Chattering Lass's Open Salon Blog

One to watch: McCain/Palin on NBC Nightly News

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:10:16 -0400

OK - gotta tune into NBC Nightly News tonight.

We just got a preview from Brian Williams and Chuck Todd about the interview with McCain and Palin together, which airs tonight. Apparently the body language and mood of the candidates and the staffers was overwhelmingly negative. Todd just couldn't emphasize enough how bad it was. He was saying they just seemed incredibly uncomfortable together, suggesting that they may be starting to blame each other for the nose-diving campaign.

Also, apparently Palin reversed herself in the interview, telling Williams she WOULD now release her medical records, which Todd says visibly jarred her staff.

As a side note, Todd has been saying for some time that McCain and Palin may be nearing their "Bullworth moment".

Axelrod: a look at the image-maker

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:10:19 -0400

If you're wondering how it happeded, look no further. The New Republic's Jason Zengerle has penned this fantastic behind-the-curtain piece on the Obama campaign's chief strategist, David Axelrod, revealing Axelrod's history of political stagecraft and his evolving relationship with the would-be candidate for President of the United States.

Interesting tidbits abound, like Axelrod's lack of forsight and vision when it came to Obama's potential, Obama's persistence in pursuing Axelrod for a lead position on his political team, and Axelrod's role in persuading Obama to aim for the Presidency in 2008.

Most revealing of all may be the amount of strategy that was put into making a black man acceptible to white voters. It seems that in this campaign Barack Obama's blackness has often almost been beside the point in this contest, especially when compared to predecessors like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. But, as Zengerle highlights, that air of post-racial, post-partisan politics was indeed well-crafted. Of Axelrod's work on the 1989 mayoral race of black state senator Michael White:

Axelrod believed the other crucial vehicle for winning his candidate the votes of Cleveland's white residents was what he's called "third-party authentication"--in other words, endorsements from respected individuals or institutions that whites put a lot of stock in. "David felt there almost had to be a permission structure set up for certain white voters to consider a black candidate," explains Ken Snyder, a Democratic consultant and Axelrod protégé .

Axelrod, it seems, has developed the winning formula for black candidates to grab freely from the white electoral pool:

The self-described "keeper of the message" for Obama's presidential bid has taken the lessons he learned from his mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns and made them cohere into something that approaches a unified theory of how to elect a black candidate--emphasizing biography, using third-party authentication, attacking with an unconventional sideways approach, letting voters connect to the candidate by speaking to them directly in ads, and telling voters that supporting the black candidate puts them on the right side of history.

There are many, many revealing and fascinating bits in the piece. If you want to know how we got to this moment, read it.

A return to Palin's "pastor problem"

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:10:14 -0400

I know we've largely put Sarah Palin's "pastor problem" behind us, with the media consensus seeming to be that Kenyan Bishop Thomas Muthee, who blessed Palin and called for her protection from "witchcraft", should be seen in a cultural context and that he isn't literally hunting witches. As summed up by the Washington Post :

Can we forget the crazy preachers and try to get the candidates to focus on the serious problems?

Haha. Silly "phony issues". Oh, but wait. What if Kenyans are actually inciting the murder of "witches" by burning? While witchcraft is illegal in Kenya, apparently the reaction to accusations of witchcraft is getting horrendous. Per NPR today:

In May, 11 people died in a "witch" burning in southwestern Kenya, but questions linger over whether neighbors in that particular region of Kenya believed the people killed were witches. ...Local authorities say that in May, a security guard turned over a suspicious notebook he found at a school. The notebook reportedly listed the names of local witches and the minutes of their meetings. But before turning over the book to the authorities, residents of the area apparently copied down the names. Over a two-day period, a mob cut down 11 mostly retired and elderly people and burned their homes to cinders.

While there is no evidence that Muthee's pursuit of witches in his home community has lead directly to bodily harm or death, it did lead to the persecution of a local woman who is also a pastor.

Furthermore, persecution and murder justified by accusations of witchcraft is a real problem in Muthee's home nation and his active role in scapegoating individuals by identifying them as "witches" bears further scrutiny. Palin should know that she is closely aligned with someone who contributes to a very real culture of persecution, violence and murder.

McCain the Communist/Socialist

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:10:45 -0400

So who said the following: Barack Obama or John McCain?

I believe that when you really look at the tax code today, the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don't pay nearly as much as you think they do when you just look at the percentages. And I think middle-income Americans, working Americans, when the account and payroll taxes, sales taxes, mortgage pay -- all of the taxes that working Americans pay, I think they -- you would think that they also deserve significant relief, in my view...

If you said John McCain you would be CORRECT. That's the John McCain of 2000 - remember him? - answering a citizen's question on Hardball.

I know. I know. Isn't that that pesky "spreading the wealth" that McCain and Palin are up in arms over? Well, sure! But this is an election year, and apparently that means McCain's job is to demonize others for things he actually believes in.

Think that's taken out of context? To hear McCain say specifically that this is NOT socialism, read the full transcript here.

GOP voter registration fraud. Yes, GOP.

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:10:51 -0400

Well, if you thought ACORN had cornered the market on voter registration fraud, get some bi-partisan religion.

In a great story followed by the LA Times, Mark Jacoby, owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired this year to register thousand of voters, was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration fraud. Turns out Mr. Jacoby falsely registered himself at a California address that is not his own in order to meet California's legal requirement to register others to vote.

THIS AFTER dozens of California voters came forward to report that his firm, YPM, had duped them into registering Republican by asking them to sign a petition for "tougher penalties against child molesters". According to the Times, "YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusettes. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit."

In California, if these voters didn't discover the change, they would be disqualified from voting in their party's next primary.

So, I know they're both bad, but indulge me: which is worse? Filling out a bunch of obviously false registration cards (Tony Romo, Mickey Mouse, Jimmy John, etc.) or duping an actual person into changing their party affiliation?

PS - Unlike ACORN, YPM does pay by the card, not by the hour.