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PoliGAF Interim Thread of USA General Elections (DAWN OF THE VEEP)

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P

PhoenixDark

Banned
After a brief bout of Obamamania, some Capitol Hill Democrats have begun to complain privately that Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is insular, uncooperative and inattentive to their hopes for a broad Democratic victory in November.

“They think they know what’s right and everyone else is wrong on everything,” groused one senior Senate Democratic aide. “They are kind of insufferable at this point.”

Among the grievances described by Democratic leadership insiders:

• Until a mailing that went out in the past few days, Obama had done little fundraising for Democratic candidates since signing off on e-mailed fundraising appeals for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee immediately after securing the Democratic nomination.

• Obama has sometimes appeared in members’ districts with no advance notice to lawmakers, resulting in lost opportunities for those Democrats to score points by appearing alongside their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

• The Obama campaign has not, until very recently, coordinated a daily message with congressional Democrats, leaving Democratic members in the lurch when they’re asked to comment on the constant back and forth between Obama and John McCain — as they were when Obama said earlier this month that he would “continue to refine” his Iraq policies after meeting with commanders on the ground there.

• Coordination between the Obama campaign and the House and Senate leadership is so weak that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who will chair the Democrats’ convention in August — didn’t know of Obama’s decision to move his final-night acceptance speech from the Pepsi Center to Invesco Field until the campaign announced it on a conference call with reporters.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton dismissed the criticism as not-for-attribution complaints of staffers who aren’t knowledgeable about the campaign’s Hill coordination efforts.

“It’s a favorite parlor game in Washington for low-level staff to take shots at anyone they can, given the opportunity,” Burton said. “But as leadership aides across the Hill have confirmed even in this story, we have a constructive working relationship with the House and Senate leadership and continue to work with them to bring about the change the American people demand this November.”

On the record, spokesmen for Democratic leaders and the campaign committees say they’re pleased with the coordination they’re getting from the Obama campaign.

“We have a great relationship with the Obama campaign and work closely with them on everything from message strategy to on-the-ground coordination in states where we have races,” said DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller. Jennifer Crider, the DCCC’s communications director, said the DCCC and the Obama campaign are working together “to bring our change agenda to the country.”

Privately, however, there is a different message coming from some Democratic quarters on the Hill and on K Street. Some Democratic leadership staffers complain that, having defeated the vaunted Clinton political machine in the primaries, the Obama campaign now feels a “sense of entitlement” that leads to “arrogance.”

One Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, compared the Obama campaign unfavorably to President Bush’s administration.

“At least Bush waited until he was in the White House before they started ignoring everybody,” the aide said.

“These relationships matter,” said a House Democrat close to the leadership. “I really hope these guys try to get off on the right foot. We all know what happened to [former President] Jimmy Carter and [former President] Bill Clinton. We don’t want to see a repeat of that.”
Click to expand...
more at link
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11750.html

Sounds rather...Hillary-esque
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
The Chosen One said:
Also from the above article:
Click to expand...

So what? One freaking statement. Why are you blowing it out of proportion? You're acting like Obama's campaign went Hillary Clinton on the New Yorker.
 
B

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
PhoenixDark said:
more at link
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11750.html

Sounds rather...Hillary-esque
Click to expand...

*shrug* Sounds more like b.s. to me. Possible hatin'. "You can please some people some of the time..." or something.

“At least Bush waited until he was in the White House before they started ignoring everybody,” the aide said.
Click to expand...

Oh, anonymous aide, why must you bitch with a statement that just begs for your identity?
 
Keylime

Keylime

ÏÎ¯Î»Ï á¼Î¾ÎµÏÎγλοÏÏον καί ÏεÏδολÏγον οá½Îº εἰÏÏν
APF said:
Breaking vow: Sounds Bush-esque to me.
Click to expand...
HOLY FUCKING FUCKS!

explosion.jpg
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
bob_arctor said:
Well, at least the anonymous aide guy thinks so. Although, privately, who knows what these inner circle types are thinking of Obama's inner circle.
Click to expand...

I forgot private sources are only a problem when they speak out against democrats. My bad

Obama has been off message for some time now, and has had a pretty bad month. Some of it isn't his fault of course (the media's flip flop witch hunt) but McCain is looking father formidable right now
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
PhoenixDark said:
Obama has been off message for some time now, and has had a pretty bad month. Some of it isn't his fault of course (the media's flip flop witch hunt) but McCain is looking father formidable right now
Click to expand...
McCain is arguably doing just as bad. whatever positive press he received regarding his delusional economic plan fell completely apart when the actual meat of it (if one could even call it as such) was released yesterday.
 
B

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
PhoenixDark said:
I forgot private sources are only a problem when they speak out against democrats. My bad
Click to expand...

No, it's just that people are gonna hate and that's pretty much it. The article speaks of nothing but annoyance at perceived snubs between unidentified people that don't matter to me. So they don't all sing Kumbaya, big whoop. In a bad month, this is bottom of the pile stuff.
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
no, Scars is currently in a meeting with the MSM and regaling them with off-color jokes about zoo animals. that's why they're not reporting on Obama's big FP speech this morning.

oh silly monolithic MSM! when will you get your act together!
 
I

Incognito

Troll
In their own words

In this U.S. election year, what information could be more important than the candidates' own words to describe their views, actions and platforms?

Our teams have been working to develop tools to make it easier for people to track election-related information. A few months back, YouTube encouraged everyone to participate in the discussion process through the CNN/YouTube debates, Google Checkout offered an easy and fast way for individuals to make contributions to political candidates, and the Geo team created maps and layers to inform voters during elections.

Today, the Google speech team (part of Google Research) is launching the Google Elections Video Search gadget, our modest contribution to the electoral process. With the help of our speech recognition technologies, videos from YouTube's Politicians channels are automatically transcribed from speech to text and indexed. Using the gadget you can search not only the titles and descriptions of the videos, but also their spoken content. Additionally, since speech recognition tells us exactly when words are spoken in the video, you can jump right to the most relevant parts of the videos you find. Here's a look:
Click to expand...

screen-shot-final-final.jpg


Pretty neat. Rest of info at link.
 
B

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
scorcho said:
no, Scars is currently in a meeting with the MSM and regaling them with off-color jokes about zoo animals. that's why they're not reporting on Obama's big FP speech this morning.
Click to expand...

Obama: Iraq distracting from every other threat

Obama said his White House rival, Sen. John McCain, "has argued that the gains of the surge mean that I should change my commitment to end the war. But this argument misconstrues what is necessary to succeed in Iraq, and stubbornly ignores the facts of the broader strategic picture that we face."
Click to expand...
 
A

APF

Member
99.9% of leaks / anonymous sourcing are someone with an axe to grind, or someone who feels they aren't winning some internal debate but want an upper hand in the court of public opinion.
 
A

adamsappel

Member
“These relationships matter,” said a House Democrat close to the leadership. “I really hope these guys try to get off on the right foot. We all know what happened to [former President] Jimmy Carter and [former President] Bill Clinton. We don’t want to see a repeat of that.”
Click to expand...

What, Democrats in the House and Senate demanding the candidate/President put their petty needs first and getting pissy and petulant if he doesn't? Yeah, wouldn't want that happening again.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
PhoenixDark said:
more at link
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11750.html

Sounds rather...Hillary-esque
Click to expand...
Expect that kind of tension to continue. Obama's campaign was deliberately centered in Chicago, not DC. He's merged much of the campaign and DNC operations and is executing to their own game plan. It's a different approach to the general that is guaranteed to ruffle some feathers. Not everyone was on board before, and not everyone is now.
 
M

maximum360

Member
While the media rants continuously about national polls, what I find most interesting are state polls. This is where Obama shows more of his strength (but those polls are largely ignored).
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
A reader notes that John McCain today expressed concern about Russia's "reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia."

Which hasn't existed for nearly two decades.
Click to expand...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0708/Remembering_Czechoslovakia.html

Yesterday, McCain's campaign sent out a statement pointedly referring to the "Czech Republic," cleaning up his latest reference to the defunct state of Czechoslovakia.

So there must have been some palms hitting foreheads in Arlington when, just now in New Mexico, he said it again.
Click to expand...
:lol
 
M

Macam

Banned
Incognito said:
In their own words

screen-shot-final-final.jpg


Pretty neat. Rest of info at link.
Click to expand...

That's all sorts of awesome. I'm glad on two fronts: to see Google continuing to help open the political process up a bit by making information easier to find and by implementing the technology. I'll have to play with this a bit; thanks for the link and info.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Lv99 Slacker said:
What time will Obama give his Iraq/Afghanistan speech today?

[edit]
*checked C-SPAN*

Huh. He already did?
Click to expand...

Hence my problem. Shouldn't the MSM be talking about his speech every 20 minutes?
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
mckmas8808 said:
Hence my problem. Shouldn't the MSM be talking about his speech every 20 minutes?
Click to expand...
you are officially a joke character.

siamesedreamer said:
In other news, Obama purged his surge criticisms from his website.

tee hee
Click to expand...
if only the surge worked...
 
L

Lv99 Slacker

Member
siamesedreamer said:
In other news, Obama purged his surge criticisms from his website.

tee hee
Click to expand...

Yeah. I was going to post that before I got the 500 server error thingie.

Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq
Monday, July 14th 2008, 8:10 PM

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.
Click to expand...

more at link
 
I

Incognito

Troll
Obama down by only 6% in South Carolina. Shouldn't be too surprising given the current polling in neighboring states North Carolina and Georgia. That whole "ACC" bloc is like a domino just ready to fall...
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq makes it sound like they went back and removed various pieces from the site's history. That they rewrote an issue page without including every part from the older version seems pretty boring.
 
B

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
JoshuaJSlone said:
Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq makes it sound like they went back and removed various pieces from the site's history. That they rewrote an issue page without including every part from the older version seems pretty boring.
Click to expand...

So you freely admit the purge worked? FLIP-FLOPPER.
 
The Lamonster

The Lamonster

Member
Justin Bailey said:
I swear to God if the American public fucks up another election because of Iraq I'm going to cut my own head off with a chainsaw.
Click to expand...
Yup. My patriotism has always been pretty high, but it will surely drop considerably if this stupid country fucks up a third election in a row.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
McCain is now calling for a troop surge in Afghanistan, which is what Obama has been talking about for years. But of course, he's also opposed to pulling out of Iraq. So, um, where are the troops going to come from? As Josh Marshall put it:

McCain Now Playing Catch-Up On Afghanistan

Is everybody missing this? That McCain is now trying to catch up to Obama on Afghanistan? In fact, he's now adopting Obama's position.

Obama has been saying for almost a year that more troops are needed in Afghanistan. McCain has said that wasn't the case, that Iraq was the central battleground in the war on terror. Moreover, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says that we need more troops in Afghanistan but we none are available unless we pull substantial numbers out of Iraq -- which McCain is ruling out.

So let's all say it out loud: McCain is now copying Obama's position on Afghanistan.

And with troops that he doesn't have since he's against pulling any out of Iraq.
Click to expand...
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
I assume this response will quell some GAFfers supicions of Obama being outraged over the cover.

KING: But I've heard a lot of others comment on it. We haven't heard you speak about it yet. That "New Yorker" cover which depicts you and your wife, and you dressed in a Muslim outfit, your wife in a kind of military outfit, Osama bin Laden's picture burning, what do you make of that?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I know it was The New Yorker's attempt at satire. I don't think they were entirely successful with it. But you know what? It's a cartoon, Larry, and that's why we've got the First Amendment.

And I think the American people are probably spending a little more time worrying about what's happening with the banking system and the housing market, and what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, than a cartoon.

So I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it.

KING: But didn't it personally sting you?

OBAMA: No. You know, we've -- one of the things when you're running for president for almost two years is, you get a pretty thick skin.

And, you know, I've seen and heard worse.

I do think that, you know, in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead.
Click to expand...

Also, addressing again that being Muslim isn't bad:

KING: Considering that, though, there's a lot of e-mails going around. It gets rather terrible. A "Newsweek" poll shows that 12 percent of America believes that you're a Muslim, and 26 believe -- 26 percent believe you were raised in a Muslim home. A lot of misinformation.

How do you fight that?

OBAMA: Well, you know, by getting on "Larry King" and telling everybody I'm a Christian and I wasn't raised in a Muslim home. And pledge allegiance to the flag. And, you know, all the things that have been reported in these e-mails are completely untrue and have been debunked again and again and again. So, all you can do is just tell the truth and trust in the American people that over time, they're going to know what the truth is.

One last point I want to -- I do want to make about these e-mails, though. And I think this has an impact on this "New Yorker" cover.

You know, this is actually an insult against Muslim-Americans, something that we don't spend a lot of time talking about. And sometimes I've been derelict in pointing that out.

You know, there are wonderful Muslim-Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things. And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it's not what America's all about.
Click to expand...
 
The Lamonster

The Lamonster

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Another national poll today:

ABC News/Washington Post.

Obama 50%, McCain 42%. Right in line with the Quinnipiac poll this morning.
Click to expand...
Good! I heard a pundit say that polls don't really matter until after Labor Day, but Obama's consistent lead can't be a bad thing!
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
The Lamonster said:
Good! I heard a pundit say that polls don't really matter until after Labor Day, but Obama's consistent lead can't be a bad thing!
Click to expand...
I've noticed that while Obama's numbers float around a lot in these polls, McCain is rarely more than a point or two away from 42%.

Also: great read on hard versus soft support from fivetwentyseven:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/07/hard-support-vs-soft-support.html

I've taken to reading that site daily. Numbers heaven!
 
The Chosen One

The Chosen One

Member
Tamanon said:
I'm starting to think it might be Bill Burton that tears off a bit too eagerly at being offended.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it.

Anyway, great response by Obama. Too bad some of his supports and campaign had an overblown response.
 
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