Year: 2008

Mitt Romney thinks so.
Loan or not, the long term issues must be confronted. Romney’s ideas seem reasonable.

Barack Obama is floating Eric Holder (Bill Clinton’s Deputy AG) as his Atty General pick. Add this name to John Podesta (co-chair transition team), Rahm Emanuel (Chief of Staff) and Hillary (if the Secretary of State story turns out to be true) and you have a Clinton reunion. Surely Obama could find something for Bill to do.
I can hear justin timberlake now…”I’m bringing Clinton back. Them other pols don’t know how to act…”

In the 2008 election, voters knew lots of negatives regarding McCain-Palin but very few about Obama-Biden – so says a poll conducted by Zogby International. Conducted for documentarian, John Ziegler, the poll seems to indicate most voters consumed media which placed McCain-Palin in a more negative light than Obama-Biden.

“After I interviewed Obama voters on Election Day for my documentary, I had a pretty low opinion of what most of them had picked up from the media coverage of the campaign, but this poll really proves beyond any doubt the stunning level of malpractice on the part of the media in not educating the Obama portion of the voting populace,” said Ziegler.
Ninety-four percent of Obama voters correctly identified Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, 86% correctly identified Palin as the candidate associated with a $150,000 wardrobe purchased by her political party, and 81% chose McCain as the candidate who was unable to identify the number of houses he owned. When asked which candidate said they could “see Russia from their house,” 87% chose Palin, although the quote actually is attributed to Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey during her portrayal of Palin during the campaign. An answer of “none” or “Palin” was counted as a correct answer on the test, given that the statement was associated with a characterization of Palin.
Obama voters did not fare nearly as well overall when asked to answer questions about statements or stories associated with Obama or Biden — 83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.
Nearly three quarters (72%) of Obama voters did not correctly identify Biden as the candidate who had to quit a previous campaign for President because he was found to have plagiarized a speech, and nearly half (47%) did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as President.

During the campaign, I pointed out a Rasmussen poll which suggested the media leaned Obama’s way. Another way of interpreting this outcome is that voters cared more about the issues correctly identified than the others. I think I am biased, but the MSM certainly seemed to overlook relevant issues. I felt like Obama’s record as a State Senator was largely untouched, whereas Sarah Palin’s record as Governor was mined in detail.

Via Drudge, this news comes in. With an eye to 2012 perhaps, Barack Obama offered the Secretary of State position to Hillary Clinton and according to the Guardian (UK), she will accept.
UPDATE: There has been little follow through on this announcement from the Guardian. Politico.com is reporting that the deal is not yet done and is upsetting Progressives.

I didn’t write about Proposition 8 in CA during the election season, primarily because I had become preoccupied with the general election and the historic campaign. However, as all know, Proposition 8 in CA passed and has set off a firestorm of reaction. Protests this past weekend were widespread nationally (see this link for more than most people will want to read).
However, I want to post this video because I hope it serves as a caution to those on both sides of the gay rights issue. I am saddened by the treatment of the Christian believers who apparently were not there to celebrate the passage of Proposition 8, but as a resumption of an outreach. I also believe that the anger and ugliness reveals the rejection that many gays feel from the Prop 8 defeat. I hope leaders of both sides will step up and call for calm and cooling off.

Rejecting violence while experiencing empathy for the angry is not likely to be a popular position. I watch this video and I wonder, how can we live together? How can such divergent value positions co-exist in a society that often changes by degrees and not by fiat? Mostly, as I watched the impromptu march, I just felt sad and long for a better resolution.
Update: Some reactions to this from both sides of the spectrum. Pam’s House Blend says, “This kind of activism isn’t helping” and this blog offers more from the perspective of the group of Christians chased out of the Castro.
GayPatriot has some good advice for activists…