Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Bush on Rush

Rush's Interview with President George W. Bush

Bush: That's the most important thing people can do is pray, and I appreciate that.

A little frightening. If I read the whole transcript, I bet I'll have more to say.

Kerry Shakeup?

When I heard over the weekend that characters like James Carville were calling for big changes in the Kerry campaign, it was followed by other criticism that the democrats were not all reading for the same talking points. "How could the democrats not all be behind their candidate?" some seemed to be saying. My reaction was different. With Kerry slipping in some polls, with Joe Lockhart already signing on in the last weeks, sure I figured a shake-up is likely. And Carville is on script, setting the stage for a shift.
Today, on CNN's Inside Politics, the talk continues--then it hit me. Let's remember Iowa. Part of how Kerry beat Dean was by coming behind in the polls, by being considered dead and then when things begin to change and he began to improve in the polls, he rode the momentum to victory. I think it's a dangerous strategy, but it's deliberate. First, this is Bush's week. He'll get some movement around the convention, no matter what the Kerry camp might due to stop it. Second, negative campaigning often hurts the one doing it. Look back at Iowa again, Gephardt and Dean traded negative ads and it hurt them both. By staying out of the Swift Boat thing until very late, Kerry made the group and the Bush campaign look a bit nefarious. Kerry didn't have to do some black-and-white ad about Bush's absence in the Texas Air Nat'l Guard.
To predict the future, I would say that we can expect a more coordinated effort out of the Kerry campaign starting Monday. Joe Lockhart did a great job for Clinton and we'll see the effect of his work soon.

RNC - Day One

After watching the first evening of speeches, the game plan seems pretty obvious. Take us back to the days after 9/11 and we'll all be too scared to vote for anyone besides Bush. Let's look at a couple quotes:

John McCain:
But remember we are not enemies, but comrades in a war against a real enemy, and take courage from the knowledge that our military superiority is matched only by the superiority of our ideals, and our unconquerable love for them.
Our adversaries are weaker than us in arms and men, but weaker still in causes. They fight to express a hatred for all that is good in humanity.
We fight for love of freedom and justice, a love that is invincible. Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong.
Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight.


Rudy Giuliani:
And as we look...as we look beyond this election...you know, as we look beyond this election and realize that elections do accentuate our differences...you know, let's make sure that we rekindle that spirit that we had that we're one America, we're united to end the threat of global terrorism as one people.

What the point seems to be is that America should be scared and united and that by breaking from Bush to vote for Kerry would be to give hope to the terrorists. Don't buy it.
I think it's a dangerous thing to use a national tragedy as a political rallying point. It has the potential to backfire on the Bush campaign. Most of the country supported the war in Afghanistan because we had a clear enemy who had struck our country, but then the Administration tried to capitalize on the national unity to attack a country that was not involved. It was a war of choice. And it has made us less safe.
We do have a greater war to face, we do have legions of terrorists lining up to attack Americans and we need a leader who will face those challenges. But we need one who will do it deliberation, with collaboration. We need a leader who will only use military force when necessary.
By attacking Iraq, Bush has set the bar very low. It no longer takes a great threat to go to war. Apparently it no longer requires the capability to make nuclear weapons. Using the standards of the Bush Doctrine, there are any number of country that would require immediate military intervention. Do you want a President who would take us to war so easily?

Maybe tonight we'll here something on the economy or health care. Maybe they will show that they care about what the American people care about.

Monday, August 30, 2004

Bush admitting mistakes?

I'm not sure what's happening in the Bush camp, but the line seems to be changing:

Bush on the Today Show, 8/30/04:
When asked ''Can we win?'' the war on terror, Bush said, ''I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the - those who use terror as a tool are - less acceptable in parts of the world.''

Bush to Time Magazine, published 8/30/04:
Had we had to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success.

Bush to New York Times; 8/27/04
Well, it's a — it's a miscalculation of the — what the conditions would be like after a swift victory, because we never dreamt it would be that swift.

Bush can come off script pretty often, but not in planned interviews. So why the changes? Some could say he's flip-flopped. Or we could say he's finally telling the truth.

UPDATE: Daily Kos takes this on as well.

GOP = God's Own Party

After watching the first day of the Republican Convention (while trying to work), I was struck by how many times God was mentioned. Today, so far, we've had mostly House, Senate, and Governor candidates, with the House candidates being the most frightening. Luckily, the Colorado representatives there did not do too much to embarrass us.
I can understand a speaker saying, "God bless the United States." We get that a lot. I don't like it's use, but it is pretty standard. Many of the speakers, though, tried to ally their party with God. I have to say I take some offensive to religion finding its way so prominently into politics.
It's only day one; I suppose there's much more of this to come.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Census: Poverty rose by million

USATODAY.com - Census: Poverty rose by million

Back to the issues that matter.

Poverty rose by 1.3 million.

Another 1.4 million without health insurance.

No wonder they want to spread rumors about 35 years ago.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Attn: Kerry campaign

A Test of Toughness (washingtonpost.com)

A good editorial that I hope the Kerry campaign will read. A couple key passages here:

1) And Bush certainly doesn't want to talk about the facts laid out by a Congressional Budget Office report on Friday that one-third of his tax cuts over the past three years went to people who earned an average of $1.2 million annually. Households with incomes in the top 1 percent received an average tax cut of $78,460 this year. Households in the middle 20 percent -- they average about $57,000 a year -- received an average cut of $1,090. That is a 72 to 1 ratio in favor of the millionaires.

2) When Bush went to Congress in the fall of 2002 for authorization to go to war in Iraq, he did so after saying he was going to the United Nations to seek international support for a war against Saddam Hussein...when push came to shove, Kerry decided to take the chance in voting "yes" to strengthen Bush's hand in negotiating with the United Nations. That seeking U.N. support was never really a Bush priority and that he botched the postwar planning is the president's problem, not Kerry's.

Bush continues to manage to campaign on perceived Kerry failures or flip-flops and not on his own record. Kerry's only failure as I see it is not putting Bush on the defensive and forcing him to defend his own indefensible record.

Monday, August 16, 2004

Will Ferrell - A message from White House West

Will Ferrell - A message from White House West

Funny stuff from America Coming Together.

Hurricanes and Homosexuality

Two things have led the headlines of the past few days, and I'm not quite sure of the political impact of either.

First, Charley. It appears as if Bush has learned the lessons of the father. Slow response hurt reelection efforts in '92, and no one was going to let that happen again. But declaring Florida a major disaster area before the hurricane has even made landfall? I think it's a bit much. It begins to look like overcalculation to me. Sure, opening the door to federal funds right away is important, but pre-emptive disaster relief? Time will tell how the undecideds in Florida will read this.

Second, McGreevey. At first I thought it incredibly brave for any politician to come out and declare his homosexuality. But if he's only doing it to defend himself against sexual harassment and corruption charges, that's pretty sad. While I'm not likely to believe the accusations of this "aide" (it still sounds like extortion to me), I think there's more coming on this. It was only a little while ago that McGreevey's largest fundraiser got in trouble. The real question here is about when he will step down. New Jersey is not likely to swing into the Republican column for the Presidential election no matter how hotly contested a special election might be, so why stall? Might it better to get him out of the headlines? Corzine's needed in the US Senate, and unless the NJ Democrats have a strong contender or the NJ Republican's an exceptionally weak one, it might be better to wait this out. We'll all have to see.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Changing parties to vote in primaries?

Colorado doesn't allow independent/unaffiliated voters to vote in party primaries. The only way for me to have a vote in today's election was to re-register. I have been an unaffiliated voter since I was allowed to vote. I never wanted a party to take me for granted and assume that they had my vote sealed up. I do not want to add to their numbers. Keeping independent numbers high means that candidates have to do more than pander to the base.
Let's change arbitrary primary rules. An unaffiliated voter should have the opportunity to choose which ballot, which party's primary to vote in. Otherwise a voter my have to change affiliation to vote--like I did.
I just might go tomorrow and become an independent again.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Report, GOP Source: Keyes to Run for Ill. Senate

FOXNews.com - You Decide 2004 - Report, GOP Source: Keyes to Run for Ill. Senate:

"Keyes will have to establish residency in Illinois by Election Day, according to federal law."

Carpetbagging out of desperation? Barack Obama must really scare the GOP. He gave one tremendous convention speak and they don't want him to walk into the senate uncontested, but do that have to go out of the state to get someone up to the fight? And is it any coincidence that they chose an African American?

Anti-Kerry Ad Is Condemned by McCain

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Anti-Kerry Ad Is Condemned by McCain

This is what Drudge has been pushing for weeks? Note: None of the men served with Mr. Kerry on his Swift boat but claim to have served on boats that were often near his.

No wonder no major paper has picked up on Drudge's push. It's not the big news he thinks it is, or wants it to be. There was a time when I had respect for Matt Drudge, but he's become simply a mouthpiece for the Republican talking points. He'd better clean up his act or he'll completely loose his relevance.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Objectives, Intentions, Whatever

I feel it's only fair to lay out our intentions here, as vague as they may be. See, about ten years ago David and I put up a website, SatoriWorks. We wanted to create a forum for showcasing the work of artists we knew, as well as our own artistic endeavors, including our band Shiverfix. The truth is that we never did much with our site, and recently our server ate all of our content. So, we've been given an opportunity to revamp the site, invite some great writers I know to contribute, and maybe come back on line with something we can be proud of, something we can tell people about.
On the side, I though a blog would be a good tangent. I must explain that I'm a bit of a political junkie. Not a day goes by that I don't stop by a whole series of blogs and and updates. I am a big fan of The Note, funny folks there, and of course the world wouldn't be complete without Daily Kos (please check out the News Resources link on the side bar). I thought it would fun to have something similar, but different. See, David and I have been friends for a long time, but we disagree on a lot of things politically. He's not always well informed, but he's always opinionated. So, I thought a blog would give us an opportunity to... well, argue publicly.
The truth is that we're not up to much here. Not yet.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004