… even if it’s one we’ll not see on TV. (It’s not from the Obama campign.) It makes the right connection between the mess we’re in and the so-called “maverick” who’s done nothing in 26 years to help fix it.
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=wJThPjvscFs
It’s on YouTube and I’d embed it if I had time to figure out how. 🙂
After the election in 2004, we were preached at that George W. Bush won election (not re-election) due to the rejection of John Kerry by “values voters” .. as if the millions who voted for Kerry had no decent values. That spurred me to write the following, which I still embrace today. In this election, even more than that one, it’s important to recall that we on the left have values as well — values which I, personally, think are better than those evidenced by the rabid right.
I am a “Values Voter”.
I value
* compassion over condemnation
* debate over demagoguery
* reason over rage
* freedom over fear
* truth over lies
These are American values.
I believe
* that real patriots ask questions
* that government should not decide who I am, or who you are
* that a sound safety net serves the interest of us all
* that people should be judged on the content of their character, not the content of their wallets or the color of their skin
* that justice everywhere is threatened by injustice anywhere
* that labor has dignity and diversity has worth
* that each person deserves a fair deal and a true opportunity
These are core American beliefs.
I am a “values voter”…
… and this is my country, too.
In case you — like me — watched Sarah Palin’s speech from the Republican National Convention and keep saying — like me — “I know that’s a lie”, but were unable to point to a source, let me offer this post by Hilzoy over at Political Animal @ the Washington Monthly. It sums up the lies and points you toward the evidence.
So, Senator John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate.
Wow.
It’s taken me a while to get my head around this. Sarah Palin is a political neophyte — if your main charge is that Barack Obama is inexperienced, then you have to see Sarah Palin as INEXPERIENCED. All of her avowed positions are far far to the right of mainstream American opinion. It’s impossible not to believe that the campaign picked her in a blatant attempt to pull off a cynical two-fer: (a) The ultra-right goes ga-ga over her ideological credentials; (b) low-information “Hilary die-hards” decide to vote against everything Senator Clinton believes in so as to get a woman — any woman, dammit — into the executive wing. The latter part is so blindingly obvious that, I think, the only people who will fall for it are people who would have found some reason to vote for McCain anyway.
What to do? How to react? The Obama campaign has a lot of people way more plugged in than me, but below the fold, I give my two cents:
(more…)
Senator Hilary Clinton has finished her address to the Democratic National Convention. My personal response: She didn’t hit it out of the park but she definitely got some extra bases and maybe batted some runs in.
I think she delivered a full-throated, crystal clear indictment of the past eight years and of John McCain’s alignment with it. It was a bit corny but I liked the line about McCain and Bush meeting in the Twin Cities because you can hardly tell them apart. Senator Clinton did a good job enunciating what the Democratic Party is for — things like universal healthcare and improved public education — as well as what the Party is against — such as military adventurism, crony capitalism, and the abandonment of civilized society to a race of all against all. I still believe that had she delivered this message consistently throughout the primaries, rather than focusing on her opponents, she would have made the hurdle and would be speaking tomorrow instead of last night.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the speech was nonetheless still mostly about her — her experiences on the trail, her motivations for running, etc. That’s to be understood and it was a historic campaign, so it can be forgiven. She spent a little too much time on that, and she did detour into the end into a polishing of the legacy of President Clinton. If you tuned in to the middle and you cut out before the last few moments, you would be forgiven for thinking this was a Clinton acceptance speech.
As much as I hate just pointing to other people’s blog entries, I had to link to something from the Carpetbagger Report: “It’s a delicate dance, and John McCain is ‘liable to break a hip’“. In it, CB lists all the different ways John McCain has flip-flopped since beginning his current run at the Presidency. I suspect I’ll have cause to refer to it (and its inevitable successors) a lot during this campaign.
Let’s be clear: It’s OK for a politician to change his/her mind. People change and situations evolve. But McCain, in particular, has run as the straight-talker, the dead-eye with keen judgment who isn’t moved by political winds. Yet every one of his many many flips have moved him from the “maverick” position towards one that just happens to line up with the special interests of whatever group he happens to be addressing. That’s not straight-shooting. That’s not even political evolution.
It’s pandering, pure and simple, and if a panderer wants to run on the strength of his so-called convictions, well I think he ought to be hoist on his own petard.