Iowa and New Hampshire Decision

All of the main stream media is in a buzz and so are all of the candidates running for President. This is the time of the last dash to the finish line and it is not a time for stupid mistakes by anyone associated with any campaign. Iowa and New Hampshire can pull any single campaign up out of the dust and propel them into super stardom in the next week. Mistakes, errors in judgment, or even a comment taken off the record could kill a campaign.

One thing that is certain in this election is that the people of Iowa and New Hampshire will get a better look at any of the candidates than you and I could ever dream of. Being able to size the candidates up by actually meeting them one on one is the best possible way to cast a vote for the most powerful office in the world. Somehow the actual person in the same room with you and being able to actually interact with them is by far a better way to form an opinion on their ability to serve as President of the United States. Personal chemistry is funny like that.

The next obvious question is if we should trust Iowans or the good folks of New Hampshire with this process of vetting our next political parties choice for President? Peggy Noonan is somewhat asking that same question over at WSJ Opinion Journal…

Be Reasonable
As Iowa sizes up the candidates, so do I.

Friday, December 28, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

By next week politically active Iowans will have met and tallied their votes. Their decision this year will have a huge impact on the 2008 election, and a decisive impact on various candidacies. Some will be done in. Some will be made. Some will land just right or wrong and wake up the next day to read raves or obits. A week after that, New Hampshire. The endless campaign is in fact nearing its climax.

But all eyes are on Iowa. Iowans bear a heck of a lot of responsibility this year, the first time since 1952 when there is no incumbent president or vice president in the race. All of it is wide open.

Iowa can make Obama real. It can make Hillary yesterday. It can make Huckabee a phenom and not a flash, McCain the future and not the past. Moments like this happen in history. They're the reason we get up in the morning. "What happened?" "Who won?"

This is my 2008 slogan: Reasonable Person for President. That is my hope, what I ask Iowa to produce, and I claim here to speak for thousands, millions. We are grown-ups, we know our country needs greatness, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good. We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We'd like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it. - Opinion Journal

Putting our faith in the folks living in Iowa and New Hampshire is not the issue. We live in a world of bombardment news and advertisers that simply cash the checks from the political campaigns. Iowans I’m sure are sick to death of the non stop political ads as much as the people of New Hampshire are. And in that respect the advertisement are not the candidates.

We should be thankful that our election process is not full of the blood boiling hate that is found in some parts of the world. Places where a candidate is shot at and a suicide bomber detonates his opinion maker that kills the candidate as well as anyone in close proximity. My heart goes out to the people of Pakistan with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Her candidacy could have had a huge impact on the much needed changes in that part of the world if she were elected.

If elected is a key point for all of the candidates running here in America as well. America needs substance in our next President and not someone that gives a great speech. We need someone that knows the world issues just as well as they know the street map of our nations capitol. They will need to know how to drive from the White House over to the House to get the job done as it should be done. Selling ideas is not about who can stand the firmest on their soap box, its about who is willing to move that soap box over to the folks that will listen and actually think about your ideas, be convinced about your ideas, and vote for them. That has been the mistake of the house of Bush and the house of Clinton.

One of things mentioned to me over and over again is the thought that our nation has been taken over by two families for more than two decades. Starting with Papa Bush with one term of four years and then moving on to Bill Clinton and eight years, followed by Junior W Bush with another eight years. Can America truly survive if ruled by two families for close to thirty years if Hillary Clinton is elected President and possibly serves two terms?

So what are the choices facing the people of Iowa and New Hampshire?

From the Democrats, something isn’t right about Hillary and her having Billy take over her campaign. It screams of “I’m not really doing this, Bill is!” but I could be wrong. Then again, if she could not keep an eye on what his sexual tensions were as first lady then what the hell is she going to do as President. I don’t think we need the FBI to be renamed FBB or FIND BILL’s BABES. Enough with the Clinton legacy of endless political scandals.

Barack Obama, probably a nice guy. Most likely one of the most highly educated people in the run for President but being book smart does not always make you common sense smart. During every single debate he was slapped down by people that actually know about world events on the same stage. Vice President, hell yes! President, not this go round.

John Edwards… No! Your wife is dying of cancer and you have something better to do? God bless his wife Elizabeth for letting him go out and play while she is facing her last days. The character of a man is shown on how he treats his wife no matter her wishes. If he bowed out of this race, in four years he would have a solid chance at the Presidency because he bowed out simply to care for the love of his life, his wife. Huge family values bump.

Meat and Potatoes of this election is in Joe Biden’s campaign. He isn’t running on dollars from the political elite contributors in the Democrat Party. He’s running on the same gas as Ron Paul. Grass roots and people to people. He isn’t counting on anyone in the media to support him because he is not sending them all checks to cash. He has however criss crossed all of Iowa to talk to the people one on one. One of things I like about Joe Biden is that he is not owned by any special interest group. His personal wealth of knowledge on anything happening here at home or abroad is not delegated to a staffer on what he should say, he just speaks his mind. That is the best you could ever get. When it comes to crossing party lines, if it is right then Joe is Right! That fact is something that will sell come the general election come next November that will be the deciding factor. No other candidate can do what he does and win the Oval Office in the Democrat Party.

But I’m sure that the people of Iowa and New Hampshire already know that simply because they have met Joe Biden one on one all across their states.

Do not be surprised if the good people of Iowa and New Hampshire vote for substance over spin. I have faith that they will vote for a realistic choice for President.

As for the Republicans, umm, over at the Gun Toting Liberal he has this latest melt down from the Giuliani campaign. Crooks and Liars has it too… Muslims are bad people? I didn’t say it the Giuliani camp did!

Papamoka

Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones and Bring IT ON!

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One Democrat Talking Reality

I’m not going to mince words or deny that I like Joe Biden for President. Hell the Republican YouTube debate over on CNN convinced me that I’m no longer a Reagan Democrat. One of the biggest issues in America is immigration and the part of it that touches on the illegal immigration issue. Second issue on all of our minds is ending the war in Iraq and whatever that original nation that President Bush sent our troops to that begins with an A and they name dogs after it. It’s on the tip of my tongue but my tongue can’t spell for damn. Afghanistan!

Any who, the Biden campaign sent me this interesting video on Iraq, Pakistan, Immigration, Illegal Immigrants having licenses to drive and one candidate that is not about one single sound bite. Sound bites are nice but we need details and somebody that can walk into the oval office and start working on day one!



When you have a limited amount of cards dealt to you in your poker hand, I would rather go with a hand that is loaded with face cards than a bunch of folks bluffing with a pair of deuces. Joe Biden isn’t playing poker but he is playing to reality and we need a President that is a realist over someone willing to tell you they have the better hand because the bank roll tells you so in overwhelming television advertisements.

Papamoka

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Political Endorsement Value?

With all the folks running for President they find themselves at the mercy of the local political machines endorsement sale. If you looked at presidential politics like it was your Christmas shopping then this is parallel with the Black Friday shopping madness sales where you have to be in line at two in the morning for the doors to open at five. I tend to wonder what is the value of a local political leader in Iowa or New Hampshire when it comes to an endorsement for any one of the candidates. Just the endorsement alone is not a guarantee of votes behind the gesture or is it?

Does a political endorsement work the same as say Tom Brady of the New England Patriots putting his name behind some brand of breakfast cereal? Or for that matter Michael Jordan putting his name on a brand of sneakers or underwear sells the products but would the same thing work for votes for President of the United States?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do know who I prefer for the next President of the United States. For what ever value this little blogger has, I’m throwing my endorsement behind Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. You can click on the links below on why I think Joe is right…

Iraq War plan:

The Biden-Gelb plan would:

Keep Iraq together by giving its major groups breathing room in their own regions and control over their daily lives. A central government would be left in charge of common interests like defending the borders and distributing oil revenues.

Secure the support of the Sunnis -- who have no oil -- by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of oil revenue and reintegrating those with no blood on their hands.

Increase, not end, reconstruction assistance but insist that the oil-rich Arab Gulf states fund it and tie it to the creation of a massive jobs program and to the protection of minority rights.

Initiate a major diplomatic offensive to enlist the support of the major powers and Iraq's neighbors for a political settlement in Iraq and create an Oversight Contact Group to enforce regional commitments.

Begin the phased redeployment of U.S. forces this year and withdraw most of them by the summer of 2008, with a small follow-on force to keep the neighbors honest and to strike any concentration of terrorists. - Plan for Iraq


Biden Energy Plan:

1. Establishing A Responsible Policy Toward Iran
2. Restoring US Leadership On Climate Change
3. Increasing Fuel Efficiency and Use of Renewable Fuels
4. Investing In New Energy Technology
5. Expanding Renewable Energy
6. Requiring the Federal Government To Use Energy More Efficiently
7. Encouraging Americans to Use Energy Efficiently
8. Creating Green Jobs in the Technology of Tomorrow

Homeland Security:

The 9/11 Commission gave us a blue print. To be sure, implementing it will cost more. But we can easily afford it - if we change our priorities. This year, the budget for the Department of Homeland Security is $35 billion; at $60 billion, the tax cut for millionaires is nearly double that amount.

Senator Biden would take back one year of the tax cuts for Americans who make over a million dollars a year, and put this money in a dedicated Homeland Security and Public Safety Trust Fund to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations and invest in law enforcement.

For $10 billion a year over the next five years we could:
screen 100 percent of cargo containers coming into our ports,
better protect our chemical facilities,
improve air cargo screening,
make sure that our first responders can talk to one another in emergencies,
hire 1,000 more FBI agents,
hire 50,000 more local cops, and
create local counter-terrorism units in our large cities to stop home-grown plots
Precedent proves this can work. In the early 1990s, Senator Biden established the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund to address the growing crime problem. It put more than 100,000 cops on the street and increased investment in crime prevention programs. Violent crime rates went down.

The Bush administration slashed billions in federal assistance for state and local law enforcement and completely eliminated the COPS hiring program -- and crime rates went up. The most recent reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show a continuation in the upward swing in violent crimes first reported last year when after years of steady declines, violent crime jumped 2.5 percent --- the largest increase in 15 years. - Joe Biden.com

These points are not just the only reason I am backing Joe Biden for President but they are a good beginning. I look at his campaign in the same way I look at inviting someone into my home for a coffee or for dinner. Joe would have no problem knocking on the door and sitting down at our families kitchen table as if he had been there a thousand times before. It’s uncanny how you can see that he is comfortable enough with his stand on any issue and he isn’t relying on a poll to dictate his opinion. Then there is the fact that in my gut I trust him over the rest of them to tell America all of the truth and not just what is comfortable to hear.

Now more than ever America needs a true leader and statesman. This is not a time in world history where you can learn on the job training. America needs someone that will be able to hit the ground running, Joe Biden does not have a hundred million dollars sitting in a campaign war chests which leads me to believe that he will not owe large favors down the road to special interest donors.

Other folks endorsing Joe Biden because they know Joe is right!


List of endorsements for Joe Biden are posted here…

Other folks aka Blogs endorsing Senator Joe Biden…

Vim & Vinegar

Please note that this endorsement is the personal endorsement of Matthew O’Keefe aka Papamoka only.

If your site is endorsing Joe Biden please leave a link in the comments.

Papamoka

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Biden Lacks Celebrity but has Stamina and Policy

While the cash machines of Hillary and Obama are dumping millions of dollars at the media houses of Iowa television and radio stations Joe Biden is taking a walk to the corner lunch. While the television bombardment of both political parties gears up over the next few weeks I can actually forecast the television repair shop escalation in business as more than just a foot goes through the living room boob tube.

Over the past few weeks I have been writing about the glorification of candidates from both parties by the media based on the amount of money they might derive from the candidates. Joe Biden is not a money made candidate or a glorified rock star in politics. Joe is just Joe if you ask the folks on the train home from the capitol every night. Joe fly’s coach to Iowa and not on a sponsored by this company or that corporation private jet or plane. Joe prefers interviews in public with real reporters rather than press meeting statements.

Joe may not have a super star style but he does have what it takes to be President. He has humility, he has experience and he has the heart of the American people in his hopes and dreams for tomorrow.

Margery Eagan of WTKK Talk Radio and the Boston Herald had the chance to actually talk to Joe Biden and her article in the Herald is a must read if you don’t believe that the MSM has your vote locked up and the checked cashed…

Celebrity culture keeps Biden waiting in the wings
By Margery Eagan
Tuesday, November 20, 2007

• The Iraq War is the No. 1 concern for most Americans.

• After almost every Democratic debate, I hear the same surprised remark from the few people I know who actually watch them. That is, “Joe Biden was great ... Biden is best on the war ... ” Or, as Mary Lou LoVecchio put it yesterday, “howdo I get a (Joe Biden) bumper sticker?”

• Biden, in the Senate for more than 25 years, now head of the Foreign Relations Committee, is the guy who just pushed through, with bipartisan support, the soft partitioning of Iraq resolution. He “forgot more than Hilarity knows,” a conservative GOP-guy told me yesterday.

So here’s the question: why then is Biden still in single digits? Light years away from Hillary, Obama, and Edwards, the three top Democratic contenders?

The answer’s “pretty simple,” said Biden in a telephone interview yesterday with the Herald and 96.9-WTKK. “Money ... we will have raised $12 or $13 million by the time this is over,” he said, an amount that would have been competitive not long ago. “Now we’re talking about two candidates spending that much in Iowa alone (Hillary and Obama) ... a state with just 3 million people.”

SNIP a Roo…

In any case, we in the media covered Hillary and Obama non-stop. Hollywood, (or in the case of Oprah, Chicago) fell in love with Hillary and Obama, raising money for them non-stop. Then the media reported nonstop on how much money each had raised. And then the “so-called horse race” in the polls. Somewhere in there we talked about ideas. But not much.

Mostly we just talked Hillary vs. Obama with a little about Edwards mixed in.
Here’s something noteworthy about newspaper next-day coverage of last week’s debate, the one that finally got people tuning in (4 million viewers compared to the usual 2 million). Presumably we wanted to see Hillary fight back against the ganging-up-on-her “boys.”

SNIP Again…

Joe Biden’s son Beau, by the way, is Delaware’s attorney general and a National Guardsman likely to be deployed to Iraq in 2008. But Beau is not a celebrity. So most of us didn’t know that, either. - Boston Herald

If you believe that Hillary and Obama are the only answer to the Republican candidates in the field because of an advertisement then you are not paying attention to life as it effects you politically. This election is not about Survivor or the Bachelor reality shows where they plot against one another. Bad metaphor there, I apologize. This election is about cleaning up eight years of Bush and Cheney mistakes. It’s about America and if the election can be bought then Bill Gates or Warren Buffet should be the next President of the United States.

Pick your reality television show and toss the idea out the window. The politics of this next election needs real leaders and real ideas and Hillary and Obama may have the cash but the price is not right if you catch my drift.

Senator Biden is the gold standard! Followed by a close second is Governor Bill Richardson but that is a post for another day.

Papamoka

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