Democrats Need to Reach Out Before the Next Election

Good Morning Papamoka Bloggers - The latest gossip out of the recent election is AWESOME! Didn't you hear? The Raw Story is reporting this morning on a Glenn - "wow, the man is nuts" - Beck interview where "Joe the Plumber" supposedly said that John McCain made him "feel dirty" and that Sarah Palin was "the real thing."

I'm sorry, but this is both hilarious and frightening! The random guy that John McCain and the Republican Party made their mascot - Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher - said that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.” The really funny/sad part is what he said after he had a one-on-one meeting with McCain.

"I asked him some pretty direct questions...they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.” Asked why he stuck by McCain's side despite being "appalled" by the candidate, he said, “honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.” Unfreakinbelieveable!!!!! Is this guy for real?

“Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said. "With Sarah Palin, I don't want to say I felt a presence but she definitely had energy and she definitely went to work for [the] American people, and it disgusts me on how often they try to bash her just for her sincerity. It's just, you know, she really wants to work for America and I mean, I wish people would listen to her and let them, and let her work for us. You know, she wants to serve us. She's not looking for power."

Excuse me Joe, but we did LISTEN. We tried to LISTEN more, but the campaign wouldn't let us. In the end, WE DIDN'T HEAR ANYTHING! Did you listen? Something tells me that your judgement was clouded by something. Joe, we weren't looking for a simple public "servant," we were looking for a president.

I hate to sound like a blue state snob, but COME ON PEOPLE! This is NUTS! Sensible, responsible citizens can only tolerate so much from these idiots. Yes Joe, that judgement of yours makes me think you're an IDIOT! People like you constantly VOTE AGAINST YOUR OWN BEST INTEREST! Not to mention you ruin it for the rest of us.

So, my only conclusion is that Joe is a typical, ill-informed, irrational voter? He was appalled by his candidate but still refused to vote for a good man like Obama because he "scared" him. What the HELL! Why didn't he just go talk to Obama more and GET OVER HIS IRRATIONAL FEAR? I'm sure Barack would have given him an interview if he wanted one. There's got to be more to the story. Oh yea, how about CLOSED MINDEDNESS and RACISM!

We're up against irrational people that buy into "presence" and "morality" and "energy" over actual knowledge, experience and substance. Didn't we hear the same crap from these fools when they voted for George - "the idiot" Fredo of the Family" - Bush? I don't get it. They actually scare me now. They have too much power. They should not be the swing vote for the future.

How many ignorant blue collar racists are out there? Why do they like Sarah Palin so much? Why can't they see that voting based on irrational emotions gave us Bush? Why don't they see the danger in thinking that way? Why don't they see the damage they've already done? Okay, that's enough ranting. Now, what do we do about them? We need to make sure they don't cause any more damage.

When things get better economically in this country, and the American people are once more swayed by fear and divisiveness, then people like Joe will matter again. As Democrats we need to reach out to the "Joes" of this country. We need to sit down with them before the next election to see if we can change some minds - or mindsets. We need to figure out what motivates them beyond fear and hate. We need to agree with them that cuts are important, but that lower taxes often means mortgaging our children's future. We need to become their friends. We need to educate, not intimidate. So, who's with me? Let's DO IT!

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

Another Pathetic Republican Campaign Tactic Fails

Good Morning Papamoka Bloggers - I ran across a very sad yet interesting article in the London Times this morning that highlighted just how desperate the Republicans are to discredit Senator Obama.

Dr Peter Millican, a philosophy don at Hertford College, Oxford, has devised a computer software program that can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favorite words and phrases.

So, of course the Republicans offered the good professor $10,000 last week to assess alleged similarities between Obama’s bestseller, Dreams from My Father, and the book Fugitive Days, by William Ayers.

Republican millionaire Robert Fox, a California businessman and his brother-in-law of Chris Cannon, a Republican congressman from Utah, made the offer. They hoped to break the big news story and destroy the Senator.

Millican ran the test and found it “very implausible.” Fox and Cannon lost interest when the professor made the results public. “I thought it was extremely unlikely that we would get a positive result. It is the sort of thing where people make claims after seeing a few crude similarities and go overboard on them,” Millican said to the Times.

I can handle it when they investigate something and admit when they had it wrong. That's why I consider the news just sad, or pathetic in many ways. The worst part is when they fake the evidence, evidenced by their many colorful, slanderous emails.

The really interesting point in the article is when they report that Cannon had got “cold feet about it being seen to be funded by the Republicans." Well, it has been seen, and so you guys do look pathetic. I'm sure they got tired of digging through the man's trash cans, so they had to resort to something. I really hope you people lose, because for all practical purposes, you deserve to.

I'm surprised FOX "News" hasn't spun the article to look like the professor found something against Obama. They lie all the time, so why not now? They probably did and I just didn't see it.

I must say, you guys have mastered negative campaigning. I know many of you are proud of your Rovian, Machiavellian ways. I know many fall for it, but the majority of Americans find it disgusting. In my opinion, you're nothing but liars and con artists.

If you do win, the American people will pay the price of your deceit again. Oh yea, and don't try and claim "everybody does it," because that "muddy the waters" Rovian crap doesn't work with me. You guys are FAR MORE NEGATIVE.

IF we win, and I don't take that for granted, I hope you Republicans take a good hard look at yourselves. I don't think you'll like it. It's VERY ugly.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

Socialism? Really? Wow!

Good Morning Papamoka Bloggers - Let's see, we've survived practically every label in the book over the past few months, including "terrorist" and "baby killer," but unlike those "socialist" makes me laugh. To me, it just makes them look crazy.

As usual the McCain campaign has stretched its message to the point where even high school drop outs are beginning to question their legitimacy. Last night I enjoyed hearing just such a voter express their confusion, since they pretty much knew the difference between socialism and the American system being described by Obama.

The McCain folks have gone from bizarre to freaky. We've entered a very strange place in politics where desperate people concoct desperate positions, and then have to engage with respectable people, and defend them. It's like watching Bob Costas forced to defend the rules of the World Wrestling Foundation - it might be colorful, but it's crazy.

The really funny, ironic twist in the whole "socialism" argument involves Sarah Palin. She fought to increase her state's Windfall Profit's Tax last year to get an extra $2,400 for every person living in the state of Alaska. If that's not pure socialism, I don't know what is. For heaven's sake, the woman is a socialist based on that record.

The McCain campaign should be ashamed of itself. The Republican Party should be ashamed of itself. Why can't they fight with dignity before their fall, instead of trying to win by lying to the American people. Don't they realize that when people actually figure out that what they're saying is pure crap they might lose respect for the party itself, again. It's hard to imagine, but the the Republican brand might suffer even more after this election.

I challenge ANYBODY reading this blog to defend the McCain campaign's claim that a flexible, progressive tax system, something we've had in America since the early 20th century, represents socialism - or at least not a vague form of socialism we haven't practiced before. I basically challenge you to defend any of the McCain claims regarding socialism. I will respond ASAP.

The race might tighten due to other circumstances, but I think even the high school drop-outs are on to them this time. I'll bet McCain's fun time with the label maker is coming to an end soon. Before long we won't have to blog about any more fake labels thrown against the media wall by McCain's spinning fools. The whole ordeal is getting silly and sad. They are slowing spinning themselves into the crap heap of American political foolishness.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

McCarthyist Tactics and The Republican Path to the Darkside

Good Morning Bloggers - I don't know if you guys noticed yesterday, but the Republican talking points moved from simply crazy to "serial killer-kind-of-crazy" in my opinion.

I caught Bay Buchanan on CNN and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday and both were spewing the worst paranoid politics I've heard in a long time - if ever. They seemed to take their cues from Senator Joe McCarthy, but instead of calling out communists they were calling out the millions of "anti-Americans" and "socialists" supporting Barack Obama.

Wow! I guess I'm an "anti-American socialist" now because I support Barack. Incredible! I don't think that describes me at all. I think they're just NUTS! The interviewers looked just as shocked, and intelligently each seemed to be offering them plenty of rope, if you know what I mean.

It was an incredible news day. Chris Matthews tried to get Bachmann to name who the "anti-Americans" were, but she only responded with vague comments about how they exist everywhere, including Congress. She was actually calling on the FBI and the press to expose them. My mouth was wide open by that stage of the interview. I was stunned! The only good news is that Bachmann's opponent in the Minnesota race received over $30K in contributions within hours of the Hardball broadcast.

So, they've gone from Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright to cast suspicions on everybody who doesn't support their candidates or their issues. She kept saying "are they pro-America or anti-America?" It was surreal to say the least.

I realize they've questioned our patriotism in the past, but never in such a desperate, campaign-coordinated, tactical manner. They are actually now taking a campaign-supported position that anybody who doesn't vote their way is anti-American, or a socialist. It's a bold move. It's an outrageous move.

My God, what is happening to the Republicans? How low will they go? Do they really want to win at all costs? Do they really believe the ends justify the means? I think the answer is a resounding yes, but feel free to give your opinion. That's what a blog is all about.

In my opinion they have no dignity left. They've dredged the depths of the swamp and released their noxious gases. I do wonder if they have worse, and how low will they go before it's all over? It's kind of interesting to watch, in the same way you watch a horrible crash or an unfolding disaster. It's a morbid curiosity. Oh well, no matter what, they are now befouled by their own wretched stench. They are no longer even remotely respectable.

I wonder who the Sith Lord is these days? John McCain? Karl Rove? George Bush? Dick Cheney? Whoever it is, there's no doubt in my mind now, they've all joined the darkside. There's not much good left in them. Okay, I feel better. Republicans, it's your turn.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's West Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

Rachel Maddow is Awesome!

Hello Papamoka Bloggers - I hope that some of you caught David Frum, former Bush speechwriter who is now with that glorified Republican retirement home known as the American Enterprise Institute, on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show this evening. It was fantastic!

Frum was trying to say that both campaigns are showing the "ugliness of tone" that has "prevailed over the past years," and that her show was a good example. Of course, he forgot to mention that the 'tone" was mostly caused by his fellow Republicans - a very ugly crowd indeed.

Rachel offered a wonderful response suggesting that there is a difference in tone, and that comparing her show to the McCain campaign's tolerance for verbal assaults was "a sort of false equivalence." God, I love you Rachel. I agree completely. You are so damn intelligent, and funny. I guess that's another way to describe that old Rovian tactic of "muddying the waters."

Frum's attacks on Rachel's show continued describing it in almost juvenile ways. He said that her show was part of the problem with its use of "heavy sacrasm," "sneering," and its "disregard for the more substantive issues." Rachel, of course, defended her show's use of humor perfectly. We progressives love our humor, she said, or something like it.

She went issue-by-issue peeling apart his calls for more substantive debate, pointing out that people enjoy getting their issues presented in different ways (she put it better). Overall, it was a wonderful exchange that Rachel handled like the progressive hero she is, and she deserves our praise. Thank you Dr. Maddow! I love your humor!

Like so many of those "Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz" types, Frum annoyed the hell out of me. I lost count of the number of times he dropped the word "intelligent" into the debate; he used it like a clumsy, rocket-propelled grenade launcher. He was so obvious in his attempt at intellectual snobbery and his overuse of "Yale-speak" to be obscene.

I've often wound up debating that type at dinner parties. You know them, the ones who try to make things more complicated than they need to be. They love to try and make you feel less capable, less articulate. It's just a tactic, albeit, a very annoying tactic. They're also the ones who leave early if you start throwing it right back at them. They frighten easily.

Republicans like Frum have lost a lot of their potency over the past eight years. Decades of corruption, eight years of Bush and "Rumsfeldian double-talk" have left us bruised and burned and them cowering in their corners - at least the smart ones, the dumb ones are still talking. We don't trust them anymore. It will take a whole new generation before they recover.

If the past eight years have taught us anything it's that they're mostly hot air. They're also less competent by and large. We need to remember that the more obnoxious a person seems, and the more they throw around the word intelligent, the less we should consider them so. They flew too close to the sun, and now we have only to see them fall.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's West Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

McCain Deception at Saddleback Church

Rick Warren holds in his hands and his church the thoughts of many Evangelical voters. The people following his church, Saddleback Faith, his reputation as a leader in that faith is now in question if the responses to a closed question and answer session of both Presidential candidates is ever proven out that John McCain was prompted on any of the answers to the questions. Devout honesty is paramount in this type of question and answer session. Cone of silence aside, as Rick Warren promised had been compromised and the MSM press is all over it like a fire ants nest disturbed. Obama was set up and Rick Warren is hiding something. That something is the truth and the fact that he wanted Obama to look like a near do well, and his prefered candidate a star.

Evangelicals should be very wary of a man like John McCain that declares his faith is in the same corner as their belief, but when an opportunity to lie and deceive people presents itself he grasps it as if it were gold. Lies, deception, and anything you want to hear is in the McCain campaign mantra that if an edge presents itself that it can somehow be garnished by answering questions that Senator McCain was not supposed to hear, then John McCain will take it. Answers that Senator Obama gave to the same questions honestly and thoughtfully were allegedly prepared for Senator McCain and this is outrageous! Over at the Huffington Post they are questioning McCain’s responses…

I must admit that listening to McCain answer Pastor Rick Warren's questions so quickly and glibly last night at the Saddleback Faith Forum made me wonder if he somehow knew them in advance. He was so confident, so concise. But I put the thought aside as unduly paranoid -- that is until a few minutes ago. I was routinely checking my favorite election website fivethirtyeight.com and the webmaster, Nate Silver, referred to a piece in Daily Kos about the whereabouts of John McCain for the first thirty minutes of Senator Obama's interview with Rick Warren. Was he in a cone of silence? Perhaps not. - Huffington Post

Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC raised this ruckus and I happen to think that she is right. John McCain never does well on off the wall comments and usually stumbles in all of his replies. Yes, both of the candidates were given a heads up by Rick Warren on what the subjects were going to be about but there was no knowledge of the exact questions before the event at Saddleback. Somebody is lying and this You Tube video slams the door shut. John McCain was fully aware of the questions to be asked, most likely prompted on the responses to give, and his opponent Barack Obama was totally in the dark.



How did John McCain with his upfront personality answer the questions that were supposed to be asked answer them so quickly on education? He couldn't have unless he knew ahead of time what they were going to be. Tell me I’m wrong! Tell me that you would vote for a person that would rather lie, deceive, cheat, steal, and rather lose his own soul just to win an office job in the White House. Power is a strong motive and motivation based on shadows of the truth is not and can not be the American way. Never!

We can look back on our own American history and be proud of George Washington our first President, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan all as Presidents that contributed so much to what it means to be an American today. You may or may not agree to any of their politics but shame or regret was never in their minds while President. Their work as President was not about them at all, it was about building America to be a better nation.

Can we honestly look at John McCain as a Presidential contender that has morphed himself into George W. Bush, one of the least popular Presidents in American history? An administration of the White House where lies have superseded the truth more times than not? You decide, it’s your vote!

Papamoka

Cross posted at Bring It ON!