Left In Missouri

Over the past few days, many blogs and news outlets will be showing you McCain rallies of people who are calling Obama a terrorist, Arab, or someone to be feared.  The idiom “the chickens coming home to roost” will be the buzzword of the week.  In O’Fallon, Missouri a month ago, around 20,000 people (I could be wrong) had shown up to see McCain, Palin, Luetkemeyer and other state republicans take the stage.  I’m wondering, did they spew hate from the rally there?  Or is it the fact the since the early part of September, Wall St. has bottomed out and the racist base, once arrogantly proud, have now become fearful and panicky?  Republicans have sowed the seeds of hate and now it is spreading uncontrollably.  They have exploited people’s most base emotions and now they are surprised that the “impurities” have bubbled up to the surface of the cauldron they fired up.

Obama’s poll numbers have risen as a result of this economic mess.  Looks like the stock market is the “October Surprise” that the Republicans cannot shake off.

On a official government website, Matt Blunt posted a statement that is reminiscent of those who believe the government buzzes around in black helicopters or wears tinfoil hats to prevent mind manipulation.  He states that the Obama’s Truth Squads in Missouri, some who are prosecutors and law enforcement officers are out to intimidate and squelch speech using their law enforcement power.  This is a deliberate distortion of the facts and is a continuation of the “Scary Barry” tactics the Republican party has been using since Obama was the presumptive nominee.

The “Truth Squad”  is a rapid response team that points out falsehoods about Obama and either speaks on behalf of the candidate or sends our press releases.  Republicans say that the mere presence of prosecutors would make people afraid to speak out.  As you will read below, this obviously does not apply to Republicans.

According to an ABC news report, apparently McCain has a prosecutor on his truth squad.  This included South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Seventh Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy.  Even Gov. Palin has her own truth squad with a prosecutor aboard. That being District Attorney of Dona Ana County New Mexico Susana Martinez.

So as you can see folks, this is a fabricated crisis to make nothing into something.  Libel and slander are civil matters and do not fall into the realm of criminal jurisprudence.  Matt Blunt is accusing Obama what McCain has been doing for months.  Missouri republicans are afraid of the issues and anything to distract voters from the failed economy, the broken health care system or the high gas prices, so much the better.

The Republicans have been employing the strategy of accusing Democrats of doing unethical actions that they are actually doing.  This being a good example.  This worked in the past, but they have gone to this well too many times and they will find it dry in no time

Blunt complains that our left leaning blogs have attacked him for various reasons.  I say he deserves it.  His attempts to marginalize us will fail.  I have the “truth” on my side.

With the suspense of the Democratic VP pick.  Many are accusing Barack of being the master of stagecraft, all fluff, no substance.  This is coming from predictable sources like National Review to more neutral sources like CNN .

My response to this is simple.  This type of campaign is the product of the media.  Many thoughtful candidates have come to the forefront of politics over the years, but since the media was so enamored of what was popular, issues took a back seat.  So many qualified people couldn’t find success in the political arena because they couldn’t condense their platforms in 10, 20, or 30 second soundbites.  Republicans are accusing Obama of putting on a show, but let me remind them that Ronald Reagan was the master of stagecraft in the 80’s, he was an actor for Pete’s sake

When the media becomes more of an investigative profession than a spin management service, they have no room to complain.  Case in point, McCain puts out a stupid Biden commercial and all the 24/7 news channels plays it.  I am sure they do the same for Obama, but spreading propaganda from campaigns is not news.

Hmm, McSame, he is one of us.  I as well lose track of how many houses I own.  But hey since I have a net worth of only 4 million dollars, I’m not rich enough to keep track of them.  Just kidding

This has given Obama the fodder he needs to expose McCain as the true elitist.

However, this should show those who are on the fence and have begun to believe the Republican distortion machine that the McCain campaign is full on manipulative bull manure.  Its funny that Republican hate taxes, but don’t mind that the middle class pay a disportionate amount of it.  Blaine Luetkemeyer’s campaign will no doubt use this playbook, claiming Baker would be an out of touch university liberal.  But with his campaign ignorant of the ways of NASCAR, I’m sure they will continue to make a fool of the,selves

The pundit consensus is that Obama should choose Biden because of his foreign policy expertise and because he shores up Obama’s perceived weaknesses in experience and foreign policy.

I am going to make a counterargument that Obama should not balance his perceived weaknesses but rather he should enhance his strengths and choose a new up and comer like himself.

I subscribe to the view that a consistent strengths ticket is stronger than a balanced strengths ticket. This is true both in terms of message consistencies and geographic strength consistencies.

Dukakis-Bentsen was a balanced ticket.

Clinton-Gore was a consistent ticket.

I would rather see Obama choose a running mate with the same perceived strengths and perceived weaknesses that he has.

Since the message is change, run with it and don’t choose an experienced career politician like Biden or Hillary Clinton. I like Kaine, Sebelius, and Schweitzer (although he probably won’t be chosen) on these grounds. They, like Obama, are fresh faces who have rocked the political establishment and brought hope and change in red states like Virginia, Kansas and Montana.

Choosing Biden will make people focus more on Obama’s perceived lack of foreign policy experience not less, and the Vice President need not have extensive foreign policy experience. That’s what the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense are for and Biden would be fine in either of those roles. Who Obama and McCain choose for their cabinet is far more important on this matter than who they choose for Vice President.

Evan Bayh would not be a message consistency choice for Obama and so I like him less than Kaine and Sebelius but being from Indiana he would provide geographic consistency and concentrated strength in the Midwest. This would shore up Michigan and Ohio and put Indiana into play. And this would be similarly geographically to Bill Clinton from Arkansas picking Al Gore from Tennessee to enhance his geographic strengths rather than opting for “geographic balance.”

Michael Dukakis choosing Lloyd Bentsen was the ultimate recent example of subscribing to a theory of “geographic balance” and “message balance.” Choosing a VP with the opposite strengths makes the Presidential candidates weaknesses come into greater focus. I like to see a candidate enhance their strengths further rather than shore up perceived weaknesses.

I admit on personality tests I come out as a “maximizer”–someone who ignores their weaknesses and tries to perfect their strengths to the 99.99 percentile so maybe its my own personality that makes me want to see a maximize your strengths Veep strategy rather than a focus on addressing your perceived weaknesses Veep strategy.

I think Obama should pick someone who further builds on his strengths as a candidate. The Missouri Tiger (Tim Kaine) and the Kansas Jayhawk (Kathleen Sebelius) would both be among several candidates who would do this.

Given a chance to distance himself from the diplomacy challenged Bush administration.  McCain decides to pick a side in the current Russia-Georgia conflict.  Except calling for a cease-fire and joining the EU in trying to find a peaceful solution, like Barack Obama has stated, he risks bringing us back to the days of the Cold War and the Third Age of the Military Industrial Complex.  The world does not need this kind of foreign policy, it has isolated us from our allies and strains our economy trying to keep up with all our military “commitments”  The old crinkly guy is  not playing with a full foreign policy deck.

Well it looks like the strategy of the right is going to be firmly rooted in fear mongering and race baiting. A LA times article has Norquist equating Obama to Kerry, Dukakis and Carter. Fair enough. That statement alone probably has no basis in fact, but it is based on ideology and can be debated. However bringing up the “tan” is injecting a racial component to their assertion . This is a not so veiled code to the conservative base that he is a black man. Fox News has been spewing this garbage as well. I really hope this will backfire. It’s despicable.

In New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton addressed a rather large crowd on behalf of Barack Obama. She spoke of unity and the ultimate goal: Getting Barack Obama elected. She appeared relaxed and in her element. This brings up the question of where was this Hillary during the campaign.? I must say that her campaign staff did not do her justice. Terry McAuliffe seemed to be running a 2000 campaign in 2008. Any candidate, if they are not careful, can be handled to a detriment.

The media, in my opinion, was only interested in keeping this campaign a horse race. It made for good TV.

Glad to have Hillary aboard

I just come across this article. Nader is accusing Obama of “talking” white and should focus more on the poor in the inner cities. I believe that Nader is missing the point and perpetuating a stereotype. Obama is trying to appeal to all Americans, not just African Americans. Poverty strikes not only in the inner city here in Missouri, but also in poor rural areas. Poverty does not discriminate. I know I just gave Nader more attention than he deserves. His 1/2 of one percent vote intake in 2004 is evidence of his irrelevance.

Maybe if Obama started to talk “street” Nader would then, only in his mind, lend crediablity to Obama’s candidancy? Probably not.

I like to thank those supporters who nominated me for a Netroots scholarship in Austin this year. Not only did I get support from friends, but people who liked what I had to say and wished me luck and support. However DFA apparently felt that either my Technorati rating wasn’t high enough or not enough grassroots support. Unfortunately I really don;t have had the time to blog events as they have happened. I usually was part of those events. I had canvassed, phone banked, and supported candidates from city council to Congress. This is what I thought DFA was all about, getting progressive candidates elected to further those values. However DFA thought that instead of choosing bloggers that though DIRECT action furthered this mission, DFA rewarded the most vocal bloggers, the preachers to the choir, some of these scholarships. This is a shame and makes me feel that Vermont might not know what’s going on here in the midwest. Here in DFA Columbia, we have elected members to county central committees, sent a member to the National Convention as an Obama Delegate, and we even had one of our steering committee members go to Iran as a citizen delegate. In addition, we held 2 primary debates for the 23rd and 25th state legislative districts and held endorsement votes. DFA Columbia is not a social club. We know that changing America will not be accomplished by having weenie roasts and walking around with our Buck Fush shirts on.
However DFA, with all its flaws is the leading progressive organization in this country. My post here is a friendly reminder to DFA is not to discount Missouri and really make an effort to see what’s really going on in the grassroots that DFA holds dear.