McCain looks like he's grasping for straws. Law of diminishing returns will kick in if he tries to uses Ayers and Wright.

I dont know about that. He has allowed the Rev. Wright thing to die down long enough that he may be able to roll it out with a different sweater on and get people on it again.

Obama: McCain wants to 'gamble' with Social Security

Obama: McCain wants to 'gamble' with Social Security - CNN.com

Lord, these color-coded articles from Flasch are going to throw my eyesight to hell in a handbasket.

luckily Im sure you have health insurance with a vision supplement so you can get that checked out and lets keep religion out of it ;)

Hadn't seen this mentioned yet. More Hollywood actors deciding to voice their biased opinions in a public forum not intended for politics. I don't think these people have any idea how much their comments are hurting the liberal cause. This year's Emmy show was the lowest rated ever............

Political digs slipped into Emmys - Entertainment News, Los Angeles, Media - Variety

It's obviously a shame that SNL chose to bring in Al Franken to write the skit for this week's SNL opening. Last week's Palin/Clinton skit was hilarious. This week's attempt at Palin humor by Franken fell flat on its face.........

NBC jokes: Todd Palin has sex with daughters

FWIW Mizzou (reaching across the aisle if i'm not mistaken) I agree with you on both these points.

For actors to think that their political inclination is going to get anyone to change their vote is the height of egotism. I wish they'd all collectively (D+R) STFU. They can fundraise all they want - hell they can even attend private parties and act out plays or whatever for the people there...I don't give a shit. But for them to babble on and on is insulting -- because I'm fairly certain the vast majority of them have less time to think about and research politics than the average american, so frankly the opinion of the guy next to me on the train who's been paying more attention is likely to be more informed.

and as for the humor -- there's a line there to be sure. i didn't see SNL this week, but if the title of that clip is any indication, that's over the line.

I understand that claim, but using a 'Palin molests his children' tact for the skit to make that point was WAY out of line. There are plenty of other topics that could have been used to make that point.

Would it have been just as funny a skit if it was FOXNews that was insinuating that Obama molests his daughters? It certainly would not have been for me.

So your original 'conservatives don't get the humor' argument fell flat on its face, so you switch to sarcasm? Pretty weak.

It's only false outrage if you can't put yourself in the position of the Palin family. I'd want to F somebody up if they even made that kind of statement in a joking manner about myself and my daughter, even if my wife were running for office. It's ridiculously over the line.

Today's Polls...

National

Gallup (RV): Obama 48-44
Rasmussen (LV): Obama 48-47
Battleground (LV): McCain 48-47
Research 2000/DKos (LV): Obama 49-43

State

VA: Obama 51-45 (Survey USA LV)
NC: McCain 50-47 (Rasmussen LV)
MN: Obama 52-44 (Rasmussen LV)
NV: McCain 46-45 (Suffolk University LV)
PA: Obama 46-44 (NBC-Mason Dixon LV)

I didn't see the skit as I generally find SNL over the past few years to be a gigantic waste of my time, but it's troubling to see a general consensus that SNL should self censor. If they're going to be pushing the line on political humor it's inevitable that they'll offend people. There's way too many people comfortable with limiting speech that offends them on both sides of the aisle.

It's a sketch show that few people watch doing something over the top, big fucking deal.

Yeah, who could forget the groundswell of disgust when SNL intoned that Sean Connery buggered Alex Trebek's mom. Or Alec Baldwin's Scoutmaster character molested Adam Sandler's Canteen Boy.

:rolleyes:

Yes, defense of Palin in this situation is 'self-censorship'. I'm sure you'd claim the same if it was Obama knocking up his daughters.

I actually prefer if less deference was shown to our political class. I'm fine with a comedy show having a Obama as crack dealer skit or a McCain POW skit if they wish. Comedy shows like SNL should more frequently push the boundaries of outrage IMO.

Now a campaign commercial or news show is completely different, but satire shouldn't worry about offending people.

I'm not sure I agree that actors have less time to think about and research politics than the average american. Why would they have less time? I would think your average big shot actor would have tonnes of time to follow current events. They are constantly traveling, which is a great time to read or watch news, they spend inordinate amounts of time schmoozing with people, which likely leads to political discussions that can only serve to increase interest if not potentially inform the participant, and otherwise they don't have any of the other day-to-day 'life nonsense' to deal with that you average american does (nanny raises the kids, housekeeper cleans, chef cooks, etc).

Now sure, a vast majority of actors are likely total morons or too coked up to make rational decisions, but that's a different argument. :D

This is a much more accurate assessment of the situation. :)

Hmm, not sure how the Republican base is going to respond about McCain working towards amnesty for those the country illegally. This is from a speech this morning.

Actually I think there was a big uproar over the Canteen Boy sketch. So much so that the next time Baldwin hosted, they did a politically correct version of the skit for his opening monologue.

No real point here. Continue fighting amongst yourselves.

Hasn't that always been his position? Hence part of the reason the right wing wasn't all that enamored with him?

He definitely backed away from it to get the nomination. He's probably getting back on the train because he sees the polling in New Mexico.

He disavowed amnesty back during the primaries, saying during one the debates that he wouldn't have voted for his own bill anymore, because it had amnesty.

edit: found it

And there was a memorable debate exchange between McCain and Romney where Romney denied calling McCain's plan amnesty, despite running ads where he does just that.

Not entirely. He said he'd push for border security first because that's what the people wanted. If you recall, McCain-Kennedy died a horrible death and McCain realized people wanted the border secure... but the "amnesty" (as some call it) was always there in the background.

McCain said he wouldn't vote for it because he knows it has no chance of passing and he'd rather have the border security pass then revisit his "pseudo amnesty" plan. That's been his MO on nearly every bill he's passed. Come out with what he wants, it fails, then he works with democrats/republicans on a compromise. He did that with Kennedy on immigration and education, he did that with Feingold on campaign finance, he's done it on taxes and he's made adjustments to his energy plan. The only thing he hasn't compromised on is national security.

It's one of the reasons the right has been extremely frustrated with him. But, if "working with the other side" is as attractive as it seems, it may just get him elected president. So, McCain has always been in favor of this plan for citizenship, he just tabled it to try and get the border security issue passed.

It is just interesting that he's decided to bring it to the forefront when it is such a poison pill to a large part of his base. I guess he is banking on getting more votes from independents than he'd lose from the anti-amnesty crowd.

he was for it before he was against it. It's like we've seen this before....Deja Vu.

The more accurate statement would be "he was for it before he realized it wouldn't pass and changed it". ;)

Fixed.

Ouch. Seems Bill O'Reilly got a bit of a backlash. he went nuts on the hacking of Sarah Palin's yahoo mail account.. (which as I said, was completely counterproductive)..

and in turn, a seperate bunch of hackers hacked O'Reilly's website and posted details for 200+ premium members (not including CC#, but names, address, the whole 9 yards).

(sighs)

A couple more polls released...

CNN/Opinion Research (LV): Obama 51-47
Hotline/FD (RV): Obama 47-42

Plus, a Democratic Poll (PPP) has Obama up 53-42 in New Mexico.

How many people out there really give a fuck what Matt Damon or whoever the hell else thinks about this year's election? Maybe his family, his agent, and Mizzou B-Ball fan? I don't think any of them live in swing states.

Is that also why he was for more comprehensive campaign finance reform (starting in 1994) and then changed it to the McCain-Feingold bill that passed in 2002?

I mean if you listen to the quote, that can't be something the right wingers like to hear. He wouldn't vote against McCain-Kennedy because he's a true believer, but because it wouldn't pass as it was and he'd rather change it to get what he wanted. The elephant in the background is, of course, that after the border was secured... well, here comes the "amnesty" again that he's never disavowed.

The somewhat unfair immigration ads from Obama have put McCain in a box. He needs to respond or fall further behind with Latinos, but responding can effect his base. Given the way the map looks, I guess McCain figured he needs every Latino vote he can in FL, NV, NM and CO.

Unless, of course, it's a break even or losing proposition when he demotivates voters from the core.

At the risk of repeating myself, if the Dems had run anybody but Obama this thing would already be over. And if McCain wants to start touting amnesty again then it might be over anyway. (No idea whether he is or isn't, that's just the gist of what I'm gathering from a quick check of this thread at the moment)

I'm starting to wonder if he's borderline schizophrenic ... let's move to the right, no wait, I mean move to the left, no back to the ... At some point, I think he runs a risk of simply making everyone unhappy & leaving himself with a constituency of none.

I'm just saying he seems to have come a long way from the debate when he was clearly upset with Romney calling his plan amnesty. I'll have to do more research on it, though.

Speaking of Romney, does anyone think that now it might have been a mistake to pass him over as VP? Sure, Palin energized the base and for a short time seemed to steal independent females. However, it seems Romney would have given the ticket alot of credibility in dealing with the financial crisis.

Given the craziness with the market and the fact that democrats (esp when a rep is in the white house) usually benefit when bad news on the economy comes out, this election would be over now if Palin had not been named. McCain needed every bit of the 10-15 point swing he got from Palin and it still may not be enough. If he named Romney, he *maybe* picks up 5 points and is down around 10-15 right now.

As Jon said above, it is amazing that McCain is still in the race. No one cares about foreign policy or Iraq, it's all about the economy and banks/mortgage issue. The democrat nominee should be winning by 15-20 points given McCain's weakness on the economy and the uncertainty. I expect the democrats understand this and will do everything possible to delay the "bailout bill" to ensure we get at least another 1-2 weeks of a bad stock market. That should pretty much ensure Obama wins (unless he makes a massive error). Palin is the only chance McCain has and it's looking less and less likely to carry him.

Well, because it isn't exactly amnesty. I mean, he requires a fine and the immigrants to learn English (and maybe go back and come back in, I'm not sure). It isn't just a blank check, which is what "amnesty" implies.

To be quite honest, that was McCain's position from about 2002-2006. Dems liked to work with him, and he was very popular for bucking his own party, and because of that, he was a power player in consensus building. But it wasn't like he had a constituency or leader of any distinct movement or side. He basically won the Republican nomination because of the rest of the choices were so God awful.

You really have to reach a bit to say Palin gave McCain a 10-15 pt. bump. The only way to do that is to take, for example, Gallup's +8 for Obama at the end of the Dem convention and compare it to Gallup's +5 for McCain after the GOP convention. By doing that, you're completely disregarding the effect of the Dem convention bump and completely disregarding the natural GOP convention bump. To say that +13 is solely due to Palin is ludicrous.

A more reasonable way to look at it is to compare the polls from before both conventions and after both conventions. In Gallup, McCain gained 3 points. In Rasmussen, McCain actually lost a point. In CNN, the race stayed the same. In Hotline/FD, he gained 4 points. With FOX News, he gained 6 points.

One must also take into consideration Palin's speech though, and how much impact that had on the bump. After all, plenty of commentators took to calling it "Palin's Convention" after it was all done.

I don't deny that she caused a bump for the campaign. I just don't think it was 10-15 points. And I think picking Romney might have put him in a better situation over the next 6 weeks.

Really? Perhaps if we didn't spend a couple of trillion on Iraq and our foreign adventures we wouldn't be quite as screwed.

Who knows. Palin may turn out to be the better short term play for McCain, but not the better long term choice, say Romney. Unfortunately for McCain or whomever was advising him on his VP selection they couldnt have both. So it was a gamble and seemed to pay big dividends in the short run and it's perks (fundraising, stifling the response from a possible Dem convention success, etc.)

From Rollins on cnn.com


Look, I know Rollins is biased but if we have a candidate that doesn't have a clue what to think and the other candidate that doesn't have a clue period, I vote we start over with two new candidates and just have a 6 weeks campaign season.

Fox News/Rasmussen (LV) state polls...

OH: McCain 50-46
PA: Obama 48-45
FL: McCain 51-46
VA: McCain 50-48
MI: Obama 51-44


Plus, some interesting state polls from Rasmussen...

MN: Coleman 48, Franken 47, Barkley 3
NC: Hagan 51, Dole 45
SC: Graham 50, Conley 41

This thing is far from being over for McCain. I would play close attention to the polls that come out early next week, after the first debate on Friday night. If McCain is within 2 or 3 points of Obama, he's got a decent shot at winning the election. I'm also standing by my prediction that Obama's actual vote will be 2-3 points lower than his final polling numbers on November 3 (and maybe 3-4 points lower in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan). I know a lot of you guys disagree with me on that, but we'll see what happens. Juan Williams has gone on record stating that if Obama isn't up by at least 6 in the final polls, he's not going to win the election.

Obama was up around 7-8 points after his speech and gaining. The Palin nomination ended that (IMO, it could have gotten to 11-12 if Romney/Liebermann/Pawlenty had been named). Right after the republican convention, McCain was up between 4-7 points. McCain needed every bit of that to handle the bad economic news.

I don't know if it's 10-15 points, but it is pretty close, IMO. If McCain names Romney, Obama is up 8-10 points going into a very lackluster republican convention. Maybe they cut it by half and get it to a 4-5 point Obama lead. But then there's no Palin to take bullets for 3-4 weeks and Obama completely focuses on McCain and I'm guessing Obama would be up 10-15 points now with the bad economic news. Even if Romney cut a little more into the bleeding, McCain would still be down 7-10 points.

Like I said, about every card is stacked against McCain now, but it would be even worse without Palin. I also find it real interesting how everyone on the left continues to state what a bad choice Palin was, yet she's the only thing keeping the McCain camp afloat.

Maybe they are actually listening to their constituents, who I think recent polling has shown are vastly against a "bailout bill" in a blank check form. Nobody wants the market to tank, but whether or not a 700B check will affect that is largely controversial.

Just FTR (not that it makes a damn to anybody other than me I imagine), I'd say that's a good prediction. I'd probably qualify my own expectations with a little more variance in states where it's reallyreallyclose and a little less in states where it's a foregone conclusion (as lukewarms will be more likely to stay home if they know for sure that their vote isn't going to matter)