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Red is Blue and the Whitehouse Black

Left is right; Keynes is King; Banks are poor and your average worker is….well…poorer. And in the midst of it two candidates vie for what has become the poisoned chalice that is the Presidency of the United States.

Look at what’s happening in the world right now. Today’s Crikey headline summed it up well: “Everywhere you look: Carnage!” They’re talking about the world economy – the response to the Bail Out has been less that bullish with the stock markets in the USA, Europe, Japan, Russia – hell let’s just say everywhere – heading south today.

Carnage could just as easily describe John McCain’s campaign. The two are linked like Siamese twins – and one of them has died. Actually, it’s more like Siamese triplets….the Bush Government, the world economy and the McCain campaign. One has died, one is dying and the third is stumbling around carrying the dead weight. That’s what happens with the conjoined – you just can’t get away from your siblings. So there’s Macca dragging around a corpse (Bush) and a near corpse (the economy). We won’t mention those other albatrosses (oh yes we will) – the wars he says could last a hundred years or his VP pick from hell.

And as the world around him panicswhat does the Siamese Triplet do? I said it earlier – to counter this threat McCain will start seriously addressing the issues of concern to the electorate, thus re-establishing his credibility and restoring confidence in his ability to govern with wisdom and compassion. NAH! Chucking mud is easier. So while Grandpa and Minnie indulge in shadow mud wrestling, the markets take yet another dive and the people’s confidence in McCains ability to lead plummets. McCain’s answer? More mud! Even if it’s old mud – Ayers, Rezko & Wright. Some’s gotta stick, right?? Yep John – but it’s stickin’ to you!”

Over at Time Online Mike Murphy wrote

“Palin should drop the braying attacks on Obama’s aging hippie bomber pals and start connecting to her cherished hockey moms on the one issue they are actually worried about; a quickly slowing economy. Chuck the hacky and ineffective negative ads and switch to man on the street spots with real people voicing their real doubts about Obama; too weak to stand up to Washington’s mighty special interest cartel or the newly empowered Democratic bosses of the Congress and Senate, too liberal to know how to fix the economy, too inexperienced to handle a dangerous world. On Tuesday, McCain should look into the camera and connect to the 80 million scared and worried Americans who will be watching him.”

RCP’s Jay Cost disagrees. He thinks McCain’s only option is to keep throwing the mud. “One party’s vicious smear is the other’s vital truth. That’s just the way it is” he opines today.

Jay is wrong. A panicked America isn’t listening. They want comfort, they want assurance and they want answers. McCain isn’t giving any of it it so they’re dropping the old guy like a stone. Look at the numbers! The map is a mass of blue. Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico. Commenting on today’s polls 538’s Nate Silver says:

“Are John McCain’s negative attacks succeeding in eating into some of Barack Obama’s support? They certainly aren’t yet. In fact, Barack Obama has had perhaps his strongest individual polling day of the year…You can read these numbers as well as I can. Obama leads by 6 in North Carolina? 12 in Virginia? 7 in Florida? 3 in Missouri? Obviously, I am cherrypicking some of the more pro-Obama results here … but the point is, there are a lot of favourable results these days for Barack Obama.”

So if McCain looks tired and burdened going into the next debate. Sympathise. He’s carrying a lot of baggage. If he’s looking blue, it’s just the reflection of what’s going on all around him.

671 replies on “Red is Blue and the Whitehouse Black”

21 Ron …a Golden Goose Update
Posted Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
FINNS
“we even have a new Czarina who is sounding more and more like the old one”

yes & catlike too , also a chris c 20 posts an hour and foot soldiers but commonality does extends to both disinformation & th ‘ Gotti’ teflon don effect , but bailout changed it all & would hav done in reverse human nature
22 William Bowe (I’m having one!)
Posted Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 8:53 pm | Permalink
Ron, golden rule: talk about politics, not other commenters.

AH Breathing. 🙂

Shows On Naked with Horse’s Head on a stick…Dwalfy exposes Poss’s inner Bogan…

The White Dress Brigade Waltzes On… & my super is fckued. 🙂

Auspicious and colourful debut, Ferny. The conjoined triplets of doom analogy works beautifully; JMc meets Quasimodo’s nightmare while creeping and widespread panic simmers in the autumn of America’s discontent.
Mark thee, sirrah, there will be no Junior Woodchuck sympathy from this sleeper cell for Bomb-Bomb the overburdened. May he be crushed beneath his lies, spin, and vainglory like a wannabe Atlas way past his shrug-by date. May the dogs of electoral retribution be unchained and let his political corpse be stuffed and mounted upon the Rushmore of the damned.

Having said that, I’d like to wish Senator McCain all the best come November 4.

This is a sympton of the decay you describe, from Bloomberg tonight:

GM’s Europe Unit to Suspend Production on Sales Drop (Update2)
By Chris Reiter

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp.’s European unit plans to reduce production by about 40,000 vehicles by the end of the year as credit-market turmoil causes a drop in car sales.

The Adam Opel brand’s factory in Eisenach, Germany will start a three-week production halt next week, while the plant in Bochum, Germany, is completing two-week closure, Andreas Kroemer, a spokesman for the Ruesselsheim, Germany-based division, said today in a telephone interview.

“The financial crisis is impacting demand,” Kroemer said. “We don’t want to stockpile.”

The cuts are equivalent to 2.3 percent of the 1.74 million vehicles that Detroit-based GM built in Europe last year. Auto- industry sales in the region dropped 16 percent in August, the biggest monthly decline since 1999, with GM brands reporting an 18 percent drop. Competitors such as Ford Motor Co., Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG have been reducing production in recent weeks in response.

General Motors’ temporary shutdowns also affect plants in Ellesmere Port and Luton, in England, as well as Zaragoza, Spain, reducing production of the Astra, Corsa and Zafira models, Kroemer said. The U.K. plants make cars under the Vauxhall brand. Opel’s Ruesselsheim factory had already scaled back production to prepare assembly lines to build the new Insignia, he said.

A great post to wake up to,Ferny!
And Ecky,Codger,….. 😆
The rooster in me wants to crow with pleasure but that old Diebold cloud keeps doggedly hovering just above my head……
Roll on Nov 5!!
Oh,and Gaffy,about that gold tooth…. 😆

Nevada poll (from Pollster.com):

Reno Gazette-Journal/KTVN-TV/Research 2000
10/3-6/08; 600 LV

Obama: 50
McCain: 43

Rasmussen for AL and PA care of 538.com:

Alaska
Obama: 40
McCain: 55

Pennsylvania
Obama: 54
McCain: 41

Pennsylvania Whites Switch Horses, and Suddenly Obama is 15 Furlongs Ahead: In an election for President of the United States in Pennsylvania today, 10/07/08, four weeks to the vote, Democrat Barack Obama defeats Republican John McCain 55% to 40%, according to a SurveyUSA tracking poll conducted exclusively for WCAU-TV Philadelphia, KDKA-TV Pittsburgh, WNEP-TV Scranton, WHTM-TV Harrisburg, and WJAC-TV Johnstown. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released twelve days ago, Obama is up 5 points; McCain is down 4.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=b99d60cb-3369-47bd-887f-85bae65d2a31

Obama Outspending McCain Nearly 3 to 1 on Television.

Barack Obama is outspending John McCain at nearly a three-to-one clip on television time in the final weeks of the presidential election, according to ad buy information obtained by The Fix, a financial edge that is almost certainly contributing to the momentum for the Illinois senator in key battleground states.

From Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, Obama spent more than $20 million on television ads in 17 states including more than $3 million in Pennsylvania and more than $2 million each in Florida, Michigan and Ohio. McCain in that same time frame spent just $7.2 million in 15 states. Even when the Republican National Committee’s independent expenditure spending in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin is factored in (a total of $5.3 million), Obama still outspent the combined GOP forces by roughly $8 million in the last week alone.

Registration may be needed
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/10/obamas_spending_edge.html

18
Megan

The rooster in me wants to crow with pleasure but that old Diebold cloud keeps doggedly hovering just above my head……

You are not on your pat Megan.
Stories from all over keep hitting the press or blog sites regarding faulty machines and court cases.

His team spent weeks testing two machines from Union County on behalf of the plaintiffs in a 4-year-old voting rights case before Superior Court Judge Linda Fein berg in Trenton. The machines were manufactured by Sequoia Voting System, which objected to the testing, arguing it could put their trade secrets at risk.

Feinberg took the extraordinary step of allowing the examination after officials in Bergen, Gloucester, Middlesex, Mercer, Ocean and Union counties reported discrepan cies in the February presidential primary tallies. The glitches did not affect the candidates’ results, merely the numbers of Republicans and Democrats casting ballots.

“But as a matter of basic policy — of running a democracy — the public and legislators who want to know the basic facts about the reliability of their elections need to be able to read reports such as this one,” Appel wrote in his blog.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1223352931205580.xml&coll=1

Good one Ferny.

8 Codger.
Always good for a laugh heh!

25
Chris B
And with the likes of Olbermans’ help he is getting 20 to 1 value without the extra spend.

Obama Propelled by Financial Crisis and Vice Presidential Debate.

According to two Minnesota Public Radio News and Humphrey Institute polls, the extraordinary financial crisis and the resulting congressional response along with the Vice Presidential debate propelled the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama from a narrow 4 point lead (47 percent to 43 percent) to a 14 point advantage among likely voters in Minnesota (54 percent to 40 percent).

http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/cspg/pdf/HHH_MPR_October_President.pdf

Ah Ferny, your portrait of Macca is a great macabre invention! As he lurches to November he’s only going to get worse, eh?

And Codger, that’s truly hysterical, if not a tad sad. Can these characters be far from needing professional help? I think not.

Good morning all…and thank you.
You’re such an affirming lot!

The Carnage continued overnight, I see…and the Conjoined Triplet lurches along, his energy drained, the stench of death in his nostrils and all ideas turned to dust. So the ‘honorable hero’ abandons the battle of wits and throws off any attempt at leadership and slips his trembling hand into the bog – and ends up covered in his own vile shite. The public are repulsed and The Kid is too fast and to far ahead to even notice.

Nice post Mr Grover, loved the Siamese triplets.
If this election theme is change, well the universe seems to be along for the ride! there’s certainly a lot of things a-changing these days.

I have to say, I love the idea of a codger authored thread! but please, please don’t put it up on a weekend. Hangovers are quite the norm in Spammys box on a Saturday and me-thinks, whilst a few hundred words of Codger’nese will be a great read, a clear head and a nimble mind will be required 😉

Ecky @ 9 said
“Mark thee, sirrah, there will be no Junior Woodchuck sympathy from this sleeper cell for Bomb-Bomb the overburdened. May he be crushed beneath his lies, spin, and vainglory like a wannabe Atlas way past his shrug-by date. May the dogs of electoral retribution be unchained and let his political corpe be stuffed and mounted upon the Rushmore of the damned.”

LOL…..you melodramatic soothsayer you! Made me laugh out loud and caused passers by to wonder what I’m doing in my office to cause such mirth.

There’s got to be a worthy cartoonist somewhere who can use the hideous triplet as a muse. Surely!

Chris —

I was in North Carolina with Barack yesterday — getting ready for tonight’s debate — and I took a break to record a short strategy update for you.

Yesterday, millions of Americans learned the details about John McCain, his political patron Charles Keating, and their role in the last major financial crisis and taxpayer-financed bailout of our time.

The truth makes it even clearer why a senior McCain adviser admitted to a reporter, “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”

But it’s not enough to merely inform voters — we’ve got to turn them out to vote.

You can make a huge difference by making a short trip to a key battleground state where the race is neck-and-neck — or by making phone calls to undecided voters in battleground states.

Watch our latest strategy update video and consider giving a day of your time to help turn out the vote in the crucial four days leading up to the election:

VIDEO: Give Barack A Day

While we’re focused on persuading and turning out voters, John McCain has given up talking about the issues that are central to this election — especially the economy. Instead, he’s running the most negative presidential campaign in modern history.

In the past few days, we’ve seen the beginning of a major offensive that McCain is about to launch, filled with distortions, personal attacks, and flat-out lies about Barack.

But you can help fight back by getting involved at the grassroots level — knocking on doors, making phone calls, and talking to undecided voters about what really matters in this election.

Commit at least one day to make sure Barack gets the votes we need to win:

http://my.barackobama.com/giveadayvideo

Thanks for everything you’re doing,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Surely McCain will pull out of Pennsylvania soon? He’s got no chance of winning any Kerry states, in my opinion!
And will McLame continue to go negative in today’s debate?
Watching John McCain trash his supposed image of politeness, as he throws mud and smear at Obama – it ain’t a pretty picture, and I suspect it will turn off Independents!

37 Progressive That would be waving the surrender flag. There has to be some place he has to stay, so as to give the appearance he has a chance. 😆

Ayers-head strikes out
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/60859

Tues Oct 7:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/nonsequitur;_ylt=A0WTUcst9OtI6y4BrhYDwLAF

Tues Sept 30: Another aspect of the phrase: “under house arrest”
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/laloalcaraz;_ylt=Av7WgBISmC.WXGZYE4y3xp8V2r8F

Tues Oct 7:
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=AhwMRgTUTgsDw5qzpoCgGk_Xj5Z4

Tues October 7: “The fundamentals of the Martian Economy are sound”
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=AhwMRgTUTgsDw5qzpoCgGk_Xj5Z4

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/60853
————————-
Nothing appropriate yet, Ferny, but keeping my scanners tweaked.

megan and gaffy, the dodgys at Diebold can only pull their strokes in a tight election. The Kid is getting such widespread support that any attempt to “steal a State” that flies in the face of psephological reality will stand out like dog’s balls on a canary.

All Kerry’s 2004 blue states are solid for Obi. Democratic Governors rule in VA, OH, CO, NM and NC.

On a “you can’t fool all of the people, all of the time” basis, ALL these States’ ECVs can’t be stolen without concommitant anarchy. Diebold didn’t stop the Dems from picking up 3 or 4 senators in 2004 that even “experts” at the time gave little chance of being elected. It’s time we let Gouldie do all the worrying for us on the possibility of another fix going in to “elect” Bomb-Bomb POTUS.

If Mc/P surge in all polls (possible but very unlikely under the current economic circumstances where voters hold the GOP more responsible than Dems) then, and only then need you be seriously concerned. imho.

40 minutes in

John McCain 3 times: I can work with Joe Lieberman HEHHHHHHHHHH

WTF????? who cares

senility

Obama nailed McCain on health care. The story about his mother dying of cancer and her fight with health insurers went to the heart. Showed this is personal for him.

By Post Author

Obama has obliterated McCain tonight.

Admittedly he has an advantage though. Reality is on his side.

I doubt anyone will see it as an obliteration, Harry. It will be scored as a draw – except by the partisan reporters of course.
That’s enough for Obama. When you’re miles ahead a draw will do. There’s no bounce for McCain in this.
He has referred to Obama as “That one” a couple of times. That won’t go down well.

By Post Author

It is all about the undecided, so it will be interesting. Two polls usually come out today, CBS and I think CNN.

On CNN Obama clearly did better according to the Worm. On domestic issues (in particular the economy) Obama ‘won’ most questions. On foreign policy, McCain generally did a bit better, though the only time that McCain clearly bested Obama was the Russia/Georgia question.

65

It appeared to me that the two candidates ignored each other after the debate. Eventually McCain tapped Obama on the back and then turned away while Obama shook Cindy McCain’s hand.

Looked like a draw to me. Just did a long appraisal of the debate (content and body language) typed in the comments box instead of Word, and lost the lot (grrrr!) when accidentally hit the “Shift” instead of “Enter”. You get that. It’s very character building.

So I’m off to get annelidical and suss what the worm wiggle augurers are saying.

If buying everyone’s bad mortgages was his big plan, it is odd that he has not pushed it more.

Obama won the debate, but not by much. Both of them ducked pretty much every question that was posed, which was annoying.

Brokaw was hopeless as moderator, imo.

One day, there will be actual debates, not simply stages for talking points. But that is what I hope for question time in our very own House of Representatives, and fat chance of that ever occurring ..

I like the plan, by the way: Clinton was pushing it, having borrowed it from FDR.

Buying the mortgages will not necessarily cost $2 trillion, and it need not be done all at once in any case. Simply buying some and making it known that you might buy others makes them automatically worth more. And this will have flow-on effects through the economy.

Obama and Biden have come out of all 3 debates looking MORE Presidential than they were going in.

That has been their SOLE goal. And it has been accomplished.

When you do that when you are already ahead it is a big win.

Obama, as a politician, is just brilliant. There is no bones about it.

For a Black Chicago liberal to take down the Clintons and be 6-7 points ahead of a white war hero in Conservative America is remarkable.

It is a testament to a rare political talent.

On Intrade Obama is up about 3 to around 72 and McCain is daown about 3.5 to 28. Punters getting lined up.

The only good news for McCain that I can see in that polling is that 70 per cent plus of uncommitted voters are still uncommitted. I suspect that he would have to win over pretty much all of them. However, given that Obama has failed to win them over thus far with everything going for him has got to be a tiny bit of a concern.

David

Obama is over 50% in Colorado, Virginia and Florida.

How many more would you like him to convince?

Og geez. The market has given its verdict on the debate.
Intrade now has Obama at 72 and McCain at 27.8.

The Old Guy is joining the markets in a freefall.

Happy landings!

By Post Author

HarryH,

A few more per cent would be nice. 🙂 Very likely the top few per cent are soft supporters who might alter their minds between now and election day. Any extra buffer would always be welcome.

Further, the realclearpolitics averages for those states, while very close to 50 per cent, have not quite got there yet. As I said, McCain likely needs all of the undecideds at this point. But it bugs me that they are undecided. How could you possibly be undecided about this election with only four weeks to go? I do not understand some people.

Well i guess myself and nearly everyone else were WRONG.

Fox News text poll has the truth on the debate.
McCain: 86%
Obama: 12%

Bwahahaha

HarryH,

It looks like a landslide for McCain. That was the gamechanger. Obama will be lucky to hold Illinois.

It really is not fair of Fox to tease an elderly man like that …

Harry at 73:

For a Black Chicago liberal to take down the Clintons and be 6-7 points ahead of a white war hero in Conservative America is remarkable.

It is a testament to a rare political talent.

Couldn’t agree more, Harry! This bloke(yes, “that one”) and his team have knocked over what was once one of the most formidable dynasties in Sep politics, and GOPper spinners are still dumbly trying to slur Barry as “Inexperienced” and “Unfit to be C-I-C”
Infantile ploy when trying to sway savvy Uncommiteds and Indys.

David at 75:

…given that Obama has failed to win them(Indys) over thus far with everything going for him has got to be a tiny bit of a concern.

I’m sorry, Gouldie, but you’re way off the mark. Incorrect even:)

“I made this point below, but I’ll make it again — the snap polls completely short circuit the ability of the right-wing noise machine to ramp up the “our guy won because the Democrat sighed” b.s. It’s hard for the right-wing pundits on the air to make the case that McCain won when the numbers are so starkly in opposition.”

cf. CBS snap poll of uncommitted voters

http://www.dailykos.com/

(scroll down a smidge)

Just another example of how the internet has changed the way the game of politics is played forever. And every man Jack and woman jen here amongst us is a Zeitgeister.

At moments like this one reflects upon pamphleteers like Thomas Paine and guys like Guttenburg, Morse, Marconi, Bell and the millions who once beat the tom-tom drums of their neighbourhoods. Wonder what they would have made of it all, eh? No doubt there is/was a Geman or Italian eqivalent of what the more Rabelaisian of we citizens of this Great Southern Land would call a “fuck*me*dead” response.

All the gatekeepers, censors, editors and Ministries of Truth are bypassed in seconds flat as our thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams become instantly accessible to whomsoever wants to peruse them. We are E.M. Forster’s little lights that that glow in the darkness and the near despair induced by eight years of The Imbecile and BushCo, soon mercifully, to become history.

And we’re all so frightfully good-natured and quinessentially democratic. No wonder totalitarian regimes like Singapore, North Korea and China censor the living daylights out of any full, frank and free exchanges about politics in cyberspace that they so rigidly control.

(shit, dunno where that come from but it did, so there!)

Enemy Combatant,

In what way was I wrong? The poll cited said that 70 per cent of uncommitted voters were still uncommitted after the debate (I have no idea why they are uncommitted, mind you, but there you go …). It is odd that even with everything going for him, they have not swung to Obama as yet.

For the record, it was not independents, by the way: it was uncommitted, which is a different group. You can be a registered Democrat and be uncommitted, for example.

For clarity: they were not uncommitted on who won the debate. Most said Obama did. But that victory by Obama did not sway them to commit to voting for or against him.

Yep Ecky. They say that it’s not the fall that kills you but the sudden stop at the end.

Nov 5 will be a very sudden stop for team McCain. Will we hear the splat from here?

By Post Author

Fair enough, Gouldie, I take your point on the difference between uncommiteds and Independents, however, arn’t you placing just a tad too much faith in RCP?
Do you feel that maybe, just maybe, you’re outsourcing too much of your formidable reasoning powers to an ideological if not psephological Ponzi Scheme?

DG: “Obama has failed to win them over thus far with everything going for him has got to be a tiny bit of a concern.”

Look at the scorebord, David:)

I was going by the CBS snap poll, not realclear politics.

As to realclearpolitics, given that they tend to show a very similar story to fivethirtyeight, electoral-vote, electionprojection and intrade, I do not see how they are a problem. I tend to discard outlier polls – for example, the polls showing Obama nationally at only plus 3 – but neither fivethirtyeight or realclearpolitics do that.

I would also point out that as a pessimist using the supposedly best polling average (well, ignoring Fox text polls!) for McCain is not unreasonable. 🙂

No wonder totalitarian regimes like Singapore, North Korea and China censor the living daylights out of any full, frank and free exchanges about politics in cyberspace that they so rigidly control.

#82 Thank goodness it won’t be for long. New satellite technology, high altitude balloons, long range wireless transmitters and even key ring hard drives with massive capacity will put a stop to this. 😈

84 David Gould.. Pessimism is defined by me as finding the cloud in every silver lining. My take on the statistics that you find alarming is that about 15% of the uncommitteds broke BO, as opposed to about 12% to McSenile… and that was within a few minutes of the debate.. quite a few are going to mull over it for a few hours, and probably become uncommitted pale blues… That’s what I call optimism, and that’s what the world needs if we’re going to surmount the current credit collapse.
BTW, Herr Doktor is probably opining the Hilary would now be up by 30, with -100% uncomitted..

92 – EC

I hope that we all picked up a bit at 1.87, at the height of the republican convention/Palin bounce, when the odds were simply crazy 🙂

83 David Gould Believe it or not, some people tune off with politics. Everyone is not like you and I. There are some people who could not tell you who is running.

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