Wait, who are you again?

When your 15 mins are up, here's where you go.

If the picture above doesn't jog your memory, that is the infamous "Joe the Plumber," the guy who was name-dropped ad nauseum during the last presidential debate.

Although the media found out that almost everything about Samuel J. Wurzelbacher ("Joe"'s real name) was a lie, apparently he still thinks he matters. And unfortunately so does Glenn Beck.

Wurzelbacher told Beck that he almost abandoned John McCain on the campaign trail because he co-signed the $700 billion bailout.

I was angry," Wurzelbacher told Beck. "In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him."

I'm sure McCain would have cried if he didn't have your support "Joe."

Alot of good it did him anyways.

Who wants to watch an awkward video?

Remember when Barack Obama and John McCain were competing with each other for some job or something? Me neither, but here they are "talking sports" at their super-exclusive meeting today. This is probably the most interesting thing that happened, as no job offers or anything else juicy came out. So enjoy.

The Other Four Fingers.

I seen it on my 20-inch Zenith.

After John McCain was soundly beaten on Tuesday (North Carolina also went to Obama, pushing the final total to 364-173 in the Electoral College), the fingers pointed at the most predictable scapegoat.

Shortly after the election, McCain's aides were already laying blame for the loss on Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge of the issues. I could be mistaken, but wouldn't this be the kind of thing you find out in a vetting process BEFORE you pick your running mate? The vetting process McCain's people CLAIMED they did?

A couple of McCain's aides anonomously told reporters that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent and couldn't name the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement while they were prepping her for the VP debate.

They also claimed she was a diva, and that she greeted some of McCain's top advisers in nothing more than a towel on one occaision.

While the towel thing is probably untrue, it was clear during the couple months that Palin was in the spotlight that she was in way over her head.

I don't know how she didn't see that she was getting set up to be thrown under the bus.

Anybody could see that when the Palin Express started derailing and the disapproval started getting louder, she was going to be the scapegoat when McCain's campaign inevitably failed.

I felt sorry for her when I said it about a month ago, and now that its coming to fruition I feel sorry for her now. This was like a backup QB getting his first start ever....versus the Baltimore Ravens.

The coach can blame the player for the sorry game he's bound to have, but he has to look at the other four fingers pointing back at his own mistakes.

The McCain campaign has a lot of soul searching to do before they can even begin to hang this on somebody else.

Vote Early Worked, Point For Obama.

Those are not parking tickets they're holding.

Barack Obama is making history again. He actually has black people waiting in line for hours to get INTO the courthouse. (I'm black, I can say that.)

People all across the country are heeding Obama's call to vote early, causing several states to extend hours to deal with the onslaught of voters.

Obama blitzed every form of media (including video games) urging people to vote early, and they are responding in droves.

Georgia, North Carolina and Florida have all signed orders to extend hours to allow more people to vote, and people are waiting in lines for up to 90 minutes to cast their ballots.

This makes the chances even slimmer for McCain...although the margin on the CNN poll is closer (49 percent to 44 percent for Obama), Obama's lead in the projected electoral votes is increasing.

Is it possible for McCain to just quit?

The Home Stretch

With just 8 days left until the election, one side is going for the jugular while the other side is just trying to keep it close.

Barack Obama plans to campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania this week to make what his people are calling his "closing argument." Obama is currently ahead on virtually all the major polls, with a four percent lead in the Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll, and an eight percent lead on the CNN poll.

Sometimes polls can be false indicators of how a vote will play out, but when they all say the same thing, the outcome is pretty certain.

For all the mudslinging and diversionalry tactics of the Republican Party, John McCain is just trying not to get blown out at this point.

Personally, I feel sorry for the man...he spent the past decade or so riding for what he thought was right, angering his party and making enemies with almost every conservative from Maine to the Valley in Cali, only to lose because he tried to play the game.

In actuality, he might have had a shot if he had just stayed true to himself.

Is Jeremiah Wright McCain's last gasp?

Davis (left) writes his strategy on the ball for Hewitt (right)

John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, who famously attempted and missed a between the legs dunk when he played for the Celtics, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that McCain might bring up Barack Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright. But why would McCain do this when his campaign already said that Wright would be off limits? Because Rep. John Lewis has forced their hand, I guess. When the Georgia congressman compared the hate-filled crowds at recent McCain/Palin rallies to hate-filled crowds at George Wallace rallies, he crossed the line.

"Look, John McCain has told us a long time ago before this campaign ever got started, back in May, I think, that from his perspective, he was not going to have his campaign actively involved in using Jeremiah Wright as a wedge in this campaign," he said late last week. "Now since then, I must say, when Congressman Lewis calls John McCain and Sarah Palin and his entire group of supporters, fifty million people strong around this country, that we're all racists and we should be compared to George Wallace and the kind of horrible segregation and evil and horrible politics that was played at that time, you know, that you've got to rethink all these things. And so I think we're in the process of looking at how we're going to close this campaign. We've got 19 days, and we're taking serious all these issues."

So the goal is to refute the charges of coded racism by . . . attacking the angry black man that knows the other black man? I see. I don't know what this would even accomplish. No one cared when McCain finally mentioned Bill Ayers, and he was a lot worse than Wright. Besides, what could they possibly say about Wright that wasn't already said during the Democratic primaries, which Obama also won?

Where the Republicans Went Wrong

The only poll McCain is winning right now.

With the last debate coming tonight and McCain behind big on virtually every poll out there, it's time to find out how the Republican party got into this mess.

1. The Republican Party should have nominated Mitt Romney*. (Or he should have at least been nominated VP)

This is probably the biggest mistake they've made so far in this election, they picked the wrong person to run in the first place.

When the economy went into the tank, McCain's chance to become president most likely went along with it. Mitt Romney is very strong on economic issues. How good would this comment had sounded for Republicans when Wall Street crashed a couple weeks ago?

"I had occasions to be in the turnaround business. And I'd like to get my hands on Washington. It needs to be taken completely apart, with every program and agency evaluated for effectiveness and efficiency. Every business does that or goes bankrupt. But Washington seems to get larger and larger every year." (Peter Hecht, "Political Conversion," Sacramento Bee, 3/15/07)

Romney couldn't win the nomination though because it wasn't his political "turn in line." And he wasn't picked by McCain to be VP because of issues between the two, even though any Republican worth their weight in Grey Poupon knew that McCain/Romney would have been the best ticket.

2. John McCain had a bad gameplan from the start.

McCain had the Republican nomination wrapped up about 3 months before the end of the Democratic primary campaign. The time, plus all the mud being slung in the Democratic primary should have been more than enough for McCain to effectively prepare for Hill Dawg or Obama...yet he still didn't have a gameplan.

If he did, he wouldn't have had to pick Sarah Palin to inject false sizzle to his campaign. And that brings me to number 3.

3. The Republicans allowed John McCain to nominate Sarah Palin VP.

This may turn out to be the single biggest mistake to this point.

The idea that jilted Clinton supporters would vote for Palin just because she's a woman is insulting to Republicans and women.

Sure, she got McCain a quick bump in the polls coming off the heels of Obama's nomination, but as the layers peeled away from the onion it made more and more people cry, and not in a good way.

Once she opened her mouth to Katie Couric, the jig was up...now she's a walking, talking version of The Daily Show, except the jokes are real.

If and when McCain gets killed in a couple of weeks, I hope the Republican Party looks at the mistakes they made and comes correct in four years (not really though).

ACORN Diffuses A-Bomb

The Republicans are going to have to find a new drum to bang after ACORN acknowledged potential voter fraud.

For those out of the loop, ACORN is a nationwide organization that has been registering poor and moderate-income voters across 18 states.

The group has been the subject of many negative ads because of its ties to Obama, but mostly because the voters that ACORN is registering are more likely to vote for Obama.

Trust, if ACORN was focusing its registering drives on Wall St., there wouldn't be a problem.

Officials from ACORN said that it is the responsibility of state election officials to weed out the bad applications (which is a suspect statement, because the likelihood of officials catching every single bad application is slim to none).

I think Republicans have a right to call shenanigans if they feel like somebody is trying to overwhelm the system, but in reality, its not that big of an issue...I highly doubt that half of those people even vote.

Phoenix Crashing

McCain (second from left) and Goldwater (far right, no pun intended)

Everyone's trying to compare this election to past elections. Is it like 1992, where the economy trumped every other issue and swept a young Democrat into office over a much older Republican? Is it like 1980, where people wanted to throw the incumbent party out of the White House but had reservations about the relatively inexperienced but very charismatic challenger until the debates? The answers are kind of and yes. But for now I want to look at the last time the Republicans nominated a veteran Arizona senator, 1964.

Then, the nominee was Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was the de facto leader of the conservative faction in the GOP in an era when the Republican party was dominated by moderates, many of whom were from the northeast, like Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, Michigan Governor George Romney, New York Governors Thomas Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller and the symbol of moderate Republicanism, Dwight Eisenhower. Many conservatives, both in and outside of the party, were frustrated with the Republican nominee frequently being someone who more or less echoed the policies of Democrats. They never heard their candidates talk about total victory over communism abroad (even if it meant using nuclear weapons in Asia,) and what they saw as the overexpansion of the federal government's authority over states with the new pressures of civil rights legislation. They were becoming disenchanted with their party's leadership, and they found their savior in Senator Goldwater.

Though he was initially reluctant to run for president, Goldwater didn't realize that it was already predetermined. The movement to draft Goldwater to run was too big for even him to ignore. He officially jumped in and all hell broke loose. The 1964 Republican primary wasn't just to determine a nominee, it was now for the soul of the Republican party. Governor Rockefeller, the favorite of the moderate establishment, would face his greatest challenge from a conservative westerner. What ensued was a primary battle so nasty it made the punches thrown in this year's Obama/Clinton race look like love taps. Goldwater's opponents in the GOP called him dangerous, an extremist, a racist and a warmonger.

(Yes, this is all going somewhere.)

Goldwater prevailed, and the conservative wing of the party finally had their own candidate, but the trouble was far from over. The 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco showed a party divided. Rockefeller was booed, hissed and shouted down by the audience during his speech when he said that the party must repudiate extremism, to the point where TV cameras caught his wife sobbing in the stands at the Cow Palace. The Goldwater Republicans were behind their man 100% and were willing to roll over anyone who disagreed, even if they were in the same party. This was the environment that Goldwater, who was not crazy himself, had fostered.

America saw this on TV and decided to support Lyndon Johnson, the guy who did not represent a party that had been taken over by rabid dogs that had suddenly learned to talk. As Goldwater's post RNC poll numbers went down, he became increasingly desperate. Goldwater, an opponent of the Civil Rights Act, was very popular among the people who had supported George Wallace's presidential campaign earlier that year. That's not to say Goldwater and Wallace saw eye to eye on everything. Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act on constitutional principles. Goldwater didn't believe that the federal government should have any authority over states except for when it was explicity spelled out in the Constituion. Wallace opposed it because he hated black people.

But Goldwater wasn't above using the code words that had gained Wallace such a large following in southeastern Wisconsin (racism in Milwaukee? I know, it shocked me, too,) northern Indiana and Maryland, not to mention the South. "State's rights," "law and order," and allusions to "mobs in the street" caught the attention of fearful whites across the country and drew them to Wallace, and later Goldwater. The KKK, the John Birch Society and other far right groups supported Goldwater, whose Jewish ancestry didn't seem to bother them as long as he kept saying what they liked hearing. Goldwater wasn't a candidate to them as much as he was a vessel for their fear of a black country. And Goldwater wasn't in much of a position to denounce them, because the other wing of his party had hurt (and been hurt by) Goldwater so badly during the primaries and convention.

What does this have to do with 2008? We have another self-styled maverick Arizona senator representing the GOP in a presidential campaign, and again race is a big factor in this election. The nominee (who has called Goldwater a political hero of his, though the feeling might not have been mutual) has seen his longshot candidacy falling apart with dropping poll numbers and has resorted to stoking fears of the scary black man. Like Goldwater, McCain's rallies are filled with people who see him as less of a candidate and more of a sounding board for them to speak on the "Arab terrorist" who makes them "fearful to raise their children in America." Sarah Palin makes speeches that only encourage these attitudes, and "kill him," "terrorist," and "off with his head" have been heard at McCain/Palin rallies.

While McCain, like Goldwater, isn't a racist in my opinion, he hasn't done much to try and stop the vitriolic crowds. And, as his Friday rally (the one where he was booed for calling Barack Obama a decent man) in Lakeville, MN showed, maybe there's nothing he can do. But this is an atmosphere of hatred, where the opponent is seen not as a rival, but an enemy. Like Goldwater, McCain has been swept up by this movement and had its own goals projected on to him. Like Goldwater, it has people within his own party questioning not just the candidate, but the state of the party as a whole. Chris Buckley wrote an excellent piece about how his disappointment in the McCain campaign's tone has him ready to vote Obama. In 1964, the Johnson campaign ran this ad, where a Republican in the Buckley tradition explains his uneasiness with what Goldwater has brought to the Republicans.



The lessons from 1964 unfortunately have not been learned by John McCain. Like Goldwater, he will likely go to bed on November 4 disappointed. Like Goldwater, much of this is beyond his control. But this could be bigger than any one campaign. The fears Wallace and Goldwater helped encourage would last throughout the 20th century. McCain had an opportunity to not go down that same road, to lose with his dignity intact, but his willingness to feed into the fears of America's most ignorant in a desperate attempt at victory will at best taint his legacy. At worst, it will hinder American progress.


Thanks to Gary Donaldson's Liberalism's Last Hurrah for teaching me damn near everything I could ever learn about the 1964 election.

The Sound of Desperation

This video of a McCain rally in Wisconsin is the talk of the day.

The media has become increasingly disturbed by the feverishly angry tone taken at Republican town hall meetings.

The monochromatic color scheme of the meetings (read: all shades of white) and the rage is conjuring up images of Klan rallies that end in the lynching of a black man, in this case one Barack Hussein (his middle name has been used to subliminally invoke a terrorist connection) Obama.

On more than one occasion McCain has been asked to "take the gloves off" in reference to Obama.

What is causing concern is the fact that McCain and Palin aren't doing anything to calm these people down, which could lead to violence as the election gets closer.

In my opinion the rage of these meetings means one thing: the Republican electorate feels this thing slipping away, and they're desperate.

If the Republicans don't reign it in soon, they could have a situation like this on their hands:

The Aftermath: Going for the Kill

After Tuesday's debate that seen Barack Obama declared the winner by every opinion poll i've seen, the Obama camp is going on the offensive again in new ads.

This new ad, called "Tested" builds off of statements McCain made during the debate:



McCain is responding with an internet-only ad connecting Obama to Bill Ayers:

Town Hall Brawl

Don't worry John, I won't let them capture you again!

Barack Obama and John McCain square off later tonight at Belmont University in Nashville in what will be the last debate before the November election.

The topics are supposed to be foreign policy and the economy, but given the fact that the stock market has dropped over 10 percent in one week, the economy will most likely dominate the debate.

Tom Brokaw will moderate the town hall-style debate, and the candidates will have two minutes to answer questions from the audience along with questions that can be sent in here.

I wonder if somebody will ask McCain how this economy is different from the one he faced as a middle-aged man during The Great Depression.

McCain: Yah Mo B There

Pictured: John McCain

All the cable news outlets are reporting that John McCain will in fact be at the debate tonight in Oxford, Mississippi. This despite the fact that we don't officially have a plan for the bailout set, unless you count the Paulson/Dodd/Frank plan that was already mostly agreed upon before McCain "suspended" his campaign (even though state headquarters were still open and advertisements have still been airing both on TV and online) to come to DC.

So to recap, McCain's big move led to him pissing off David Letterman, not leaving for Washington until the day after he said he would, reportedly saying nothing in the big meeting with Bush yesterday and attending the debate anyway.

Well, that was a productive stunt.

McCain calls timeout

Pictured: John McCain

John McCain has suspended his campaign and asked to delay the first debate. This is ostensibly so he can go back to Washington and singlehandedly figure out the bailout package. Barack Obama politely told the congress(man) thanks but no thanks and that he was going to go to Washington to vote on the bailout, then take an aeroplane to Mississippi and start debating.

The move comes at a time when McCain's poll numbers are looking not good and is certainly a curious one. George W Bush and Al Gore debated in 2000 five days after Osama bin Laden attacked the USS Cole and Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan debated throughout the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1980. Is our economy really worse than either of those tragedies? And why can't the candidates vote in Washington during the day and fly to Oxford to spend 90 minutes explaining to the American people why they deserve their vote?

A meeting is scheduled for tomorrow between President Bush, Obama, McCain, and congressional leaders from both parties to hammer out an agreement for the bailout. My guess is this all gets worked out late tomorrow night and McCain shows up at the campus of Ole Miss on Friday.

The September Slaughter Continues

The AIG Building

The corporate dominoes continue to fall this week as the federal government announced a plan to spend $85 billion to bail out insurance giant AIG.

The move comes after AIG failed to recieve a $40 billion bridge loan on Monday and it couldn't raise enough capital to avoid a complete failure, which many analysts speculated could send shockwaves throughout the economy.

What this means to you is that the economy is now officially the highest priority issue in the upcoming election. Expect to see more ads pertaining to the economy, and both candidates will start to make it a point to talk about what they can do to fix the mess.

Here is John McCain's take on what happened with AIG.

Everybody Hates Tucker

McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds is probably looking forward to November 5 even more than most. It seems like anytime the media wants answers from the McCain camp, Ol' Tuck trots out to the cable news stations (via satellite of course) and tries his darndest to spin like any good campaign flack. Unfortunately, for whatever reason the media seems to insist on actually, you know, questioning him and not letting him off the hook with standard talking points.

It all started on the opening day of the Republican National Convention when CNN's Campbell Brown grilled Bounds on the question of Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience.



The Republicans were so upset at Brown acting like an actual journalist that McCain canceled a planned appearance on Larry King. But yesterday, Bounds was again asked actual questions by the other two cable news networks (yes, even Fox News!) Prepare to be astounded as Fox's Megyn Kelly attempts to hold him accountable for the McCain campaign's recent attack ads.



"Independent analysts?" You mean besides Oliver North? Where did that come from? But to complete the hat trick of awkward plea copping, Bounds appeared on MSNBC and Norah O'Donnell started asking even more questions about the accusations of negative ads until some well-timed technical difficulties save him from more embarrassment.



So what's the deal? Is he just the worst spinmaster ever? Did Campbell Brown manage to cut him a little, thus sending other sharks to Tucker's flailing and drowning body? Sexist female reporters taking it out on a poor helpless male? The fact that everyone, regardless of race, religion, political affiliation or gender just wants to hate someone named "Tucker?"

Tucker Bounds: Officially having a worse September than Vikings fans.

Fall Fallout

Caution: Watch out for falling blame


The collapse of two storied financial institutions has both parties scrambling to point the finger to boost their campaigns.

Barack Obama and John McCain took turns responding to the Whirlwind on Wall St. involving the selling of Merrill Lynch and bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, two of the biggest finance houses in the country.

AIG is also on the ropes today as it is asking the Fed for a $40 billion bridge loan to hold off collapse while it sells assets.

Barack Obama seized the opportunity and threw a jab at the GOP.

"(I do not fault Sen. McCain, but) I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It's a philosophy we've had for the last eight years — one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else."

John McCain's camp already has an ad circulating to counter punch what happened to the economy.

An excerpt from the ad:

"Our economy in crisis. Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it. Tougher rules on Wall Street to protect your life savings. No special interest giveaways. Lower taxes to create new jobs. Offshore drilling to reduce gas prices."

One thing that isn't in crisis is the campaign fund for either candidate. Both candidates reported personal-bests in fund raising for August, with Obama claiming $66 million and McCain raising $47 million.

McCain: Mayors, Governors not fit to lead

Why you gotta go and do that, HuffPost?

During a Republican debate last year, John McCain explained why he, as a long-time Senator, was more fit to lead than a lowly mayor like Rudy Giuliani or a simple governor like Mitt Romney. Take a look.



Of course, this wouldn't be important if Sarah Palin's experience as both a mayor and a governor hadn't become major Republican talking points in recent weeks.

The Aftermath

We're back at it!

Sorry for the brief spell...Its football season, so I was getting my fantasy team together for a run to glory and Ty was arranging appointments for the psychiatrist to deal with the pain of the horrible season the Vikings are about to have.

Now that the Conventions are over, these things are certain:

~Republicans seem to think the key to victory is attacking Barack Obama's cult-level celebrity status, and the Democrats plan to win by associating John McCain with George Bush and hoping people are smart enough not to want four more years of that.

~John McCain is a POW...did you know he was a POW? Because if you didn't, he'll be happy to tell you about it...over and over and over again.

~Sarah Palin has rallied two bases; Conservative Republicans, and guys who like hot older chicks.

~Levi Johnson (Bristol Palin's Baby Daddy) picked the WRONG girl to knock up. I bet he didn't see that one coming.

~Barack Obama will fill more arenas than The Rolling Stones this fall.

Stay tuned, this race will only get more interesting in the coming weeks.

Pressure Busts Pipes

The Republican National Convection Oven


Like the old saying goes, if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen...

John McCain is already screaming for an end to the avalanche of questions surrounding Sarah Palin, the Vice Presidential candidate he announced just last Friday.

According to McCain's campaign officials, all of the criticism focused on Palin is a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for vice president."

Or people could be genuinely interested in an unknown entity that came out of left field to become a VP candidate over much more established and recognized names.

Nah, that couldn't be.

The Associated Press reported that Palin has several controversial items on her record, including:

*A private attorney is authorized to spend $95,000 of state money to defend her against accusations of abuse of power (allegedly she fired the Public Safety Commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law).

*Palin sought pork-barrel projects for her city and state, contrary to her reformist image.

*Her husband once belonged to a fringe political group in Alaska, with some members supporting secession from the United States.

*She has acknowledged smoking marijuana in the past.

Somebody has alot of explaining to do.