Friday, September 05, 2008

More Bad News for Obama

It seems more people are interested in what McCain had to say. Football, lead in aside.

Presidential candidate John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention drew more television viewers than his rival Barack Obama attracted at the Democratic party’s event last week, according to preliminary ratings from Nielsen Media Research.

Across all broadcast networks Thursday, Sen. McCain’s speech ended the night with a 4.8 rating/7 share, compared to Sen. Obama’s 4.3/7 average, according to overnight numbers from metered households in 55 U.S. markets measured by Nielsen. These ratings are preliminary, however, and are subject to change.

NBC’s coverage of Sen. McCain’s speech started directly at the tail end of the opening game of NFL season, with the speech pulling in a 6.3 rating/10 share, topping Sen. Obama’s speech last week by 26%. That lead-in may have boosted audiences who last night turned out in droves to watch Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin introduce herself to the country.

Meanwhle, Obama is riled up.

Obama’s hackles were clearly raised by Palin’s dismissal of his community organizing --a response to his earlier dismissal of her record as a small-town mayor. “Why would that kind of work be ridiculed?” Obama said. “Who are they fighting for?” The idea that community organizing is not relevant to the presidency, he said, just shows why Republicans “are out of touch and don’t get it.”

Define what a community organizer is, Obama. Here’s what he actually did.

Obama’s community organizing days involved training grievance-mongers from the far-left ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). The ACORN mob is infamous for its bully tactics (which they dub “direct actions"); Obama supporters have recounted his role in organizing an ambush on a government planning meeting about a landfill project opposed by Chicago’s minority lobbies.

With benefactors like Obama in office, ACORN has milked nearly four decades of government subsidies to prop up chapters that promote the welfare state and undermine the free market, as well as some that have been implicated in perpetuating illegal immigration and voter fraud. Since I last detailed ACORN’s illicit activities in this column in June (see “The ACORN Obama knows,” June 19, 2008), the group continues to garner scrutiny from law enforcement:

Last week, Milwaukee’s top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigations of 37 ACORN employees accused of offering gifts to sign up voters (including prepaid gas cards and restaurant cards) or falsifying driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards.

Out of touch or just disgusted? I vote for the later.

UPDATE: Obama was disillusioned with community organizing because he had no power to effect change. In other words, it had no responsibilities besides rabble rousing. And here Obama is now claiming Palin’s charge was unfair. 

Culture Clash

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Clinton Vs Palin

It seems Obama is rightfully afraid of Sarah Palin and has dispatched Hillary and two Dem female governors to counter her.

Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said Thursday.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign event in Florida, her first for Mr. Obama since the Democratic convention, will serve as a counterpoint to the searing attacks and fresh burst of energy that Ms. Palin injected into the race with her convention speech on Wednesday, Obama aides said.

With the McCain-Palin team courting undecided female voters, including some who backed Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Obama aides said they were counting on not only Mrs. Clinton but also Democratic female governors to rebut Ms. Palin — and, by extension, Mr. McCain. Those governors include Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

This will be the first time Hillary has to attack Sarah Palin on the stump. It will be a preview of what will likely be a future battle so it will be interesting to see what Clinton’s arguments are. But here’s the thing, Palin is a vastly better speaker than Hillary, She’s also more likable and believable. Ditto those two governors. They don’t have Sarah’s approval ratings.

It’s funny that Obama spent two years trying to prevent a woman from becoming president only to use her to prevent another woman from being vice-president. All that misogyny from Obama’s camp and they have to hide behind women’s skirts. 

Three Reasons I Prefer McCain

McCain just gave his convention speech. It went well, in spite of the many disruptors who snuck in to launch their propaganda screams. Those people really offend me. Not only do they fail to make me believe their “arguments”. I consider them anti-Democracy because they attempt to silence the opposition, just like a Marxist dictator.

But McCain largely ignored them and soldiered on, telling us mostly of his convictions and the reason he loves this country. He looked us in the eye, with a sincere passion that eclipsed the vague patrician act Obama has.

Unlike Obama, his platform stuck right out with the people on the convention floor. And he talked directly to them, not at them.

The most moving part of the speech was when he talked about his captivity and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese Army. It made him appreciate his country being there for five long years. It’s hard for most people to imagine being tortured and imprisoned for five years in such hellish squalor, in a foreign land where they don’t even speak your language. Where they run you down and your country on a daily basis. And while the Dems claim he talks about his POW experience too much, I believe it really did change him. And I also believe John McCain isn’t a phony.

I don’t agree with him on several major things, and I wasn’t going to vote for him. But I did root for him before in 2000. The man is honest. He does work with the Democrats and Independents against his own party when he believes something. I like that he’s dedicated to what he believes is right, rather than what his party’s position is. Most politicians are frauds. McCain isn’t. And for that reason and a two others, I think he’s the better choice to run this country right now.

Reason #2: McCain’s experience, which he outlined tonight. He did it in a very classy way and didn’t insult Obama or lie about him. Unlike Obama himself when he did his big convention speech, and told one falsehood after another about McCain. McCain extended his hand to the opposition and offered to work with them. It was much more magnanimous than Obama’s litany of empty promises and mendacity. I think that will play well with some undecideds.

It was a good, solid speech. Palin’s was better, but she’s Reason #3 reason I’ll vote for McCain. Those who are worried about McCain’s age only have to look to Palin who may not be nearly as experienced, but she has the no nonsense, common sense attitude that’s needed in Washington. McCain’s speech was mainly about how he and Palin will bring real change to Washington, and I believe them.

McCain is an agent of change and so is Palin. You may not agree with some of their views. I don’t agree with all of them. But they do seem to be country first type politicians. They seem sincere and they also have actually achieved things in their careers as legislators.

Unlike Obama who has done nothing of note in his whole career besides win elections and write two autobiographies.

I don’t think McCain/Palin will do a lot of harm. I think they will do a lot of good. So it’s easy for me to make up my mind at this point.

UPDATE: Code Pink stole a Republican’s badge to get into the convention and tried to disrupt it.

I’m not a Republican (I’m an independent), but I agree with the sentiments in this well written piece by Bill Whittle.

Alien Places On Earth

If you woke up in some of these places, you might think you were on another planet. 

Parodys of Chrome

Some people have taken Scott McClouds’ comic promoting Google’s Chrome and turned the art into miini-comics of their own. Just scroll down when you get there. 

Cool Subway Commercial

Jarred isn’t in this one. It’s for the Madrid Metro Subway.

Dystopian

Here’s a list of Dystopian futures where the left takes over. And these were written by left leaning people, BTW. George Orwell was a socialist.

And check out this well done fan film which is a parody of the Tom Cruise video. It’s done as an interview with a Combine Soldier. This film references the game Half-Life 2, where aliens have taken over the earth and turned soldiers and cops into brainwashed, oppressive cyborg thugs. In this world, humans are fighting to recapture the world. You may not get it if you aren’t into Half Life 2, which is one of the best video games ever made. 

How Not to Win Friends and Influence People

One of the reasons the Democrats wull lose this year is because they have become the party of cranks and crazy people. They don’t believe in free speech or fairness as evidenced by the actions of the protesters who have tried to disrupt the Republican convention.

For example:

Including the Minneapolis protest, police have arrested 422 people since Saturday in pre-emptive raids and at protests in downtown St. Paul that were marred by violence. St. Paul was quieter on the convention’s third day, when four women from the peace group CodePink were arrested after crawling under a fence a couple blocks from the Xcel Center where the convention is being held. They were released.

CodePink also took credit for disrupting Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech on Wednesday night. The group said two of its members were given tickets to the speech by a Republican delegate who was frustrated with the party and Palin.

The CodePink members, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, were escorted from the Xcel Center after yelling and displaying a banner. They said they were held until after her speech but not arrested.

That Marxist shouting down act is tired and abusive and a common thing on their side. Then there’s the idea of anti-war protest when the war is winding down and we’re already scheduled to withdraw. Americans don’t like to lose and we’ve pretty much won in Iraq. We’re handing over parts of the countr to the Iraqi control. And the American left wants us to surrender. This is Obama’s position, as well.

On top of that, they’re playing to the most extreme end of their party by calling for criminal prosecution of the Bush administration for war crimes, which Biden claims they will do i they get elected. .Once again, that’s disgraceful. Americans as a whole will not stand for a president going through that. Especially when, whether you agree or not with the administration’s actions, they were done in defense of the country. And the defense resulted in no terrorist acts since 9/11 on US soil.

Voters overwhelming rejected the last leftist presidential candidate when Nixon ran against George McGovern in 1972 Nixon beat him by 21 points and won every state except McGovern’s. And this was during the Vietnam was with the anti-war movement was at its zenith.

This is why, until now, Obama’s people have tried to sound more centrist. But if they keep revealing a leftist message to charge their base, they will join McGovern in humiliation history.

[Photo via Zombieblog]

Two months of Hilarity

The weeks leading up to the election in November are going to be probably the most entertaining in election history. In a year when everyone thought it was going to be boring, torture, tedious, just a few months ago. Earlier this year, the Dems were crowing that they had the election sown up. Done deal, they said. The magazines all had Obama on the cover as the next president, with him bathed in a heavenly light. McCain was painted a just some bitter old man. No chance. And Republicans largely didn’t care for him. They were angry he was their choice. They were going to vote for him anyway, but only because they didn’t like Obama.

Then McCain started hitting Obama with a series of jabs and punches through various commercials and YouTube videos, that softened him up. Obama’s poll numbers dipped. McCain started looking more like a fighter. Obama was on the defensive.

And then she came. Sarah Palin. It was like McCain dropped the big one on the Democrats. They ran for cover, shooting back with whatever they had. Throwing even the kitchen sink at her.

It didn’t work. The bullets bounced off her and even many of the the partisan media elites had to admire her.

Obama was eviscerated last night by the tag team of Giuliani and Palin. More of the same will happen tonight when McCain takes the stage and tells us why he’s the better choice than Obama. And one thing’s clear, McCain is on a roll.

The pundits and lefties derided McCain for his choice in Palin. They said it made his judgment look bad. They said her “lack of experience” would make it impossible for McCain to question Obama’s lack of same.

Wrong. The exact opposite happened. Palin’s experience is vastly more substantial and relevant than Obama’s and Biden’s. If anything her experience shows why Obama is so deficient.

And they Republicans are diving this message home.

Where Obama looked like the victor cake walking to election day only a few months ago, he now looks like loser limping painfully to a public humiliation.

It’s the tortoise and the hare story made real. McCain steadily moved forward while Obama dilly dallied around the country and Europe basking in the acclaim of the press and the Bush haters. Then he went on vacation in the middle of his campaign, like the hare took a nap while the tortoise kept on implacably moving forward.

Now the hare knows he’s in trouble. But he’s tripped and hurt himself.

The tables have turned and it’s a whole new race now. No longer boring, it’ll be engaging. The Democrats will do whatever they can to try to hurt Palin, who they know is energizing the Repubican base. But the more they attack her, the worse they make themselves look.

The media’s bad credibility is being utterly devastated by their partisan attacks. The Democrats are turning into the party of sexism and intolerance before the public’s eyes.

Interesting times indeed. The Chinese curse has hit the Democrats hard. Maybe Clinton’s “dealings” with the Chinese is karma in action.

UPDATE: She drew a huge audience for her speech. It would have beat Obama;s numbers if more channels carried it.

The Sarah Palin speech generated 37.2 million viewers, just 1.1 million viewers short of Barack Obama’s record-breaking speech on Day 4 of the Democratic Convention. The Palin speech was carried on only six networks while the Obama speech was carried on ten (including BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo).

Palin attracted a large female audience (19.5 million women, or 4.9 million more than Day 3 of the Democratic Convention).

Ratings for viewers 55+ (25.2) continue to be about ten times higher than for teens (2.2)
Day 3 for the GOP attracted more Hispanic viewers (1.4 million) than Day 3 of the Democratic Convention (1.2 million), even though Univision and Telemundo did not carry the speech.