Campaign 2008 – President – Page 2

Odds and ends no. 14

Subtitled, the Election 2008 edition.

While I’m not a “highly influential member of the media” like Rush Limbaugh, I do get quite a bit of e-mail from a number of sources. I’ll always at least glance through them, and if something really interests me enough to do a post I’ll sit down and do one that evening. Obviously a lot of Andy Harris-related material makes that cut because of the impending election. Still others I mark as unread and place in a folder I call “Blog ideas”. Right now that folder is really full and I know that some of these are time-sensitive because they have to do with the campaign. I really could spend my weekend just cranking out posts if I had that kind of time.

By what may be a stroke of good fortune, I have to clear two time slots before Tuesday for possible breaking stuff which I may have confirmed tomorrow; items I feel would be quite attractive for readers. Thus I decided a little bit of closet cleaning was in order, and it was a chance to resurrect a category of sorts I hadn’t utilized since April. This is the stuff I’d love to write about further but there’s only so many hours in the day.

To begin, an article by Doug Bandow at the OpenMarket.org blog touches on something I discussed yesterday, and questions whether the “specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures” which Franklin Roosevelt instituted did anything but extend the Great Depression by another seven years. And I also came across a post on that same website from Hans Bader (who I’ve cited before) that neatly explains Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth” theories.

Speaking of Obama policies, I have Adam Bitely at NetRightNation to hat tip for finding a not-really-all-that-surprising Townhall article by Amanda Carpenter. Did you know that not only is ACORN a group of scofflaws when it comes to registering voters, but a batch of deadbeats when it comes to paying their taxes?

Adam also gets the credit for sending me a link to this from Fred Thompson:

Hey, Fred, where was this during the campaign? I guess he’s a better pitchman for others than for himself.

I hadn’t heard from the folks at Freedom’s Watch in awhile, but this is an excellent video about DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer and his drive for a filibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate:

It’s worth reminding folks that Schumer’s group was the brains behind the “Bought By Big Oil” website that I compared to being bought by Big Labor a few weeks back.

Why not another video while I’m at it? We all know that Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania has been a critic of the Long War. This week the group Vets For Freedom began buying airtime for an ad that essentially calls him a liar.

His GOP opponent is Lt. Col. (ret.) Bill Russell, a 28 year veteran who most recently served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Naturally the VFF PAC is supporting him, as are many others in the conservative media world.

Vets For Freedom also released their own voting scorecard earlier this month – the topic being war-related Senate votes in 2007. Not surprisingly, John McCain’s 93.5% rating garnered him an “A” for the year while Barack Obama flunked with a score of 0.5. Joe Biden was among three Senators (Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were the others) with a big fat zero. The best of a bad local lot (all F’s) was Delaware’s Tom Carper with a 33 rating, while Barbara Mikulski won the Maryland race against Ben Cardin 29 to 14.

It’s a nice idea, but the VFF report’s one glaring weakness is not covering House votes. We only elect 34 Senators this year but all 435 House members are up and it may have been more helpful to figure their votes out too.

To wrap this up, perhaps an Obama win wouldn’t be all that bad for the GOP. At least that’s what Newt Gingrich says. I know Newt is a history buff and his reasoning is sound, but there’s a big difference in eras I don’t think he’s accounting for. This came from Jeff Quinton at the Inside Charm City site, as Newt appeared two weeks ago on Bob and Kendel Ehrlich’s weekly radio show.

Well folks, I hope you enjoyed this political potpourri. It took my file down from 36 items to 14 (some of these were discarded), with most of those not being time-sensitive. In truth, most of them are environmental items that can wait – hey, I’ll need something to write about after November 4th.

Just so you know in advance, I’m probably going to slow down my pace just a touch between the election results coming out and the holidays. Normally I shoot for 11 posts a week (2 per day Monday thru Thursday and 1 on Friday through Sunday) but with the slow news cycle I may trim it back to 8 or 9 a week. It gives me a bit of a break, but I also have some heavy research posts planned in there as well. So don’t worry – regardless of result Tuesday I’m not going anywhere!

WCRC meeting – October 2008

Last month we heard from the anti-slots side, so this month Tom Saquella of the Maryland Retailers Association came to sell his position on the video slot machine Constitutional Amendment, Question 2.

Naturally we had some other business to take care of before we heard from Tom, and that’s what we did. The minutes and Treasurer’s report were quickly taken care of, so we got to hear several reports from the other groups who monthly keep us updated: Central Committee, Young Republicans, Andy Harris’s campaign, and the local McCain-Palin forces.

County chair Dr. John Bartkovich led off by telling us the polls were “meaningless,” giving the example of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election where he trailed in the polls late but ended up winning 49 states. The message was simple: we need to keep fighting and turn out our side. The Young Republicans touted their recent Relay for Life fundraising (over $1,700) and announced they’ll soon be putting together a canned food drive for the holidays.

Mark McIver represented the Harris campaign and revealed some very good new poll results to us, results which showed both Harris and McCain were narrowly leading in the First District by nearly identical margins. We were also getting a positive response from independent voters. It was also made clear that the Democrats had plenty of money to buy campaign commercial time, spending over $100,000 a week to flood the district’s two media markets with anti-Harris diatribes. McIver remarked that “we can’t let the Democrats buy the First District.” While the liberal Democrats in Congress have been helping Frank Kratovil out with fundraising and advice, we’ll have some help of our own from the office of Florida Congressman David Weldon.

Since their message was pretty much the same, all that Bob Laun added on the McCain campaign’s behalf was a reminder of our victory party on November 4th. It was also noted that the excitement hadn’t waned as signs and bumper stickers were still being snapped up from our headquarters as quickly as they arrived.

With the reports dispatched, it was time to hear from our guest. Tom Saquella was representing the group known as For Maryland – For Our Future. He made it clear that he’d been supporting slots since they were first introduced under Governor Ehrlich, but “the General Assembly couldn’t agree” on a proposal during that period, so they decided to place the decision in the hands of the voters. As far as his organization was concerned, Saquella claimed that 85% of their members backed the proposal, noting their assertion that slots would be “good for retailers” and bring jobs and business to the state.

Tom gave us a brief history of the structural deficit which slots were envisioned to assist in rectifying, noting that it stemmed from two decisions: a tax cut enacted in the late 1990’s and the Thornton school funding mechanism, which Saquella explained was passed to avoid a much more costly lawsuit and a judge deciding how much “adequate” funding of schools would be. With the current revenue stream, there was “no way” to fund Thornton – thus we needed Question 2 to pass “more than ever.” Slots were the third leg of the stool to address the structural deficit after tax increses and spending cuts – however, they couldn’t yet address this year’s deficit that Saquella termed “cyclical.”

While Tom admitted the General Assembly took the “chicken way out” by placing the Constitutional Amendment on the ballot, he pointed out Maryland’s Constitution isn’t as sacred as one might think, using the example of City of Baltimore parking regulations enshrined in the document. And because the voters have to amend the Constitution to make changes, this amendment was “no slippery slope” to extended gambling.

Much of his argument centered on the questions of why we should continue to send money to adjacent states who have slots and what the alternatives would be if the ballot issue failed to pass. For the first question, Saquella claimed that slots would create 5,000 new permanent jobs and add $100 million in disposable income. “The economic pie will get bigger,” Tom argued, also pointing out the potential boost in tourism. There was also the potential of avoiding cuts in local funding should slots pass – in all, this was “taxpayer friendly.”

On the second point of alternative financing if slots fail, Saquella posited that 80 percent of state funding went to education, health care, and public safety – what would you cut? And the argument foes of Question 2 make about social costs was specious, as Tom called them “minor” and cited studies which showed crime and problem gambling were not increased in other locales which already had slots, like Delaware. Taxes and budget cuts have a social cost too, said Saquella.

Most of the questions focused on why the General Assembly couldn’t do its proper job and pass the issue without going to the voters – one comment was that “two wrongs don’t make a right,” referring to Democrats in the General Assembly creating the financial mess but being rewarded with more money to spend. And nothing was set in stone about the funding proportions in the Constitutional Amendment – Tom could only retort when asked about the likelihood that the 48.5% devoted to schools being reduced by the General Assembly at some future date that if education were cut it would surely bring about a lawsuit.

In all, Saquella made some compelling arguments but most of those in the room were already set against the issue for various reasons. Only time will tell whether the voters in Maryland will alter the Constitution some more and bail the state out of making tough decisions.

At the moment we have no speaker set for our next meeting which will be on Monday, November 24. Quite possibly this will be a review session on our election strategy and finalizing any details on the club’s Christmas party later in December.

A day in the life of a McCain volunteer

Last weekend my good friend Maria was in Virginia to attend a rally for John McCain, and yesterday she went up to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to help out in that battleground state. While that wasn’t as photo-friendly of an event as the rally was, she still had some pictures for me and a narrative of her day as well, part of which I’ll use for the post.

I went to the Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters in DC yesterday to hop on the bus to the PA State Party HQ in Harrisburg for McCain phone banking. I arrived at the RNC approximately 6:15 AM. The RNC was nice enough to serve breakfast to us.

There were two buses. One was bound for Sterling, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington D.C. But the majority of the people wanted to go to Harrisburg just get out of DC, for which I cannot blame them. The scenery is a lot better.

Maria went on to discuss some of the people she worked with during the day. As you can tell from this picture, it was predominantly younger folks.

Here's some of the help which arrived at the Pennsylvania GOP headquarters in Harrisburg.

One thing Maria remarked about was the fact that a few of these “volunteers” were leaning toward voting for Obama but they were helping the McCain campaign for volunteer hour credit. There’s something wrong with that picture, but it goes to the heart of whether volunteerism should be compulsory.

I’ll say that at least she had a nice room to work in:

Obviously the Pennsylvania GOP isn't completely down on its luck to have such a nicely appointed headquarters. Then again, I've not been to Maryland's to compare the two.

And what did Maria think about her efforts?

I think that McCain will get PA by a very slim margin based on the phone calls that I have made yesterday. However there are quite a few PA voters from the list are still undecided but I think they will vote for McCain. I had quite a few who are supporting Obama. I called voters from the Lancaster/Harrisburg area. The woman from the RNC says that those areas are very Republican friendly. I guess we will find out if that is the case next week.

Here's Maria hard at work, making the phone calls to help John McCain carry Pennsylvania - or so she hopes.

It’s worth noting that all wasn’t nose to the grindstone there, she did get to have a little bit of fun. I never thought John McCain was such a two-dimensional figure though.

Well, now we know where Sarah Palin's running mate is. Someone needs to get our Sarah and their John McCain just to have them both in our area for a change.

As a closing, Maria noted:

I saw this very cool sign – Italian Americans for McCain. I said I must get that sign! I met an Italian American woman yesterday who is very active in the Pennsylvania GOP who said that she will try to get me a sign and send it to my address. I was told that their state GOP is the only one who has that sign…the state has a large Italian American population or so I gathered.

We were fed Italian Hoagies for lunch from an Italian deli a few blocks away. They were good but bad for my waistline. LOL!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get the opportunity to do any door knocking because of the downpour of rain. I wanted to do door knocking so I could get more scenic photos but that’s okay.

Anyway, I was glad that I helped our friends in PA. Hopefully PA will be in the win column for us next week.

Well, those of us in Maryland who are going to helplessly watch as the sheeple along the I-95 corridor outvote us sane folks on the Eastern Shore hope so too. I appreciate Maria allowing me to share her thoughts and photos with the rest of you. Campaigning isn’t all glitz and glamour, most of the time it’s doing work like she did yesterday (as did I, out walking my neighborhood in the wind and occasional shower to support Andy Harris.) Helping a politician can be a thankless task – especially if you suffer the heartbreak of falling short on Election Day – but there’s always room for more help when it comes to running a political campaign.

Tough questions for the left (for once)

I have fellow blogger Bob McCarty to thank for this, and it’s definitely something to share with my friends across the line in Delaware who get to see this guy on the ballot twice.

On Thursday, anchorwoman Barbara West of WFTV-TV in Orlando cornered Vice-Presidential nominee and Senator Joe Biden with some great questions regarding ACORN, “spread the wealth”, and Biden’s recent comments about a crisis to test Barack Obama should he be elected. The interview is about 5 minutes long and you can tell that it was all Biden could do to not storm off the set.

Needless to say, this was probably not the best career move for Barbara West, who actually looks like the “bubble-headed bleach blond” for which TV news is famous – those who run the network news outlets certainly won’t take kindly to someone disrespecting their chosen One’s chosen one. Nor would it surprise me if there weren’t a death threat or three in her e-mail from ardent Obama supporters. But you must admit West did her homework and wasn’t content to lob softball questions at a guy who could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

I tip my hat to Barbara for doing what the drive-by media should be doing for everyone, not just Republicans.

Yes, I crossposted this to That’s Elbert With An E for my Delaware friends.

Three against ‘that one’

I said I’d occasionally update the progress of my recent interviewee Deborah Johns and her bid to keep Barack Obama out of the White House, and so I shall. They’ve gone through half their tour as of today and roughly half the country as they approach a large number of dates in Michigan, a state both John McCain and Barack Obama have abandoned, choosing to pull their resources elsewhere.

Their ad campaign today drew the attention of the National Journal website, which paints Michigan as safely in the Obama column, but the last poll done was back on October 14th before the last debate – that poll had Obama +11. It’ll be interesting to see what this drive does for polling there.

Deborah and fellow “Stop Obama Tour” speaker, singer-songwriter Lloyd Marcus, also made an appearance on “Fox and Friends” this morning from a stop in Wisconsin. It appears the video was shot of a TV set, but sometimes you have to take what you get:

The third person on the pro-McCain tour is internet radio talk show host Mark Williams, who has been blogging about the tour on his own website.

I’m sure a lot of people figure this to be somewhat of a lost cause, at least in Michigan. (Ohio, with five stops planned, and Pennsylvania, with three, may be a different story.) And others may denigrate the negativity of the campaign. But, damn it, talking about the record of someone who’s not fit for command isn’t negative campaigning, it’s bringing up the facts.

Obama’s weak on foreign policy, otherwise he wouldn’t have picked Joe Biden for his vice-presidential choice. (Joe’s weaknesses seem to be focused in counting letters and in overall common sense and powers of observation – “Stand up Chuck!”)

Obama’s voting record is farther left than anyone else in the United States Senate. I thought what America was crying out for was a “moderate”; certainly they have one in John McCain.

And if one is judged by the company he keeps (that seems to be all the rage locally), then you have to wonder about those folks Barack Obama hangs out with and hires as advisors.

The two (unprompted) words I heard most over last weekend at the Autumn Wine Festival when discussing the election were “scared” and “worried.” Maybe the Democrats down the way were hearing the same about what they think could be a third term of George W. Bush if John McCain’s elected, but those discussing politics at my table were astonished at the thought of having a President who combines the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter with the corruption of Bill Clinton, rolled up into a Huey Long-like figure who wants to “spread the wealth” his way, by taxing the producers and rewarding the less apt. Does the phrase “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” ring a bell?

So as the “Stop Obama Tour” continues, hopefully they’ll start seeing the results they’re looking for in both the polls and in actual votes. Our country truly does deserve better.

Who’s the ‘tolerant’ party again?

I have Justin Ready at the Maryland Republican Party to thank for sending these pictures and accompanying text from Prince George’s Republican Central Committee chair Mykel Harris. Here’s what Harris had to say about a recent case of political vandalism:

For those of you who missed it, a firestorm recently erupted when the owners of the Colony South hotel in Southern Maryland erected a lone 2’x8′ McCain-Palin sign on their property. Never mind that in the past, the same property had been adorned with campaign signs of numerous candidates, both Democrat and Republican. None of that mattered now. Within hours of the sign’s appearance, the hotel began receiving frantic telephone calls and email messages demanding that it be taken down. Local newspapers were quick to pick up the story. It didn’t take long before a number of Democrat activists began talking about a boycott of the hotel for “disrepecting” the community. As time progressed some of the phone calls took a darker, more serious and threatening nature, prompting the owner to report them to law enforcement. Now it appears that some unknown person or persons have determined that it is ok to deface the personal property of others who display similar signs.

(Earlier this week), a private citizen’s home, campaign sign and other property were defaced. Although a registered Democrat in Prince George’s County, his apparent crime was that he too was displaying another 2’x8′ McCain-Palin sign in his front yard. In past elections, this citizen often displayed large signs of the candidate for whom he was supporting. The difference this time was that his candidate for President happened to be a Republican. One can only assume that he too was “disrespecting” the community by excercising his free-speech rights.

Now I understand that in every election there are incidents where campaign signs on both sides are removed, torn down and defaced. But rarely do the perpetrators proceed to deface your home and personal property in your yard. Waking up to find that someone has been prowling outside your window strikes me as sending a…personal message. It appears that the current climate is moving us towards a new level of political intolerance.

Fortunately we have the means to restore peace and good order to our community. We must stand up for our rights and the rights of others to advocate on behalf of their party, candidate or issue. We must insist that our elected officials, law enforcement, and appointed election officials take these matters seriously. We absolutely must demand that persons found violating the civil rights of others via sign vandalism, voter registration fraud, or political intimidation pay a terrible price.

Within the next few days I will keep you up to date on this developing story and the role you can play in bringing it to a proper conclusion. Until then continue to work for our party and our candidates. The darkness will never prevail so long as someone leaves the light on.

The pictures were also enclosed:

Harris is correct and I’m sure 90% of my readers, who run the gamut from just left of militia (me) to those who think 9/11 was an inside job, would agree that these sorts of tactics are reprehensible. But once upon a time that ten percent who thinks any and all tactics are fair in political war was one percent, and that ten percent is getting more dangerous. I’m not sure it’s completely out of the question that someone’s going to get killed over this year’s election – it’s the sort of thing we think only happens in some faroff African or South American nation but this might be the year America sees that sort of violence.

A natural devolution is taking place which matches the political discourse of the last fifteen years or so, in particular the last eight. Certainly there were many on the GOP side who badmouthed Bill Clinton, but they had nowhere near the number or fury of those who suffer from extreme cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Yesterday I gave other examples of the hatred spewed at Sarah Palin from those on the left, and today I follow with more examples of anti-Republican feelings being shown via a can of spray paint and without regard to one’s private property. (But had the owner came out shooting and killed one or more of the perpetrators, he would have been the one villified despite having the trespassers.)

It’s probably been said so often that it’s cliche’, but this may well be the most important election in American history. Unfortunately, given the propensity of those on the left to whine in various ways if the outcome isn’t as they wish (even after the cheating) we’re faced with a stark choice – give in to those who would impart socialism on America or face the remote but real prospect of violence should Obama not win. This is especially true if we face a repeat of the events which transpired after the 2000 election or have a similar outcome where John McCain loses in the popular vote but carries enough states to win the Electoral College.

A word I heard a lot over the weekend to describe this election was “scary.” Thug tactics like these in Prince George’s County reinforce the idea.

Can Obama survive a PUMA attack?

Fair warning: the blog excerpt I chose has adult language.

A couple weeks ago I had stopped by to work at our Wicomico County GOP headquarters when this nice lady with a Brownie Scout daughter and a car sporting several pro-Hillary bumper stickers strolled in. (I actually happened to follow her car into the shopping center where our headquarters is located, that’s how I knew the latter.)

I believe it’s a phrase borrowed from the Arabic which states, “the enemy of your enemy is your friend.” So it was that this woman had dropped by to pick up a McCain bumper sticker and yard sign. She also dropped off some information that I found fascinating. I knew there was an anti-Obama backlash among some Democrats but not that it was this large.

Those who claim to stand for wresting the Democratic Party away from the elites who have taken it over have coalesced into a group they call PUMA (which stands for People United Means Action.) In their mission statement they note in part:

Puma PAC is the VOICE OF THE VOTERS in the Democratic Party — not of special interest groups, not of corporations, not of politicians. We are motivated by the growing distance between the party leadership and every-day, average voters. It is the divisive disdain for VOTERS, practiced by the leadership and amplified by the media and some politicians, that has brought the Democratic Party to the brink of ANOTHER GENERAL ELECTION LOSS and the irrelevancy of the Democratic Party altogether. (Capitalization in original.)

Needless to say, they’re a little bit outraged at the party elites who support Barack Obama. This is from their blog, and where the advisory up top comes in:

Dare to disagree with or oppose The One? Be prepared for an onslaught unmitigated by decency, inclusive principles, or restraint of any kind. We’ve catalogued the insults and degradation many times here on this blog: the comments that cursed our loved ones to die in botched back-alley abortions, the threats of righteous violence if obama loses, the by-now toothless accusations of racism (yet they still sting). We’ve been called witches, bitches, and cunts — frequently and publicly. We watched how they portrayed Hillary, and we documented their pornographic degradation of Sarah Palin. (”my black brothers will gang rape Sarah Palin,” “fucking whore,” “dominatrix,” “pom-pom girl,” “sex slave,” and of course “cunt” over and over again).

And now they savage S. Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. Even Joe Biden is doing it. We’re told he’s stupid, ugly, racist, poor, dumb, a fraud, and a liar. He’s a guy so he probably won’t be gang-raped or figuratively f**cked by teh Boiz. He probably won’t be photo-shopped with a ball gag in his mouth being whipped by Markos in drag. That probably will never happen. Maybe Maureen Dowd will devote a column to how she’d never have sex with someone so poor. But probably the most humiliating thing he’ll have to live down is Diane Sawyer reminding him and millions of us that Joe the Plumber will probably NEVER make enough money to qualify for obama’s tax increases.

What a strange, strange beast the Democratic Party has become.

No one believed us when we claimed that Obama stole the caucuses with fraud and intimidation. And like Cassandra, we now watch as Obama’s Trojan horse unleashes ACORN to burn Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania down.

DEMOCRATS. Democrats did this.

And they continue to do it every day.

It seems to me that a group like PUMA would have a strong following here on the Eastern Shore, where many of the Democrats fall into one (or both) of two groups: a Democrat simply because their parents or grandparents were, or the old-line Democrats I like to call the Humphrey Democrats – all for big government to equalize economic outcomes, but pro-America, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-life. Many of them eventually split from the party and switched to the GOP after starting as Reagan Democrats but others still hold out hope that their party will return to those values.

Unfortunately, much as the powers-that-be in the GOP have retreated from the conservatism espoused by Ronald Reagan and rooted in Barry Goldwater, so the most powerful among Democrats stepped into line with the socialism of Barack Obama, along with the moral equivalency, gun grabbing, and love of Code Pink exhibited by those farthest on the left.

But I don’t know if it’s simply the anger that Obama shrewdly piled up a huge number of delegates from relatively few activist Democrats by winning most of the caucus states or the relative moderatism of John McCain that has turned many of these former Hillary Clinton supporters into a new political body. Would the woman who wandered into GOP headquarters to publically show her support for McCain with a bumper sticker be as willing to support our side had Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson been the nominee, or would PUMA members have simply fumed about the situation and stayed home on November 4th? I’m pleased to see the support, but there is a big difference between switching sides for convenience and getting to know the philosophy of a candidate and his party (although the two aren’t always or necessarily congruent.)

One task of mine on this website is to teach and illustrate the benefits of a smaller, less intrusive government. Thus, the reason I found this woman and her organization interesting is the hook we’ve been provided by her party nominating a man who is quite possibly the most left-wing nominee a major party has ever put forth. It may be a slow, painful process but I welcome those who would like to come onboard our side – now our job is to patiently explain the advantages we offer and bring them into the fold on our terms.

Photos from McCain rally in Woodbridge, VA

No, I can’t be two places at once. But while I was working in our booth at the Autumn Wine Festival, Maria Ialacci, a good friend of mine, was showing her support for John McCain at a rally this afternoon in Woodbridge, Virginia. I spoke with her earlier this evening and she was excited about having gone to the event. Of course, when I found out she had pictures I asked about using them here and she was happy to share.

Maria sent along fourteen photos and a silent video clip, I’m using nine photos and decided the clip wasn’t much good without the sound (too bad because it looked pretty exciting.) Most of the photos are of the various signs which were there, but I do have two good ones I’ll place at the end.

As I like to do, the caption will tell the stories.

Ok, you saw a lot of signs there. But there were speakers too.

Maria got to meet Mr. Gilmore, unfortunately she can’t vote for him because she lives here in Maryland. But she was impressed and excited nonetheless.

For someone who’s not a blogger or professional photographer, I thought Maria did a very nice job covering this event (even though I didn’t ask her to.) So I want to thank her for sharing and showing her support for John McCain in a battleground state.

Wine Festival day 1

I apologize for the somewhat short post, and I will have pictures of the event for a post tomorrow. In truth, I’m putting this up in anticipation of something else you may enjoy.

But I did want to comment about how our reception was today at the event. First of all, while the crowds were down somewhat from the 2007 version (understandable given the cloudy and very chilly weather for mid-October) the excitement of people visiting our booth was hard to miss.

When I stocked the items, I opted to bring about a half-dozen McCain/Palin yard signs and roughly 60 McCain/Palin bumper stickers. As it turned out, I made two trips back to our headquarters to replenish the yard sign supply and also picked up another 50 or so stickers – by 5 p.m. we had gone through everything McCain including placards. Most of my Andy Harris stuff was gone too except for maybe a dozen bumper stickers and two yard signs.

The good news is that we’ll be able to sell McCain/Palin buttons and T-shirts tomorrow and something tells me those will go like hotcakes.

Obviously with all those trips back and forth I didn’t exactly keep track of our opposite number on the local political scene; the Democrats made their every-other-year pilgrimage to the AWF (we’ve had a booth for at least the last three years straight.) What I do know is that they were gone well before the actual end of festivities but it wasn’t because they were out of items. I did see a few Obama items carried about so it wasn’t a total shutout for them; however, I believe they didn’t have nearly the interest we did.

Well, I got the items I was waiting for so I’ll start on that post. But I had a good time and met some nice folks at the Wine Fest – tomorrow the gates open at 12:30 and we’ll have more stuff.

Joe the Plumber – my kind of guy

Even better, he’s put my birthplace on the map for something good.

Yes, Joe Wurzelbacher (now much more famous as “Joe the Plumber” – can an endorsement deal be far behind?) lives in Holland, Ohio, a suburb directly west of Toledo and the next town easterly on the Conrail tracks from the one I spent my teenage years in, the rural area of Swanton, Ohio. (My early years were spent in south Toledo, most of that time I went to the former Heatherdowns School.) I probably went close by his house a few times working on the schools in and around Holland for my first architectural employer.

So Joe has made a name for himself and the city he calls home. But in truth, all he really did was make a statement and ask a question, just like thousands of bloggers have. His just happened to make it to national television, and Barack Obama finally told the truth about his agenda when he famously expressed the desire to “spread the wealth.”

While he may only be a plumber by avocation and not official title, Joe has that same common sense as millions of other Americans do, millions who are skeptical of politicians making pie-in-the-sky promises that only seem to have one effect: make government larger and make it take more from your pocket (as the cartoon suggests.)

With Barack Obama caught on tape revealing his true agenda, it was time for the media and other Obama allies to employ the only tactic they seem to know when confronted with this sort of crisis – kill the messenger. Suddenly we found out that Joe wasn’t a licensed plumber, is behind on his property taxes, and isn’t even a Joe – his given name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. Also dug up was the fact that Joe is related (by marriage) to Charles Keating, he of the Keating Five scandal nearly 20 years ago (h/t on that to Bob McCarty.)

But when given an opportunity to say his piece, Joe showed that he’s a lot like many other Americans who toil in obscurity – even Joe called himself a “flash in the pan” and seems uncomfortable still with his fifteen minutes of fame. I wanted to make mention of a few statements attributed to him that I heard Thursday on Rush – being a 24/7 member I could track down the transcript and thus I have. Here’s some of what Joe said, thoughts that are on the minds of more Americans than the mainstream media would like to admit:

I want (my son) to live in an America that he’s proud of. I’m tired of people downing America, saying that we’re this bad country. I mean, that upsets me and my friends greatly. You know, we are the greatest country in the world. Stop apologizing for it! I mean, really. It just… (sigh) I get real mad about that. I’m not sorry for being an American, I’m not sorry for having the things I have. I’m not sorry for any of those things. I’m not sorry that we’re in Iraq. Has it kept us safe? Absolutely! I believe in that 100%. WMDs or not, I don’t care. You know, we took the fight to them. We’ve done a pretty good job there. Could we have done better? Yeah, sure. But, you know, it’s easy to be an armchair quarterback. You know, and hindsight they say is 20/20. I call it X-ray vision.

Exactly. Apparenly Joe believes in capitalism and in his country right or wrong, I guess the elites would classify that as drinking the Bush Kool-Aid. Nor does he suffer from class envy:

Well, to be honest with you, I mean (the idea of redistributing wealth) infuriates me. I like, you know, Bill Gates, I don’t care who you are. If you worked for it, if it was your idea and you implemented it, it’s not right for someone to decide you made too much, you’ve done too good and now we’re going to tie some of it back. That’s just completely wrong.

Joe also commits the cardinal sin of supporting our troops as well as their mission:

You know, my friends in the military that come back and tell me the thanks that they receive for us being there, it doesn’t get enough play. I mean we’ve liberated another country. I mean, you know, freedom, things that every one of you guys take for granted, everything that Americans take for granted, I mean these guys haven’t had it; now they got it? I mean that’s an incredible thing. You know, our guys here that are poverty stricken have cell phones. Those old people over there, you know, they have one pair of pants and a shirt. You know, so what we’ve done over there is an incredible, incredible thing.

When the elites and liberals think of what our military has done overseas, they think of Abu Gharib and the prison at Guantanamo, not of the humanitarian accomplishments. Joe is just echoing the sentiments of those of us who truly are the majority of Americans; a man who got the opportunity to break the silence of the silent majority.

Being from Toledo and spending most of my first forty years there, there is a part of Joe which is representative of the people there and part which is not.

Toledo is a gritty, rust bucket city that’s caught in a transition not entirely of its own making. For the most part it’s a blue-collar city which means Joe fits in perfectly as a guy who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and can do the physical work that’s sometimes demanded of his profession. There’s thousands who do similar sorts of tasks, whether it’s on the assembly line at the Jeep plant or what I still call the Hydramatic plant (I think it’s under a different name now but they assemble the transmissions for GM products), work for the major contractors in town, or toil at one of the dozens of factories large and small that supply the auto industry.

On the other hand, many of those workers differ from Joe because they believe in much of what the union and local media tell them, particularly when it comes to the salaries of CEO’s against the salary they make on the line at Jeep or driving the stone out of the local quarries. Loyal to Democrats beyond a fault, they elect the same old people to political office and wonder why nothing changes for the better – Marcy Kaptur has been Toledo’s Congresswoman since 1982 and, except for a one-term Republican she replaced, her and “Lud” Ashley, another Democrat, have been the only representatives of the Ninth District since the mid-1950’s. The City Council in Toledo has generally been a 10-2 or 11-1 Democrat majority from the time the city adopted a split district/at-large system in the early nineties. If Big Labor says they should support the Obama agenda, Toledo and Lucas County will likely vote at a better than 2-1 ratio for Obama.

But the city is not all bad, and there’s a lot of good people I left behind when I decided to move here. Included among them was a guy I don’t think I ever met but has been the beneficiary of fifteen minutes of fame simply for asking a question and getting a truthful answer. So here’s to you, Joe, and thanks for reminding me that I’m not the only person hailing from the “Glass City” who only asks for Americans the opportunity to pursue a dream.

Late addition: Adam Bitely at NetRight Nation shares a similar sentiment.

The tour begins

A few weeks back I interviewed Blue Star Mom Deborah Johns, who took it upon herself to spend two weeks traveling the nation because she believes Barack Obama isn’t fit to be President. Today is the day her bus tour begins in Sacramento, California and for the next 14 days she and others will make a 35-city whistle stop tour to spread the message. (As this post comes online, the bus should be gassed up and ready to roll!) While a few of the venues have changed, Deborah and friends will still end up in Washington, DC on October 29th.

One thing I questioned Deborah about was how she thought the national media would react. Mark Halperin of Time magazine answered that question in part yesterday by posting one of the group’s more strident commercial spots:

Yeah, that one’s a little over the top and a bit too shrill in my estimation – perhaps that’s the impression Halperin is trying to impart in his readers. I’d rather the focus of this tour be on both the anti-military aspect of Barack Obama that Deborah is most passionate about and the anti-business, high-tax economic policies likely to occur in an Obama administration; plus a dose of their strong support for fellow Blue Star Mom Sarah Palin tossed in for good measure. Happily, in part they do shift somewhat into that economic mode as part of this tour and use a humorous tactic to question Obama’s ability to lead:

As part of this tour we’ll be highlighting Barack Obama’s lack of executive experience, and we’re inviting you to participate. Here’s how:

Bring a copy of your resume to the rallies! That’s right, we’ll be collecting resumes from people at stops all across the nation, so if you have any executive experience — either as someone who ran or started your own small business, or a housemom who raised a family, or a senior-level executive who had high-level responsibilities, etc… be sure to bring your resume with you to the rally in your community.

We’ll display the giant stack of resumes for the national media at the end of our tour in Washington, D.C. And not only that, but we’ll also select 3 of the resumes and fly out those individuals, on our dime, to our Washington, D.C. news conference on Wednesday, October 29th as we highlight the fact that all those Americans who submitted resumes at our tour stops had more executive experience than Barack Obama, who now wants to be president and Commander in Chief of the United States! We’ll also make you available for media appearances/interviews if you’re up to it!

Don’t worry, you can always come out to our rallies even if you don’t bring a resume – but please be sure to bring your American flags either way!

Gee, if I’d have known that earlier I’d have sent a copy of my resume since the tour doesn’t quite make it here. I guess monoblogue IS a small – very small! – business because I do make a few pennies on ad revenue. They wouldn’t even have to fly me, just pay for my gas. (Then again, a private jet from here to DC might be a great way to get around that Beltway bottleneck.)

In any case, having now dealt with Deborah Johns and others in the OCDB group, I wish them nothing but the best on their tour and hope they take my advice – I suspect it’ll be worth at least a little more than what they paid for it. Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on their progress and see how well her prediction of “some” press coverage for the tour pans out.

‘Macaca’ part two?

To put it bluntly, last night’s debate was a snoozer. After smacking my forehead in disbelief a couple times on some really dumb answers from John McCain (it goes without saying that pretty much anything out of Barack Obama’s mouth was a combination of pandering and dollar signs going off in his eyes) I got to the point of agreeing with Michelle Malkin, whose liveblogging I was following for reaction, that listening to this townhall debate was like watching paint dry.

So I was quizzical when I got a comment on the particular post which was up at that time on monoblogue simply stating, “‘That One’ won.” I replied “That one what?” I didn’t find out about the significance until I was listening to Rush today, because what McCain said just didn’t register. Here’s that passage from the transcript:

BROKAW: Should we fund a Manhattan-like project that develops a nuclear bomb to deal with global energy and alternative energy or should we fund 100,000 garages across America, the kind of industry and innovation that developed Silicon Valley?

MCCAIN: I think pure research and development investment on the part of the United States government is certainly appropriate. I think once it gets into productive stages, that we ought to, obviously, turn it over to the private sector.

By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.

You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. (I believe at this moment he pointed in Obama’s direction – Editor.) You know who voted against it? Me. I have fought time after time against these pork barrel — these bills that come to the floor and they have all kinds of goodies and all kinds of things in them for everybody and they buy off the votes.

I vote against them, my friends. I vote against them. But the point is, also, on oil drilling, oil drilling offshore now is vital so that we can bridge the gap. We can bridge the gap between imported oil, which is a national security issue, as well as any other, and it will reduce the price of a barrel of oil, because when people know there’s a greater supply, then the cost of that will go down.

That’s fundamental economics. We’ve got to drill offshore, my friends, and we’ve got to do it now, and we can do it.

And as far as nuclear power is concerned, again, look at the record. Senator Obama has approved storage and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.

And I’ll stop, Tom, and you didn’t even wave. Thanks.

Apparently Obama supporters took it as racist, like that same commenter who then shot back to me this morning, “I guess McCain was using ‘One’ as code for ‘Nigger’ to his racist supporters.” (Since I didn’t moderate comments until I got home this evening I heard the Rush reference first.) Personally I took it the same as McCain saying “that guy” or “that dude”, but I guess all that does is make me guilty of being white.

Let’s face facts here – Obama is going to get about 90% of the black vote. And it’s not because he’s black, it’s because he’s a Democrat. If racial unity were that great for just any black candidate, my junior Senator would be Michael Steele, they would be calling Lynn Swann the governor of Pennsylvania, and Ken Blackwell might be midway through his first successful term as Ohio’s governor.

But it’s that sensitivity minority voters have that makes headlines in the drive-by media. Former Senator George Allen of Virginia had his political career derailed because the word ‘macaca’ became a keyboard shortcut for the Washington Post, it was used so often. (And I’m still not sure why that was offensive, but I suppose it was made out to be so.) With Obamaites fanning the flames just as furiously as they can to light this spark of racism, I can tell that even if Obama wins the issue of race doesn’t go away.

Of course, if Obama is unsuccessful in November you can bet your bottom dollar it’s going to be attributed to racism among Republicans. No way would it be Barack’s relative lack of experience, his misguided foreign policy, or his tax-and-spend liberalism. And it can’t be that lack of trust in Obama among rank-and-file Democrats who swept Hillary Clinton to victories in many of the final primaries. In turn, we know that an Obama win will be considered a “mandate” even if he wins by 1 percent or, like Bill Clinton, can’t get a majority of the vote in his bid for the Oval Office.

No, the bets are being hedged as quickly as possible by Obama’s minions who know that the only thing that can stop Obama is his past, so they’re throwing all the mud they can at John McCain while attempting to keep a lid on that bubbling cauldron that is filled with stories about Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko and other Chicago machine politicians, and all that cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In a nutshell, that’s Election 2008. It’s a shame we couldn’t have a real debate with a decent moderator last night and that one flippant phrase is sure to become a hot issue.