Fey ... er ... Palin ...ticket:
"I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Sen. John McCain," said Cheney, who grew up in Wyoming and represented the state in the U.S. House of Representatives. "John is a man who understands the danger facing America. He's a man who has looked into the face of evil and not flinched."
Cheney also said he was pleased McCain has "chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness and common sense, our next vice president, Sarah Palin."
Oh, that'l help...
At an appearance Saturday in Pueblo, Colo., Obama used the Cheney endorsement to underscore his charge that McCain represents a continuation of current policies in Washington.
"I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it," Obama said. "That endorsement didn't come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it."
And McCain can't pull a grandpa and claim he "doesn't agree" that the endorsement ever happened, cuz it's on the Youtube:
Joe Biden told supporters in Ohio that putting John McCain in the White House would guarantee four more years of “clinging” to George W. Bush’s economic policies.
“I watched on the bus coming over on the television I have on the bus. Just today, Vice President Cheney came out and endorsed John McCain,” said Biden. “Folks, if you need any more proof!”
He walked on stage in the Marion Harding High School gym and held up a white t-shirt he had been handed by the state’s lieutenant governor.
“It says, ‘Obama, O'Biden, Ohio, ‘08’!” announced Biden to cheers from the crowd of around 400 people. “Well, I'm Joe O'Biden!”
From the pages of the thoroughly un-Socialist London weekly:
It's time
Oct 30th 2008 From The Economist print edition
America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world
T IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal government’s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.
For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
The most damning assessment?
Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.
Gen. Powell is giving a press conference right now after his "MTP" interview, in which he endorsed Barack Obama, met the press (before it's airtime.) Powell was asked the obligatory "what about your record on the war?" question, and he's talking now about the negativity of the McCain campaign (particularly the Bill Ayers sludge,) and the role that played in his decision. Powell is breaking such orthodoxy china as saying "taxes are necessary for the public good," and he criticized the Bush administration's handling of the war. He said McCain would "follow the orthodoxy of the Republican party" rather than bring change, and said that his endorsement was a look "forward to 2009," rather than backward. Big day for the Obama campaign. So much for Sarah Palin's non-surprise appearance on the lamest "SNL" in weeks perking up that campaign...
... which was going to have a big day anyway, given that it raised a staggereing $150 million last month. Is it too late for McCain to suspend his campaign again?
Al Gore will make his Obama endorsement tonight at 8:30 p.m. from a rally in Detroit. The endorsement will be streamed live on BarackObama.com. Gore has already penned a fundraising email for the campaign.
UPDATE: And here it is. It should be added that Gore risked nothing with this post-nomination endorsement, but it's a nice thing for Barack to have, particularly given Gore's popularity with the Democratic base (including here in "Florida, Florida, Florida" -- with props to the late Tim Russert ...) and his credibility on issues like climate change. Besides, by doing the endorsement in Michigan, Gore helped Barack's team collect maybe 20,000 more Michigan names and email addresses for the November ground game. And that's change we can believe in.
A wise Obama operative recently said to me that the importance of a 50-state election strategy is not some pie-in-the-sky belief that your candidate can run the table, but rather, the importance of having a campaign in every state where you think you can make some gains down the ticket. As this operative put it, "when you're president, you want to have as many friends (in Congress) as possible.
Well, when you're the presumptive nominee, you also gain a lot of friends you didn't think you have.
Eleven of the nation's governors will have to perform some political sleight of hand now that Barack Obama has effectively clinched the Democratic nomination for president. After months of supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton, they will have to convince voters they're just as happy with her rival.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland repeatedly has said Obama is less experienced than Clinton. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said the election was not about choosing a rock star.
"He needs a little more seasoning," Gov. Mike Beebe of Arkansas said at a rally last August where he announced his endorsement of Clinton.
Nonetheless, an Associated Press tally of convention delegates found that Obama had effectively locked up the nomination as of Tuesday.
Other governors supporting Clinton include Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, along with the chief executives of Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New York and North Carolina.
Obama also has 11 Democratic governors, including Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, frequently mentioned as a possible running mate.
She tried to minimize the downside of switching candidates.
"Every colleague that I have in this country will do everything he or she can to make sure we have a Democratic president," Sebelius said.
Six other Democratic leaders are uncommitted, among them Govs. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Brian Schweitzer of Montana.
All aboard, folks. The train, she is leaving the station.
South Dakota and Montana close it out for Barack tonight. |
Here's the long-awaited two-shot. Call it the "reverse Miami Vice" ticket, the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ticket (h/t to Chris Matthews) or the Abercrombie & Fitch ticket, but some campaign watchers, including my husband Jason, are calling it the future Democratic ticket. I still rank Edwards fourth, behind Chuck Hagel, Jim Webb and Tedd Strickland, but here's the MSNBC write-up on Edwards' equally long-awaited endorsement of Barack Obama. (P.S.: NARAL endorsed Barack today, too.)
Does it still matter that at long last, John Edwards is endorsing Barack Obama? Not as much as it would have before North Carolina (or hell, West Virginia, where Edwards got 7 percent of the vote, and where the possibility of campaigning together around the state might have enticed Barack to spend some time and money...) but it doesn't not matter either. In the wake of Obama's rejection by hard-working white Americans (the new, colorful term for racist Appalachian rusticators...) having a good ole' boy in his corner can't hurt.
The endorsement matters in three other ways as well.
- First, it puts the slap to Hillary's claim that her big win in West Virginia is a game changer that will make superdelegates sit up and take notice. They've taken notice, and one of the biggest remaining players has chosen her opponent. And it throws ice cold water all over her "big win."
- It also sends a strong signal to Edwards' natural demographics: union workers, lower middle class whites and southerners, that despite the results in West Virginia, Obama is a.o.k. That could be helpful in Kentucky, and if Obama's numbers improve there, it will put Edwards in a good position with the candidate (just in case he's interested in having a working relationship.)
- Third, Edwards' timing is actually pretty good (assuming it's his timing, and not joint timing with the campaign, which could very well be the case.) He jumps smack dab into the news cycle at the same time most news organizations are busy yanking Hillary's press details, downshifting from the horse race coverage and downplaying the WV effect on this now largely concluded campaign. That means Edwards will get ink for days. Also good for him, good for Obama.
And you've got to figure he took a beating from Elizabeth to get this one to happen, because you KNOW she's a Hillary girl. So you go, John, with your cute self. Way to keep the dream of that reverse Miami Vice ticket alive! Watch for those two-shots. They'll be all over the web tomorrow.
Two former senators with long records on foreign policy and national security issues -- and who come from "red" states where Republicans dominate -- have just endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the White House.
Sam Nunn of Georgia and David Boren of Oklahoma, both Democrats (as is Obama), will also be serving as advisers on Obama's national security foreign policy team.
Meanwhile, New York magazine reports that one-time "friend of Bill" and former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich will this afternoon also endorse Obama. Reich is set to make his announcement official around 1 p.m. ET, on his blog.
According to New York Magazine's John Heilemann, the reasoning behind Reich's decision to endorse is particularly biting:
Now, in one sense, the Reich endorsement comes as no great surprise. For some time, it's been clear to anyone paying attention that Reich favors Obama. Back in December, in a blog post titled "Why is HRC Stooping So Low?," Reich loudly and sharply criticized Clinton's conduct in Iowa and defended Obama's proposals for health-care and Social Security reform. Two days before the race-charged South Carolina primary, he assailed Bill Clinton's "ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks" on Obama, arguing that they were "doing no credit to the former president, his legacy, or his wife's campaign." And all throughout the primary season, he has spoken and written of Obama's candidacy with evident admiration and enthusiasm.
But Reich insists that the endorsement does indeed come as a surprise — to him. As we chatted in Washington, where Reich had come from Berkeley, where he teaches, to give a speech and meet with some Democrats on Capitol Hill, he explained that, despite the criticisms he's made of the Clintons ("I call it as I see it"), he had planned to refrain from offering an official backing for Obama out of respect for Hillary. "She's an old friend," Reich said. "I've known her 40 years. I was absolutely dead set against getting into the whole endorsement thing. I've struggled with it. I've not wanted to do it. Out of loyalty to her, I just felt it would be inappropriate."
So what's changed? I asked Reich.
"I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past twenty years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical."
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
