Tag: obama

Few Obama voters knew potential negatives

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.

Auto makers bailout – Open Forum

Apparently, no one likes my suggestion to sell Obama gear to bail out the (Sorta) Big Three automakers, so Congress is debating giving billions to them.

This week, Congress will consider whether to cough up billions of dollars to bail out the troubled companies.
There are loud advocates with strong arguments on both sides.
Proponents of a bailout say that the industry is a victim of the global financial crisis. Wall Street has been bailed out, so why not Detroit?
They say millions of jobs could be lost and more than $100 billion in wages sliced out of an already-fragile U.S. economy.
“It would be a travesty for the irresponsible, reckless behavior of Wall Street to result in the sweeping away of the American automobile industry,” said Mike Jackson, CEO of Autonation, the nation’s largest auto dealership group. “If indeed it came to bankruptcy, it’s going to make what happened with Lehman Brothers and all the consequences of that a nice day.”
On the other side are those who feel just as strongly that the automakers’ problems are their own doing, born of bad business decisions, uncompetitive labor agreements and vehicles that Americans have decided are second-rate.

In my very small sampling of friends, radio DJs, and Internet blogs, the verdict appears to be running against a bailout. Youngstown, Ohio’s Hot 101 radio station is running their own auto bailout promo, giving away a car, since the Washington DC version doesn’t help anyone except execs (at least that’s what the promo suggests).
What say you?

Ayers defends terrorist past and relationship with Obama

I can’t find an embed code but the ABC News video is here and the article is here.
He says they didn’t hurt or kill anybody but then he says about whatever they did,

“We knew it was wrong. We knew it was illegal. We knew it was immoral,” he said, but the group’s members felt they “had to do more” to stop the Vietnam War.

And then he urges action today to stop the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

He urged people today “to participate in resistance, in nonviolent, direct action” to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He says non-violent but he says they didn’t hurt anyone before when apparently the Weather Underground bombed buildings with people in them.
This blog claims to have an excerpt of Fugitive Days where he is fuzzy but claims responsibility for bombing. I am looking for a copy where I can verify it.
If he is trying to come across as someone who is noble in his activism, it doesn’t sell well to me.

Berg vs. Obama: Update and current status

As I noted previously, Philip Berg petitioned on October 30 to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari in regard to his citizenship challenge against Barack Obama. Mr. Berg also asked the Supreme Court to stay the election in order that Mr. Obama’s citizenship could be verified. As we all know, Justice David Souter denied the request to stay the election but curiously did not dismiss the application for certiorari. Instead in accord with Supreme Court rules, December 1 was set as the deadline for President-elect Obama, the DNC and the FEC to respond to Berg’s writ. Because the Supreme Court docket 08-570 indicated that the defendants had until December 1 to respond to Berg’s application, some bloggers have erroneously proclaimed that Obama has until December 1 to produce his birth certificate. Not so. He might respond but then again he could choose not to do so.
Yesterday, I spoke with Patricia Estrada, spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, who filled in some additional details. She clarified that none of the defendants are required to file a brief in response. She also indicated that about 10,000 certiorari petitions are filed per year and under 100 are granted and then argued by the full court.
I then called the Office of the Solicitor General to ask if a response was planned by December 1. Evan Peterson emailed the following statement.

Under the Supreme Court rules, the government has until Dec. 1 to respond to the petition for certiorari. No decision has been made as to whether or when the government will file a response.
Evan Peterson
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

So Mr. Berg’s odds don’t look good and it is unclear if the Solicitor General will get involved. If the Justices grant certiorari (review), I suspect it would be on the question of whether Berg had standing as a citizen to bring suit challenging the citizenship of Obama. As I understand it, then the case would go back to the District Court for trial.
UPDATE: Berg has an ad in this week’s Washington Times weekly magazine asking for donations and people to call their Congressional representatives over Obama’s citizenship.

Bailoutarama – First the banks, now the cars, who's next?

Maybe the DNC; check out this email from Obama’s uber-campaign manager David Plouffe.

Friend —
Our friends at the Democratic National Committee laid it all on the line to bring change this year.
We’ve been reviewing the books, and the DNC went into considerable debt to secure victory for Barack and Joe. It took unprecedented resources to staff up all 50 states, train field organizers, and build the technology to reach as many swing voters as possible.
It worked.
But it also left the DNC in debt. So before we do anything else, we need to help pay for this winning strategy.
Make a donation of $30 or more now and you’ll get a limited edition 2008 Victory T-shirt.
The DNC’s 50-state field strategy was crucial to our campaign’s success, as well as victories for Democrats up and down the ballot. Their organizing infrastructure allowed us to compete — and win — in states that seemed insurmountable just four years ago.
They took out substantial loans to make it happen. The DNC didn’t hold back, and now, neither can we.
You were there for this campaign when we needed to reach out to more voters and compete in more states. Now we’re relying on grassroots supporters like you to come through for this movement once again.
We’ll get to work transforming this country. But first, we need to take care of the DNC.
Please make a donation of $30 or more today and receive your Obama Victory T-shirt:
Thank you for everything,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Can we take care of the DNC first? Yes We Can!
How about we fix the liquidity problems by selling off Obama brand name products?
Union guys who helped elect Obama can surely afford a few more t-shirts. Check out how the UAW fixes up the members.
Charles Martin points us to a brief but fine analysis by Larry Kudlow at National Review of the bailout biz. Kudlow point out how much the Big (shrinking) Three pay their employees versus the competition.

Total compensation per hour for the big-three carmakers is $73.20. That’s a 52 percent differential from Toyota’s (Detroit South) $48 compensation (wages + health and retirement benefits). In fact, the oversized UAW-driven pay package for Detroit is 132 percent higher than that of the entire manufacturing sector of the U.S., which comes in at $31.59.
I don’t care how much money Congress throws at GM. With that kind of oversized comp-package they are not gonna be competitive. It’s throwin’ bad money after a bad cause. What a way to start the new Obama era.

Billion t-shirts should cover it.