Twenty-year-old Tobin Van Ostern finished his sophomore year last spring at
George Washington University, but this fall he's enrolled in the Barack Obama
campaign as a full-time organizer. The Richmond, Virginia, native started Students
for Obama on his campus last year as a Facebook group.
Late last week, the first round of post-RNC convention polls showed that John
McCain was the beneficiary of a generous 11-point bump in public approval. Most
of this shift is attributable to previously undecided voters who've broken in
McCain's favor. The reason given by the vast majority as to what precipitated
their decision: Palin. Amongst these voters, three subgroups emerged as overwhelmingly
shifting to the McCain/Palin ticket over the Obama/Biden one in the past week:
women, Catholics, and self-identified moderates.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) continues to insist that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” As Eric Rauchway notes in the American Prospect, McCain’s response to this economic crisis is reminiscent of President Herbert Hoover’s “do-nothing” response to the Great Depression. On October 25, 1929, a day after what is now known as Black Thursday, Hoover declared:
The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.
The Lady's political shift was something one could have seen coming, if one had suffered through the simpering take on contemporary politics she offered on that fora for middle-class thought, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122109030550621451.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries";>the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. "If Barack Obama loses the presidential election," she opined, "it may well be the result of a public perception that he is detached and elitist -- a politician whose expressions of empathy for hard-working Americans stem more from abstract solidarity than a real connection to the lives of millions of citizens."
I'd say that for de Rothschild, who "splits her time living in London and New York," to criticize anyone's "abstract solidarity" with the working class is precisely what it means for the pot to call the kettle black. But, after the whole "lipstick on a pig" episode, I know that doing so would probably get me accused of racism. Nevertheless, it's true! For more on de Rothschild, let's go <a href="http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2007/10/05/An-interview-with-Lady-de-Rothschild";>to the lede of Lloyd Grove's interview with her, in Portfolio:
When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference- - the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger -- she was already a woman of major means.
Honestly? We're to take seriously a critique of elitism from a woman whose marriage was yentaed by Henry Kissinger at the Bilderberg conference?
Mickey Kaus, who normally can be counted on to talk himself out of coherence, <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2200209/";>managed to stay on point when handed de Rothschild's WSJ piece: "You lost me at 'de.'" But if you struggled your way past the byline, you got this:
I'm a longtime Democrat. I worked for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and supported Sen. Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign. But I must face the uncomfortable truth that liberal elitism has been a weakness of the Democratic Party for more than half a century. In 1952 and 1956, for example, Adlai Stevenson emerged as the presidential candidate of the party's "new politics" wing. But while Stevenson's stylish, articulate, high-brow manner thrilled the nation's intellectuals, he could never connect with large numbers of working-class Democrats who found him aloof and aristocratic.
So, wait. Her personal snit with the Democratic Party's "elitism" dates back over a half-century, during which she gladly participated in the party, and only now does she decide to abandon it? What can I say? NOTHING ABOUT THIS WOMAN MAKES A LICK OF SENSE. One thing's for sure, with de Rothschild's melodramatic departure, the Democratic Party has become substantially less elite this morning.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney defended Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) attack ad against Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) that claims Obama wanted kindergarteners to be “learning about sex before learning to read.” The ad has been denounced by non-partisan fact-checking organizations as “simply false” and a “Pants on Fire” lie.
“The specific bill that Barack Obama voted for calls for sex education beginning as low as the kindergarten,” claimed Romney. Romney then declared that he and McCain both believe that “the only sex education that’s appropriate in kindergarten is no sex education”:
ROMNEY: Well, the specific bill that he, the specific bill that Barack Obama voted for calls for sex education beginning as low as the kindergarten and it includes in that bill language which says that each class is to learn about sexually transmitted diseases. And in my opinion, and John McCain and I share the same view, the only sex education that’s appropriate in kindergarten is no sex education.
Watch it:
But Romney’s claims don’t match his own record on K-12 sex education. As ABC News pointed out recently, Massachusetts established a set of K-12 goals for the teaching of sex education prior to Romney’s term as governor. “Those standards remained in place” during his tenure and “he did not challenge them.”
Romney has also previously stated his support for “responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate” sex education:
Planned Parenthood: Do you support the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?
Romney: Yes.
The bill cited by McCain, which Obama voted for in the Illinois State Senate, mandated that all sex education “be age and developmentally appropriate.” Additionally, as MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski told Romney, under the legislation, “what kindergarteners would have been learning is how to protect themselves from predators.”
Yesterday, TP's Wonk Room reported that John McCain committed an economic gaffe when he referred to the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) as the S-P-I-C. Moreover, McCain called the 'SPIC' a regulatory agency, which the non-profit corporation's own website explicitly says it is not. Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported on the gaffe, citing it as just one example of McCain's 'terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day on the campaign trail.' Watch it:
The McCain campaign has since scrubbed the transcript of McCain's gaffe. But McCain campaign spokesman, Tucker Bounds, confirmed the typo to the New York Sun. Bounds made clear that McCain's use of 'SPIC' was not meant as a derogatory insult to Hispanics. "No one, and I mean no one, should read anymore into it," he said. "It would be absurd to suggest otherwise." It did, however, confirm McCain doesn't know much about the economy.
Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John
McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt
about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke
my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that
promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has
become the sort of politician he once despised.
Today, McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina bluntly stated that neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin were capable of running a major corporation (she said the same of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden). A top campaign adviser said Fiorina will be punished for her candid sentiments:
“Carly will now disappear,” this source said. “Senator McCain was furious.” Asked to define “disappear,” this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while [base ']Äì but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party[base ']Äôs joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.
Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have been canceled.
Today, McCain 