Tag: 2008 elections

Nov 03 2008

GOP Pollster: All Over But The Crying?

Frank Luntz has been a GOP pollster for years. For anyone who isn’t familiar with his name, wikipedia describes him as “an American corporate and political consultant and pollster who has worked extensively in shaping talking points and political strategy for Republican candidates. Some of his most recent work has been with the Fox News Channel running focus groups after presidential debates.”

PBS Now with Bill Moyers describes Luntz this way:

Dr. Frank Luntz was named by TIME as one of “50 of America’s most promising leaders aged 40 and under” and he is the “hottest pollster” in America according to the BOSTON GLOBE. Luntz was the winner of the coveted Washington Post “Crystal Ball” award for being the most accurate pundit in 1992. The “Instant Response” focus group technique Frank has pioneered was profiled on 60 MINUTES in 1998.

Luntz has written, supervised, and conducted more than a thousand surveys and focus groups for corporate and public affairs clients in 11 countries since forming The Luntz Research Companies in 1992. In the 2000 election cycle, Luntz conducted almost two-dozen focus groups for MSNBC and CNBC, including live sessions following each night of both party conventions and presidential debates. His reoccurring segments on MSNBC/CNBC, “100 Days, 1000 Voices” won an Emmy Award in 2001. He was a primary night and election night commentator for THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS on MSNBC in 2000 and continue[d] those duties for HARDBALL in 2004.

Love or hate him, if any pundit or pollster claims a good handle on what will happen in Tuesdays election, none are more experienced or better qualified to know what they are talking about than Luntz.

In a RawStory article today Luntz is quoted as saying:

“I cannot foresee a scenario that John McCain is elected the President of the United States”

The RawStory article also includes an audio file of Luntz in a short interview with the BBC:

Nov 02 2008

Progressives Debate in Vermont!

Vermont Progressive Party candidates debated their opponents in October, and they are interesting to say the least.  The links are set up thus: The debate pages, followed by direct links to the sound files.  If you have any trouble gaining access, please let me know.

Attorney General Debate with Charlotte Dennett

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…

Sectretary of State Debate with Marj Power

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…

US Representative Debate with Thomas Hermann.

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…

Lieutenant Governor Debate with Richard Kemp.

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…

Gubernatorial Debate with Anthony Pollina.

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…

Nov 02 2008

Wilco the Band plays for Obama the Candidate in Madison the City

(Guest post from Jeff Bentoff, Milwaukeean about town, recovered newsman, consultant, flack, sometimes musician, music aficionado and Wilco enthusiast.  For today, we'll just call him Jeff the Blogger.)

Jeff Tweedy, leader of the revered rock band Wilco, and two colleagues from the group, kicked off a vote-early drive Saturday aimed at getting UW-Madison students to the polls before Election Day.

Playing a free, nine-song set at the UW Memorial Union Theater in Madison Saturday afternoon, the mini, mainly acoustic version of Wilco turned in a riveting performance under a large “Obama-Biden” banner, wowing the capacity, mostly student audience of about 1,300.

Following the “Concert for Change,” attendees were planning to march to Madison’s City County Building, to encourage early balloting there. Speaking to the crowd, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold and U. S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin emphasized the importance of getting out the vote for Barack Obama. They noted that while Democrats John Kerry and Al Gore carried the state in recent presidential elections, they did so by very small percentages.

Thanks to the writing and singing of Tweedy and the equally strong musicianship of his band colleagues, Wilco (Wilco World link) has amassed a loyal, almost cult-like following. (Note: this writer is a member of said alleged cult.) Tweedy, who grew up in southern Illinois and now lives in Chicago, has long been an Obama supporter.

In an amusing interview Thursday on The Colbert Report, Tweedy said he first met Obama in 2005 when the future presidential candidate introduced the band at a Farm Aid concert. Obama has said he’s a fan of the band, telling a crowd at a benefit concert in Chicago this summer, "I love Wilco."

Wilco debuted a new song on the Colbert show whose title, “Wilco The Song,” plays off the nickname of McCain supporter “Joe The Plumber.”

Colbert teased Tweedy for offering a free download of a song online, asking if he’s a socialist. “No, we’re just really, really lousy capitalists,” Tweedy replied.

The free Wilco download is available here to anyone who pledges to vote. The free song, Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” features Wilco and indie rock sensation Fleet Foxes.

Saturday’s set featured three of the six band members: Tweedy on acoustic guitar, John Stiratt on electric bass and Pat Sansone on electric keys and acoustic guitar. Their voices blended perfectly during the show, which featured classic Wilco songs. Two of the tunes were based on unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics that Tweedy has put to music, including the stunning “California Stars.” Introducing another of the Guthrie-Tweedy songs, “Christ for President,” Tweedy said the words were written before “Christian ideals were appropriated by right-wing politics.”

Tweedy said that he tried to pick songs to play Saturday that would fit the themes of the rally but suggested that wasn’t too easy – his songs are beautiful but more a reflection of troubled times than of optimistic ones.

“We don’t have very many songs that are appropriate for hope-filled auditoriums,” Tweedy said. “There’s a hope gap.”

(Setlist below the fold)

Nov 01 2008

Breaking the Dog Whistle

I like Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo, and think he has done an excellent job covering (and in many cases uncovering) the issues arising over the 2008 election.

I don’t always agree with him, but I think he has a good grasp of the difference between reporting hard news and editorializing, and he rarely mixes the two.

I also appreciate that he has established a real news organization that uses its own sources, and is a good model for citizen journalism.

But his latest posts on the negative cast of the McCain/Palin campaign have been breathtaking.

When he does editorialize about the dog-whistle smearing that has been done by McCain and Palin, his fury and contempt is clear, and because he’s not usually a ranter, that fury is more compelling in the contrast.

His latest post, McCainism is a doozy:

For my own part, obviously, I hope Barack Obama can pull off a victory on Tuesday. But more than that, I hope the result of the election can be a rebuke, a closing of the book on McCainism and the moral filth it has come to represent. I’m under no illusion that negative or even nasty campaigning will come to an end in the USA. I don’t think that’s realistic or even necessarily desirable. Hard-fought and brass-knuckle politics is something built into the fiber of American politics. It’s part and parcel of the intensity of belief and passion that many of us have for the issues at stake in our elections.

But McCain’s campaign has devolved into something altogether different … what with its increasingly open appeals to racial conflict and aggressive invocations of blood hatred of Arabs and Muslims. As The New Republic phrases it, McCain’s “subtle incitements of racial warfare and underhanded implications of foreign nativity.” Over the months we’ve become desensitized to the moral depravity of McCain’s campaign.

Nov 01 2008

Friday Night at 8: Ambiguity

Obama speaks of getting past the divisive partisan politics that has sickened this country for so many years.  And he doesn’t only talk the talk, he embodies in his own behavior this philosophy.

Over at Daily Kos, Markos speaks of leaving everything on the road and of crushing the Republican machine.  He also defends being a surrogate in attacking Sarah Palin when both Obama and Biden could not:

I know I harp on this a lot, but it’s an important teaching moment — when Palin was picked, she debuted to sterling approval numbers. Her speech at the RNC was a big hit. She was beloved, and McCain’s numbers skyrocketed as a result. This site and others went on the attack. Republicans were busy trying to build a great story about Palin — hockey mom, “real”, ate mooseburgers, reformer, blah blah blah. We fought back discussing her record, her corruption, her lack of experience, and the results of her brand of “family values”.

Too many counseled that we should lay off her. It’s the curse of the Democrats — instead of trying to move public opinion, we’re constantly trying to “shift the debate to more favorable terrain”. That’s what happened when Democrats sold out our troops and voted for Bush’s war in Iraq. Supposedly, that would shift the terms of the debate from Iraq and terrorism, to more favorable domestic issues. Of course, that didn’t happen. We lost big in November 2002.

Then in 2004, we once again tried to move the debate from national security (Bush is too popular there!), which would be accomplished by nominating a war hero, taking that issue “off the table”. Well, Republicans, masters at this business, went straight after Kerry’s strongest attribute — his military service — and destroyed it via the Swiftboat stuff.

They even tried it this year, going after Obama’s strength — the passion of his supporters — by trying to brand him a “celebrity” on par with Paris Hilton. It wasn’t a bad line of attack until they undermined it with the selection of Palin, their very own “celebrity”.

This is all stuff out of Crashing the Gate and Taking on the System — our fear of targeting our opponents’ strongest points. Yet that’s how you win elections. So excuse me if I belabor the point, because it’s an important one.

People criticized us for taking on Palin, saying that we were ignoring McCain. But she was his biggest strength, and as such, it would be tough to knock McCain down if she wasn’t knocked down first.

Ultimately, we were successful beyond our wildest dreams — the McCain campaign has been forced to stash away Palin in Cheney’s undisclosed location, and even needs McCain to chaperone her during media interviews.

I remember when I, along with many other bloggers, were bitching about the endless stream of Palin diaries … yet many of those diaries, even the badly written ones, accomplished real citizen journalism in showing Palin’s weaknesses, most especially the corruption of her Governorship in Alaska.

Oct 31 2008

Help Cindy Sheehan defeat Nancy Pelosi!

http://www.cindyforcongress.org

Pelosi has been a disaster as speaker of the House, and a traitor to the Constitution.  She has removed impeachment from the table, enabled Bush’s warrantless and illegal surveillance of American citizens, continued to fund the occupation of Iraq, and supported the nearly one trillion dollar blank check to bail out Wall Street.  Whatever your party affiliation, whatever other feelings you might have about the candidates, if you care about your country and the direction in which it is headed, now is the time to make genuine change for the better.  Unseat Nancy Pelosi, vote in Cindy Sheehan, and send a message to the rest of Congress: NO MORE!

Oct 31 2008

The war won’t end on Tuesday

From our friends at the Iraq Moratorium:

Yes, we know there’s an election in four days, and a lot of folks are preoccupied.  By all means, cast a ballot.  But don’t stop there.

No matter who wins or loses on Tuesday, the war in Iraq won’t be over.  It will drag on.  More blood will be shed.

We want the war, the occupation, and the bloodshed to end as quickly as possible.  

That’s why in three weeks, on Nov. 21, we will observe the Iraq Moratorium once again. We hope you will again be part of it, as people all across the country interrupt business as usual and take action to call for an end to the war.

If we’re going to end this war, it is essential that we keep the pressure on the people who are elected on Tuesday.  We learned after the 2006 elections that change does not come quickly, easily, or automatically.

Please plan to join thousands of others who will take some action, big or small, on Nov. 21 to mark the Moratorium.  You’ll find lots of ideas on the website, IraqMoratorium.com.

And please take a minute to list the activity you’re planning, so others can learn about it and participate, or take heart and inspiration from what you do.  Use this easy form to share your plans.

And if you can spare a dime, buddy, we sure could use it, now that the campaigns are winding down.  We’ve operated for more than a year on almost no money or paid staff.  But even a shoestring operation needs to buy a shoestring now and then.  We’d be most grateful for any help you can offer.  Go here to donate.

Oct 31 2008

Election Research

Yeehaw and an hearty thank you.

I shall most definitely pass the link on to my primary lists!

https://www.docudharma.com/show…

Surveys such as this always ASSume one is coming from a lamestream type exsistence.  This is why I have a problem with the questions.  Confusion over the real meaning vs the Orwellian doublespeak meaning arises.  In this case there were at least a few spaces in which I could inject my own personal brand of vitriolic disgust.

Oct 31 2008

Gregg Cagno’s 50 Reasons to Vote Obama

I found this on YouTube today, and decided to share it with everyone.  I think the guy’s name is Gregg Cagno.  

Please excuse me if this has already been posted, but it’s pretty nice.  Hope you all like it.

Oct 31 2008

Participate in Election Research

On behalf of a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, I am posting this announcement. They are looking for volunteers to take an online survey about political attitudes and voting behavior.    

Here is the link to the survey:  

NYU Psych Survey

On that page you will find more information about the study.  

If you agree to be in this study, you will be asked to do the following:

1) Complete a questionnaire about your background (age, gender, education, etc.)

2) Report your opinions on various political and social issues and rate how important those issues are to you

3) Evaluate the Presidential candidates (Obama and McCain) on a number of traits and positions

We are interested in learning about your opinions throughout the course of the election, so we also ask you to participate in three bimonthly follow-up surveys that will be shorter but similar in content to the one you are about to complete. You are not required to do the follow-up surveys if you complete this survey, but we encourage you to do so.

Participation in the first session of this study will involve 15-20 minutes of your time. If you agree to participate in the follow-up surveys, each will take an additional 15 minutes. The total time for participation in all four biweekly survey sessions will not exceed an hour.

Also, if you participate in the followup surveys you can win $100.  

If you choose to provide your contact information (your email address), you will entered into a random drawing for 2 prizes of $100 for participating in the survey; if you withdraw before the end of the study, you will not be entered into the drawing. You will be entered into new drawing for $100 each time you complete a follow-up survey (up to four times total).

If you have questions about the survey or your participation they include contact info on that page as well.  

By request I am turning off the comments for this essay. They don’t want the sample to be biased by people talking about the survey here.    

Oct 31 2008

It’s Always About The Land, Isn’t It?


Ten little Indians

One little, two little, three little Indians

Four little, five little, six little Indians

Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians

Ten little Indian boys.

Ten little, nine little, eight little Indians

Seven little, six little, five little Indians

Four little, three little, two little Indians

One little Indian boy.

Oct 30 2008

Memo to Progressives for Obama

Original article, by Joshua Frank and subtitled What Happens After Election Day?, via counterpunch.com:

Unless John McCain has a bombshell of a scandal to drop on Barack Obama at the 11th hour, this election is beginning to look like it’s in the bag for the Democrats. The Republicans will finally be kicked out of the White House and peace and calm will slowly return to Washington.

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