Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Back on track

First off, Obama's back! Leading by two points in the latest Gallup tracker. But anyway, let's get down to the nitty gritty:

1. Palin's favorable ratings taking a dive (net favorable rating over time):

Looks a little like the stock market, doesn't it? Actually, to be fair, her favorable ratings actually haven't changed that much. 48% of voters liked her right off the bat, and roughly 48% still do. What's changed is those who didn't know her well enough in the beginning now do. And they don't like her.

Probably because she's a pathological liar. After all, she's lied about everything from bridges to nowhere, to how much energy Alaska actually produces (remember, she's the best energy expert EVAH), to whether or not she had to wing her convention speech.

She also can't keep her stories straight on Troopergate, which is probably a bad sign, and the McCain campaign is doing its best to obstruct the investigation. Well gee, McCain, maybe you should have vetted her first, huh?

2. Carly Fiorina has been thrown under the bus for suggesting that Palin is not experienced enough to be a CEO of a major company. McCain was reportedly "furious".

Heh.

3. Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, some super rich snooty person, and one of Hillary's biggest fundraisers, says that she cannot support Obama because he's too "elitist", and will be supporting McCain. Seriously. Could I even make something like that up?

4. Michael Kinsley has the goods: Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans, even if you only care about low taxes, GDP growth, and low government spending.

Democrats should really hammer home the message that whatever tax cuts the Republicans promise are illusory. At least "tax and spend" is an honest way to go about it; Bush cut taxes and spent anyway. Deficit spending should always be thought of as just another tax, because ultimately, the government cannot spend money that doesn't exist. To finance the debt, it can raise taxes in the future, or devalue the currency. Either way, you get screwed.

5. Ruth Marcus has an excellent editorial in the Washington Post about the utter lack of moral equivalence between the two Presidential campaigns.

6. And finally, John Cole is exasperated with the chutzpah of John McCain (in response to McCain's mocking of Obama's fundraiser in California):

The cynicism of the Republicans just never stops, does it? While the government is taking over ginormous businesses which are failing in large part due to the efforts of McCain and the Republican party, making taxholders responsible for hundreds of billions, John McCain is on the dole for another $84 million of taxpayer money, which he is using to mock private efforts to finance a political campaign.

That is right, the guy who gets thousands of dollars a month from the government for his disability and his service in the military (money I do not for one second begrudge him, btw), is married into millions of someone elses money, who has the best health care that OUR money can buy, draws a yearly salary that you and I pay, is partially responsible for the hundreds of billions we are now on the hook for regarding the subprime mess, who wants to continue the fiscally irresponsible management of George Bush, and who just took near 100 million more from you and me to finance his campaign, is mocking the private financing of a campaign.

Fiscal conservatism. What a fucking racket.

This is a salient point to note: the American taxpayer is actually paying for John McCain's disgrace of a campaign.

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