Campaign Silo

Palin Starbucks Speech Generator: Evolution Edition

Lindsay Beyerstein — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:51:04 +0000

We know Sarah Palin gets speech ideas from Starbucks cups. Last week she quoted Madeline Albright after reading the former secretary of state's words with her caffeine fix. I hope Palin's next mocha gets served up in this model:

"Evolution as described by Charles Darwin is a scientific theory, abundantly reconfirmed, explaining physical phenomena by physical causes. Intelligent design is a faith-based initiative in rhetorical argument. Should we teach Intelligent Design in America's public schools? Yes, let's do it -- not as science, but alongside other spiritual beliefs, such as Islam, Zoroastrianism, and the Hindu idea that the Earth rests on Chukwa, the giant turtle."--David Quammen.

Photo by Colin Purrington. Full-sized image here.

Ted Stevens Knew He “Might Have To Serve Jail Time” For What He Was Doing

Jane Hamsher — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:09:55 +0000

Caribou Barbie's troubled GOP state mate, Ted Stevens, was taped by the government when talking with oil company executive Bill Allen (who put an extra floor on Stevens' house that Stevens forgot to declare). It was played for the jury today in Stevens' trial:

Stevens: "If there's a violation of the elections law then that's a corporate violation."

Allen: "Yeah."

Stevens: "This thing shouldn't get your bind, little buddy."

Allen: "Well it has man, all day."

Stevens: "Well, well you gotta just stand back and say, what's gonna happen when it's all over, you gotta get a mental attitude that these guys can't really hurt us, you know, they're not gonna shoot us, its not Iraq, so what the hell. Worse that's gonna happen to us is we round up a bunch of legal fees and might lose and might have to pay a fine, might have to serve a little time in jail."

Audio here.

Cliff Groh is live blogging the trial at Alaska Political Corruption, who notes:

All this fine legal work for Ted Stevens doesn’t come cheap. It’s entirely possible that this defense is costing $175,000 per week during the trial, and that estimate could be substantially low. As one observer had pointed out, that figure would have bought very nice renovations to a house in Girdwood.

Stevens' former friend Allen has offered up some strange testimony:

Allen spoke wistfully of their former “close, personal friendship” and how they used to go to “boot camp” in the desert Southwest - where they would walk around, eating little and drinking only wine, “trying to get some pounds off.”

While Allen testified, Stevens looked down at the table, writing. It didn’t appear the two former friends ever made eye contact.”

Just a couple of wild and crazy guys.

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Sarah Palin: Theocrat in a Sequined Gown

Lisa Derrick — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:40:03 +0000

More beauty pageant footage! And while the optimism of focusing on Alasksa's mountains instead of the R~~ussian aircraft violating maritime borders~~ mosquitos is delightfully folksy, the God stuff foreshadows an uncomfy next four years if McPalin wins:

God has made us this promise: If we will commit our works to Him, we will succeed. Our lives can be enhanced by applying this, and by thinking optimistically. In Alaska we have mosquitoes; we also have the most beautiful mountains in the world. The choice is ours as to which we'll focus on.

Compare it to this video of Palin speaking her church discussing her son Track's "Jesus fish" tattoo, praying from Ephesians, discussing the destiny of Alaska and encouraging "the revival" to come from Alaska. Be afraid.

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It’s Inevitable and Not Ironic: WhiteTrash4Palin

Lisa Derrick — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:13:35 +0000

This message appeared at the top of my gmail account because I email quite a bit about Gov. GILF.:

http://www.whitetrash4palin.com/ Whether you're white trash or not, declare for your Canidate [sic]

(It's a tpyo. We all make them)

I had to click the ling. Not only are the shirts ugly and unfunny even in a cheesy roadside souvenir slogan way, but they are (surprise!) sexist: The woman's shirt has a big lipstick kiss on the back and the man's doesn't.

Parse as you will.

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Palin Puttin’ on Ayers

Lindsay Beyerstein — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:17:58 +0000

Sarah Palin said last week that "[Barack Obama] is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." The McCain campaign is running 100% negative ads. Palin's rhetoric foreshadows a barrage of propaganda that will attempt to cast Obama as an unamerican, unpatriotic other.

When Palin gets cocky, her dog whistle drops a couple octaves, going from ultrasonic to merely shrill. Now, even the AP can hear the racial undertones:

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that McCain himself may come to regret. [AP]

Why might McCain regret letting Palin give voice to the racial resentments and fears that have been driving Republicans to the polls for decades?

Because there's a big strategic difference between racist attacks that everyone quietly agrees to pretend are not racist and racist attacks that are called out as such. These days, even Republicans aren't proud of being racist. They certainly don't like to think of their candidate as racist.

So, Republican strategists have to subtly push racial buttons without overtly saying anything unequivocally bigoted. So, we get memes like "celebrity" and "empty suit" and "sex ed for 5-year-olds"--they're just close enough to "minstrel" and "affirmative action hire" and "sex predator" to give racists a pleasing sense of "otherness" about Obama without forcing them to identify what that feeling is based on. The latest McCain ad hits pushes the "angry black man" and the "liberal coward" button, calling Obama "dangerous" and "dishonorable" for allegedly saying that troops in Afghanistan were bombing villages and killing civilians.

If the AP is willing to broach the racism issue, the gig could be up. The political cost of being recognized as racist is huge. Let's keep on this and make John McCain and his mini-Rove Steve Schmidt pay in full.

Obama Has Double-Digit Lead In Virginia

Jane Hamsher — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:14:17 +0000

New SurveyUSA Poll:

As McCain's Lead Among White Virginians Shrinks, So Too His Chances of Holding The State's 13 Electoral Votes: 29 days until votes are counted in Virginia, Democrat Barack Obama is ahead 53% to 43%, according to this SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, WJLA-TV in Washington DC, WTVR-TV in Richmond, and WJHL-TV in the Tri-Cities. In 4 tracking polls conducted since the Republican Convention, McCain has gone from up by 2 to down by 10.

There is movement among men, where immediately after the GOP convention, McCain led by 10, and where today Obama leads by 11.
There is movement among whites, where McCain's once 22-point lead is today reduced to single digits.
There is movement among the well-to-do, where today for the first time Obama leads.
There is movement among pro-choice voters, where Obama's lead has doubled since August.

McCain no longer leads in any region of the state. In Northeastern VA, which includes the DC suburbs, Obama leads by 24 points. In Central Virginia, home of the Confederate White House, the Museum of the Confederacy and Appomattox, Obama today leads by 8. In Southeastern Virginia, Obama leads by 11. In the Shenandoah, where John McCain led by 24 points one month ago, Obama and McCain today tie.

Also, per a Suffolk University Virginia poll taken form October 3-5 (PDF), Obama now leads McCain 49-37, and 52% of those polled say that the economy/jobs will be the issue that matters most when deciding their vote.

I get nervous about the use of terms like "landslide," but there is no joy in McCainville tonight, that's for sure.

Dog gone it, that's worth a wink, eh?

(h/t Scarce)

The Curious Silence Of Commentary Magazine On the Subject Of Andy Martin

Jane Hamsher — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:32:13 +0000

Joe Klein, on the increasing nastiness of the McCain campaign:

So then, I'd guess, it would be appropriate to bring up some of the nuttiness that passes for godliness in Palin's religious life. Leave aside the fact that The Embarracuda allowed herself to participate in a cermony that protected her from witchcraft, how about her presence--she didn't "get up and leave"-- at a sermon by the founder of Jews for Jesus, who argued that the Palestinian terrorist acts against Israel were God's "judgment" on the Jews because they hadn't accepted Jesus.

Speaking of Jews, the ever-execrable Sean Hannity has been having intercourse with a known Jew-hater named Andy Martin, who now wants to expose Barack Obama as a Muslim. According to the Washington Times:

In 1986, when Mr. Martin ran as a Democrat for Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District seat under the name "Anthony R. Martin-Trigona," his campaign committee filed papers saying its purpose was to "exterminate Jew power in America and impeach U.S. District Court of Appeals judges in New York City."

Calling all Podhoretzs! Where's the outrage? I mean, don't the hateful doings at Palin's church and Hannity's perfidy deserve a lengthy exegesis from Pete Wehner or Jennifer Rubin or one of the other empretzled ideologues over at Commentary?

Jerome Corsi also uses Andy Martin as a reference multiple times in his new anti-Obama book. The same Andy Martin who once called a judge a "crooked, slimy Jew." I asked Corsi about it on a bloggingheads we recorded recently (isn't up yet), and Corsi said that just because he uses someone as a source it doesn't mean he approves of everything he says.

I guess it's okay if he only hates Jews on the side. Or something.

Ari also unearths this Martin quote:

I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property.

Andy Martin has filed so many frivolous lawsuits he's no longer allowed to file them, yet right wing outlets have consistently been granting him credibility and using him as a source to tear down Obama. Why isn't the perpetually vigilant Jennifer Rubin shreiking "anti-Semite" and seeking to discredit him at every turn?

LA Times: John McCain Was a Crappy Pilot

Lindsay Beyerstein — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:17:27 +0000

Maybe Tim Dickinson's Rolling Stone cover story on McCain the make-believe maverick emboldened the LA Times to examine Senator Flyboy's lousy career as an aviator.

McCain crashed five times during his years in the Navy. One time a missile hit his fuel tank, setting off a chain of events that caused one of the most lethal fires at sea in the history of the navy. That wasn't McCain's fault. Of course, it wasn't his fault that he got shot down over Vietnam.

However there were three other crashes where the Navy officially questioned McCain's skills and judgment as a pilot:

The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia. [LAT]

By McCain's own admission, he was more interested in chasing women and drinking than in achieving excellence in the cockpit. An ordinary airman might have lost his wings after the first crash, but McCain was the son and grandson of admirals. He was untouchable and he knew it.

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Palin: Support Me Or Go To Hell, Ladies

Lindsay Beyerstein — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:04:17 +0000

Looks Sarah Palin has been doing some reading.

At a rally last week she quoted former Secretary of State Madeline Albright...albeit from bon mot inscribed on her Starbucks Mocha cup. Palin said it was providential how that quote got printed on that cup just in time for her to read it. "There's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women," Palin said.

Albright actually said that there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

If Obama admitted that he lifted inspirational quotes from Starbucks cups, we'd never hear the end of it.

Obama/Springsteen Ticket Scalpers: Violating Campaign Finance Laws?

Lisa Derrick — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:43:50 +0000

$25K each for scalped tickets

Ticket scalpers profiting off the buzz created by the historic Bruce Springsteen/Billy Joel fundraiser appear to be breaking campaign finance laws. And fans who use scalpers could be complicit.

October 16th Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel will play a show at New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom. This is the first time they have played together in this century. It's the night after the final presidential debate and the concert is a benefit for Barack Obama. Excitement about the show and "special guests" is skyrocketing. Obama himself is rumored to be scheduled to appear.

On Obama's Change Rocks website $500 balcony seats are already sold out. A premier seat costs $2,500. "Rocker seats" are $5,000 each, while a “lounge ticket” is $10,000. Buying these tickets is considered legally to be a contribution to Obama's campaign.

The first $2,300 of each contribution from an individual will be allocated to Obama for America and will be considered designated for the general election. The next $28,500 of each contribution from an individual will be allocated to the Democratic National Committee, per campaign finance laws.

As with any high demand event, scalpers are hawking tickets online. A sampling of Manhattan ticket agencies and Craigslist ads shows the balcony seats being scalped at prices ranging from $1,833 to $2,261 and floor seats for as much as $4,640. One Craigslist ad promises "the experience of a lifetime" for $25,000 a ticket. Considering $10,000 seats are still available, the mark up and its description seem rather extravagant.

But the ticket agencies who are profiting from the sales of tickets to the Springsteen/Billy Joel event seem to be doing something more fishy that simply making a buck. Explains David Donnelly of Campaign Money Watch:

If someone purchases tickets for the express purpose of reselling them rather than to make a contribution to Obama or the DNC, they appear to be breaking the law.

While New York State fixes no cap on what brokers and others can charge when reselling a ticket, ticket brokers and their straw men--those doing the buying of the tickets for brokers--seem to be obviously violating federal election codes, specifically US Code Title 2, 441b and US Code Title 2 441f. A consumer who used a ticket broker to obtain these coveted tickets may have technically violated the latter law, after the fact.

The only legitimate, legal way obtain tickets to the Springsteen/Joel show is through the Obama campaign itself. The Barack Obama website spells it out clearly, with a legal disclaimer reads:

This contribution is not made from the general treasury funds of a corporation, labor organization or national bank...

The funds I am donating are not being provided to me by another person or entity for the purpose of making this contribution.

If a ticket broker uses his company credit card--or company funds of any sort--to obtain a ticket from the Obama campaign, he's in violation of US Code Title 2 441b, using corporate funds to make a campaign contribution.

If a ticket broker gives someone company money to buy a ticket for him they both are in violation. The broker has used corporate funds to make a campaign contribution; the straw man has used "funds provided by another person or entity," in violation of US Code Title 2 441f.

The ticket broker is making a contribution to the campaign, receiving a ticket in exchange for the contribution, and expecting to be reimbursed by whoever buys the ticket from him. The fan who buys a ticket from a broker has allowed a contribution to be made by another party--the ticket dealer or his straw man--in order to receive the ticket. The fan provides money to reimburse the ticket broker--or his straw man--for the original contribution.

Fans may not have known they are committing an illegal act by using a ticket broker to purchase the Springsteen/Joel tickets. But whoever clicked the required legal disclaimer on the Obama page when contributing for the purpose of obtaining a ticket for resale could not help but know they were breaking Federal laws.

Obama's campaign is not responsible for the actions of the ticket brokers. The Obama campaign in good faith provided tickets to individuals in exchange for contributions. But some of these individuals who made contributions lied. Note that in order to purchase a ticket from the campaign site--that is make a contribution and receive a ticket--you must sign off on points of campaign finance law in the disclaimer before your sale/contribution can be completed.

Ticket brokers using their company funds violated the law. People acting as straw men for the ticket agencies broke the law. And fans are indirectly involved when they purchase these tickets obtained through falsehoods and illegal means.

So if you're considering paying $2,200 or $4,600 to a ticket scalper, just pony up the extra to Obama's campaign for a better, and legally obtained, view closer to the stage.