Presidential announcementszzzzzz

You snooze, you... snooze. Presidential candidates are announcing, and I suppose now's the time. If you're early, you get out there, start raising the moolah and collecting the name ID. But what is with the two and a half minute "announcements" these Presidential candidates are doing? Talk about snoozers.

I like Mitt Romney (though I haven't thrown my hat in for anyone but NEWT), but what a sleeper. Come on, Mitt. You're better than that! What with all the immediacy of reading the news in the morning, checking email, etc., I have tried to watch this announcement ad now a total of 9 times. It's like trying to get through to a voter the week before Election Day~ impossible!

I can't get into it. It's slow, filled with empty music - oh wait, that's just the drone of the whir of the camera crew. There's no music. There's no video. Even Obama put in stupid interviews with "everyday Obamans," I mean everyday Americans.

Back up the truck. Obama's not even IN his video. Is that the choice we as voters are faced with? A video with the candidate's talking head or a video without the candidate?

I'm looking for PIZZAZZ. I'm not talking about flashy, cheesy-neon-I'm-a-hooker-in-Vegas type showboating- I'm talking about eye catching and interesting. Not the run 'o the mill shots of communities (like the conservative, small town, church-going, rural America that doesn't really support you, Barack...)

Show me you are a straight talker. Show me action, decision making. Do'nt show me you can talk about the problem. That's why Obama's in trouble - he's too busy listening to his own voice talking to make any damn progress.

Make my smart phone worthy of your 2 minutes. Hell, make it 30 seconds. Make it "We're going to fix this mess and do it without apologizing for hurting people's feelings." BAM. Words on a one-color background, and a shot of the candidate. Now THAT, I would buy.

The "Pace" of Change

An email came to me this morning from "BarackObama.com"/Organizing for America.

Yesterday's disappointing election results show deep discontent with the pace of change. I know the OFA community and the President share that frustration.

We also saw what we knew to be true all along: Any change worth making is hard and will be fought at every turn. While it doesn't take away the sting of this loss, there is no road to real change without setbacks along the way.

We could have simply sought to do things that were easy, that wouldn't stir up controversy. But changes that aren't controversial rarely solve the problem.

Our country continues to face the same fundamental challenges it faced yesterday. Our health care system still needs reform. Wall Street still needs to be held accountable. We still need to create good jobs. And we still need to continue building a clean energy economy.

The President isn't walking away from these challenges. In fact, his determination and resolve are only stronger. We must match that commitment with our own.

But it won't be easy. Real change never is. For that reason, I am grateful you're part of this fight with us.

Thank you,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

What is the purpose of this email?

What bothers me - even more than the lamentation that Brown's win on Tuesday was some kind of 'Black Tuesday' for Obama supporters is that this note misses the point!! It's not the PACE of change anyone is upset with.

It's the TYPE of change. You cannot shove universal healthcare down the throats of the Independent, American majority. You cannot expect to reform Wall Street, bailing out anyone who needs it and handing out dollars to those who will not funnel it back into the economy. You cannot stop listening to your constituents or the needs of the middle class, SCREAMING out for a tax refund they know how to use better than you do.

Again, what's the point of this email, Mitch? It's not quite ra-ra enough to rally the troops. If you're a Democrat having watched Tuesday, you should be shakin' in your boots.

And OFA, Obama, Congressional dems - save the HTML relays. My inbox is full.

Brown Boos Obama

Scott Brown doesn't need DC's head honcho messing up his race.

Surging GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown yesterday warned President Obama to “stay away” from the Bay State during his roiling race against Democratic rival Martha Coakley and not to interfere with their intensifying battle in the campaign’s final days.

“He should stay away and let Martha and I discuss the issues one on one,” Brown said. “The machine is coming out of the woodwork to get her elected. They’re bringing in outsiders, and we don’t need them.”

Coakley’s campaign showed signs of panic as they scrambled to get a last-minute appearance by Obama to bolster their effort before Tuesday’s election.

At this point, with all the momentum and media talking about Brown, I can see Coakley whimpering in the corner like a kicked little dog. But of course, she's singing a different tune to the media.

Coakley said yesterday she hasn’t heard from the White House. “I welcome his support, but we’ve got a lot of support here in Massachusetts (and) I think he’s got a lot on his plate in Washington,” she said.

Here's the thing, folks. Brown is right. I don't even believe Obama would help Coakley at this point. He's not a rally-er. He's not a stand up, pump your fist, and cheer kinda guy, or President, for that matter. (BORING!)

That's what Coakley needs, and she likely won't get it. So my former professor sums it up:

A Brown win would be crushing for Obama, who would lose a 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate, said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Let's sure hope so.

The left is weak on terror

Conservative Outpost talks Obama on terror.

But there’s an even more damning flaw to the contention that Bush should have been able to prevent 9/11, and is therefore as bad as or worse than Obama on national security. Namely: just what would Bush opponents have preferred that he do in his first eight months in office to prevent terrorist acts, when they now scream bloody murder at the slightest suggestion of profiling at airports, when they accuse Bush of being Big Brother for trying to monitor terrorist communications, when they’ve demonstrated their clear disapproval of any war Bush started abroad to target Al-Qaeda? Are liberals implying that they would have been fine with Bush doing all of these things in a pre-9/11 world? They’re not even fine with The One doing these things in a post-9/11 world.

The left have been digging up examples of localized attacks carried out by truly isolated (not Abdulmutallab-style “isolated”) loonies—such as Bruce Ivins’ anthrax-laced letters to news broadcasters in September 2001, Hesham Hadayet’s shooting of two Israelis at LAX in July 2002, the Beltway sniper attacks in October 2002—as proof that Bush didn’t keep us safe. Ignore for the moment that when each of these incidents happened, these same people criticized Bush for using these events to “hype” the threat of terrorism to justify extra security measures. Instead ask: what level of government intervention into our lives would have been necessary to prevent every one of these attacks? And how likely is it that liberals would have supported Bush’s carrying out such interventions?

I'd add, "What action, in the left's eyes, by Obama's administration would best respond to the threats recently posed to our nation?"

Obama slaps former presidents

Gotta love a little Rove fighting back.

Consider Mr. Obama's comment in his interview this past Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes" that the Bush administration made a mistake in speaking in "a triumphant sense about war."

This was a slap at every president who rallied the nation in dark moments, including Franklin D. Roosevelt ("With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph"); Woodrow Wilson ("Right is more precious than peace and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts"); and John F. Kennedy ("Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed . . . will be met by whatever action is needed").

This kind of attack gives Mr. Obama's words a slippery quality. For example, he voted for the bank rescue plan in September 2008 and praised it during the campaign. Yet on Dec. 8 at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Obama called it "flawed" and blamed "the last administration" for launching it "hastily."

Really? Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner designed it. If it was "flawed," why did Mr. Obama later nominate Mr. Bernanke to a second term as Fed chairman and make Mr. Geithner his Treasury secretary?

Touche.

But it's not just slippery. It's downright soaking wet- watered down. He's a wet rat, drowning in rhetoric that's insulting more than inspiring. This kind of response and failure to use the language representative of VICTORY over terror and WINNING the war makes me lose faith that our President will rise to the occasion should he need to truly defend our people -and our honor- as a nation.

B+, my rear.

Obama's B+ is laughable

Who grades themself?!

I did NOT watch Oprah's special last night, not because I'm snooty and didn't want to see Obama, but because I prefered flipping b/t Sunday night football and White Christmas/Holiday Inn on the classic movie channel.

Alas, all I need to hear, I can read today:

"President Obama told Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night he gives himself a "good, solid B-plus" for his first 11 months in the Oval Office."

"Passage of health care reform would boost his grade to an A-, he said. Until Americans get back to work, he said, "I can't give myself the grade I'd like."

How about leaving that grade up to the people that elected you?

That's pretty cocky.

Obama Speech Reaction

I WISH I had come up with this:

President Obama spoke 4,582 words in his primetime Afghanistan war speech at West Point last night. He said "al Qaeda" 22 times. He mentioned the "Taliban" 12 times. And used the word "victory" 0 times. Guess that sums it up.

Yup.

Say "WHAT????"

(AP)The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation."

Wow.

These disclosures will probably not aid the political prospects of the Democrats' cap and trade bill. The House of Representatives approved it by a remarkably narrow margin in June -- the bill would have failed if only six House members had switched their votes to "no" -- and it faces significant opposition in the Senate.

Um, ya think?

Obama overkill

Doesn't it feel like this is over kill? Can't he do this with Congress behind office doors on Capitol Hill?

The problem is going to come in hearing a broken-record President.

It’s going to be awfully hard to avoid President Obama on television this Sunday.

The president is going to appear on five Sunday talk shows – five – to press his case for health care, White House officials disclosed. That is a presidential record.

Mr. Obama is going to appear on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. And Meet the Press on NBC. And Face the Nation on CBS. In between, he is going to sit down for interviews on CNN and Univision. (Fox News didn’t make the cut).

Newsmakers in the past have managed to pull of the unlikely feat of hitting the big three Sunday interview shows on CBS, NBC and ABC. But this is a presidential first.

If there’s one thing this White House doesn’t seem worried about, it is that Americans will get tired of seeing President Obama. His talk-show marathon will come after the speech on Wall Street today and a rally in Maryland later this week.

I'm getting tired.

It’s also a reminder of just how much Mr. Obama is out there. As of his seven-month in office mark in August, he had done 114 interviews, compared to 37 by former President George W. Bush and 41 by former president Bill Clinton at a similar point in their administrations, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University in Maryland.

The frighteneing point is how much he loves to hear himself talk.

Health care reform

"Did the President's speech change your mind on healthcare?" asks one FoxNews poll. 92% said NO.

That's because you cannot solve this problem with rhetoric, Mr. President. You cannot stand with a fraction of the United States' nurses, crack a few jokes about "So You Think You Can Dance" and your wonderful history with nurses and think this will solve the healthcare crisis the next morning.

This is bigger than a speech to the joint congress.

Nancy Pelosi's favorite line is "The Republicans aren't offering any alternative plans." I'm sorry, but Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan, Tom Price, Tom Coburn, David Nunes, Richard Burr, are just a few offering up ideas. It's the DEMOCRATS who aren't willing to listen and compromise.

I agree that this should be the last generation to take up the healthcare debate. Wouldn't it be wonderful to reform a system and allow those who work hard and pay for their healthcare to keep it? Wouldn't it be great to see "pre-existing conditions" like migraines and arthritis (to name a few), covered? Wouldn't it also be great not to have to worry that Uncle Sam is taking my money to cover someone else's abortion?

Let's talk about preventive medicine. Let's talk about taking care of ourselves, exercising, eating right, sleeping and drinking water, not smoking, moderate alcohol drinking, etc. Believe it or not, those simple changes can mean reversing the diabetes diagnosis, healthier hearts, fewer cancer cases, etc.
I bet quite a few lives would drastically change. And, I'm supportive of considering
reducing abuse and fraud in the Medicare program, giving supplemental health insurance to those low-income families that need it - but that are also working, and other changes that would truly reform healthcare without infringing on the American citizens that dutifully pay their taxes and work hard for their coverage.

And lastly, a personal anecdote. (What political diatribe is complete without one?)
What do you say to the doctor that tells a 74 year old woman after finding suspicious spots on her mammogram to wait 6 months and come back- "it's probably only a cyst," despite the woman's family history of breast cancer???? Upon a second opinion, that precancerous tissue is coming out.

And why? Because it's expensive and she's elderly and in "6 months it might be a benign cyst or it might be cancer but we'll deal with it then" ?

I say that doctor is ill-fit to practice medicine.
I say that doctor should be stripped of his ability to consult patients.
I say THAT is a situation screaming out for healthcare reform.

The debate has to center on more than cost this time around.

Elmbrook says NO to Obama's speech

Good for them.

When President Barack Obama makes a speech Tuesday to America's schoolchildren that will be carried live on television and the Internet, students in at least one Wisconsin school district won't be allowed to see it - at least, not if they're where they're supposed to be.

Elmbrook School District Superintendent Matt Gibson told parents Thursday that schools in his district would not show the president's speech live on Tuesday, although he encouraged families to watch it at home and provided a link where it would be archived.

The district's decision comes after a barrage of criticism from conservatives who, in some instances, contend Obama is trying to indoctrinate the nation's youth with the 15- to 20-minute speech.

In its announcement of the speech, the U.S. Department of Education said Obama "will speak directly to the nation's children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning."

Regardless of the message, children are at school to learn from their teachers. This should not be interrupted everytime the President wants to make his face known to K-12-ers.

Milwaukee Public Schools is leaving it up to individual schools and teachers to decide whether to tune in for the speech.

"As always, these things are voluntary as far as what an instructor believes fits with the curriculum," district spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin said.

She added, "This is a sitting president, and this is a district, too, that needs all help, all manner of assistance in encouraging kids to stay in school. . . .  To have a strong male figure, and I might add an African-American figure, many people in our district see that as an important thing for this majority-minority district."

Translation: "Our kids need to see a successful black man"?

In today's culture, they are seeing enough of it, folks. I think most "curriculums" wouldn't exactly call for the viewing.

Race and Gender

Today on my lunch break I check in with Martha McCallum at Fox News, and to my delight* the discussion turns quickly to gender and race in the Presidential contest. This is truly one of my favorite topics, because I believe it is a complete waste of time and energy to even discuss.

Anyway, clips are shown of Oprah at an Obama Rally - the three ladies leading his campaign, Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, and wife Michelle. Oprah claims she would never vote for someone on the basis of skin color, but is choosing Obama "Not because he is black, but because he is brilliant."

We have all known Oprah to be supportive of the advancement of African Americans- no matter the cause. A true philanthropist, she does not give on the base of race, but she is quick to hold her luncheons for influential black women and NAACP events or what have you. To me, clarifying that she is supporting Obama for his platform of change and not his skin color is a good statement to make, once. For all the rest of the times she may state it, I feel it is only a mechanism to convince others of an untruth. Oprah is actually glowing at the fact that Barack Obama is a black man. She is proud of him. And that's fine. If he were white though, would she feel the same way?

Finally, I am very disenchanted by a female, black commentator on the Fox News panel today. The topic was Oprah's comment. And this woman, Angela, starts to say "Obama never entered this race as a black man, but it's the Clintons that have made it about race." While I will never stand up for the Clintons, I find it a tad self-righteous for a black woman to be turning the discussion to criticize white people, even the Clintons. She is pointing her finger at white people, the only racists, who keep bringing the discussion back to race. Puh-lease.

If race isn't a big deal in this contest- if Obama isn't running as a black man- why the hell is Oprah talking about it at his rally? Why is that all the media can focus on?

Just some thought-provoking questions. Gender comments to follow...

Overstepping her bounds

Caroline Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy have endorsed Barack Obama. And while all that will claim the media spotlight and speculation over Hilary's breakdown will occur, I have only one thing to say.

Caroline Kennedy is not former President John F. Kennedy. She has overstepped her bounds, and I believe that through her name and face, people improperly envision JFK.

She is not the politician of the family.