McCain Campaign Demands Reporters Stop Calling Them Liars.

McCain camp criticism rife with errors
Politico.com
By BEN SMITH | 9/22/08 3:58 PM EDT

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

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A Little Inspiration

There are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?"

Undecideds Don't Like McCain's Palin Pick

One Thought Pushes Fence-Sitters To The Left: Palin
St. Petersburg Times
Saturday, September 20, 2008
By Adam C. Smith

ST. PETERSBURG — Five weeks ago, the St. Petersburg Times convened a group of Tampa Bay voters who were undecided about the presidential election. Their strong distrust of Barack Obama suggested it was a group ripe for John McCain to win over.

Not anymore. The group has swung dramatically, if unenthusiastically, toward Democrat Obama. Most of them this week cited the same reason: Sarah Palin.

"The one thing that frightens me more than anything else are the ideologues. We've seen too many," said 80-year-old Air Force veteran Donn Spegal, a lifelong Republican from St. Petersburg, who sees McCain's new running mate as the kind of "wedge issue" social conservative that has made him disenchanted with his party.

"I'm truly offended by Palin,'' said Republican Philinia Lehr, 37, of Largo, a full-time mother with a nursing degree who voted for George Bush in 2004. Like Palin, she has five children and she doesn't buy that the Alaska governor can adequately balance her family and the vice presidency.

"You're somebody's mom and what are you going to do, say, 'Excuse me, country, hold on?' … She's preaching that she's this mom of the year and taking that poor little baby all over everywhere. And, you know, what she's doing to her 17-year-old daughter is just appalling.'' Lehr said she's bothered by the way Palin's pregnant daughter has been brought into the national spotlight.

Of the 11 undecided voters participating in the discussion one recent evening at the Times — four Republicans, five Democrats, and two registered to no party — only two Republican men applauded the selection of Palin.

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FYI, Gallup Daily Tracking Poll for 20Sep08: Obama 50%, McCain 44% - Obama has held a margin over McCain in each of the prior four daily reports.

SNL's McCain Skit

High-Tech IT To Find And Contact Potential Voters

Ground War: Obama And The Long March
HuffingtonPost.com
By Thomas B. Edsall

The adoption of new, high-tech information technologies to locate and contact potential voters began in earnest in 2001 under the guidance of TargetPoint Consulting president Alex Gage, the Republican operative who earned a substantial share of the credit for the highly successful 2004 Bush-GOP microtargeting-GOTV drive.

Gage, whose firm continues to work for the Republican National Committee, said his impression is that the Democrats have made giant steps in the technology of voter contacts, and are well positioned to capitalize on the support Obama has generated.

Ken Strasma, president and founder of Strategic Telemetry, is performing microtargeting GOTV for the Obama campaign. He argues that, in some cases, the predictive accuracy of his firm's modeling of voter profiles is in the 99+ percent range.

In the aftermath of the 2004 Republican victory, both the Democratic National Committee and Catalist, a company created by Democratic operatives Harold Ickes and Laura Quinn, began parallel voter list development programs. Strasma has used data from both the DNC and Catalist.

Each category of voter as broken down by Strasma requires different methods of contact. Within the broad category of those committed to vote for Obama are both those who can be trusted to go to cast ballots November 4 with little or no encouragement, and those who are not reliable -- who will have to be pushed, prodded, and possibly driven to the polls. The undecided, in turn, fall into a host of categories, ranging from those with specific issue agendas to be addressed (taxes, Social Security, health care) to those wondering if they can bring themselves to vote for an African American.

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More Americans, 66%, Think Obama, Not McCain, Shares Their Values

A Closer Look at the NY Times/CBS News Poll - by Brad Jacobson of MediaBloodhound - The Truth on Independents, Moderates, White Women, Palin's Unfavorable Rating and More That the Corporate Media Hasn't Seen Fit to Cover...

Thursday's New York Times/CBS News poll paints the bleakest picture yet for the McCain/Palin ticket. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of the way Mr. Bush is conducting his job, 68 percent, was as high as it has been for any sitting president in the history of New York Times polling. And 81 percent said the country was heading in the wrong direction. Plus, more Americans, 66%, Think Obama, Not McCain, Shares Their Values.

The poll found that 46 percent of voters thought Mr. McCain would continue Mr. Bush’s policies, while 22 percent said he would be more conservative than Mr. Bush.

57 percent of all voters said they viewed him as a typical Republican, compared with 40 percent who said he was a different kind of Republican.

Although nearly half of voters also described Mr. Obama as a typical Democrat, the party’s brand is not diminished as is the Republicans’; the Democratic Party had a favorability rating of 50 percent in August, compared with 37 percent for the Republicans, a fairly consistent trend in the Times/CBS News Poll since 2006, and part of the general political landscape that many analysts believe favors the Democrats.

Yes, Republicans Can Like Obama Too

Yes, Republicans Can
Mother Jones
September/October 2008 Issue

At the grassroots, the "Republicans for Obama" movement has been growing for a while.

According to Steve Robin, a land-use attorney in Leesburg, VA, who describes himself as an independent, his conservative friends have been surprisingly open to Obama's candidacy, in large part due to the senator's "distinctive personality" and "the strength of his charisma." "Dyed-in-the-wool Republicans are saying Obama is not that awfully bad," he says.

In late June, Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, told reporters that he expects to put significant effort (read: money) into the fight for states like Virginia, noting that if Obama wins Iowa in addition to the states won by John Kerry in 2004 he could reach the White House by bagging just a couple more medium-size swing states. And, Plouffe added, in purple states like Virginia the campaign will be relying on Republican and independent Obama enthusiasts to proselytize to friends and relatives as part of a "persuasion army."

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Obama's Economic Blueprint for Change

Joe Biden On The Economy

Notice the CBS News interviewer push Republican/McCain negative talking points against Senator Obama in the way she phrases her questions in the following interview. Biden pushes back hard!


Notice NBC Today host Meredith Vieira push Republican/McCain negative talking points against Senator Obama in the way she also phrases her questions in the following interview. Biden pushes back hard on Vieira's questions too!

Biden: McCain pedling 'Republican garbage'

Clinton Unveils Obama GOTV Effort

"Today I am asking all of you to stand up with me, to hit the road and spread the word that we must elect Barack Obama president and send a Democratic, filibuster-proof majority to Congress," Clinton told supporters in a conference call Friday.

"This is a call to action, a must-do. We all have a role. And there is not a moment to lose." Clinton said the outreach "continues the historic journey that you have made with me."
Photo of Clinton at a rally for Obama event in Ohio on Sept 16th.
Read more at HuffingtonPost.com

Many Democratic groups and organizations in Collin County are actively working Voter Registration and Get Out The Vote activities today. All of these campaign groups and political organizations need volunteers. Please answer Hillary's call to form a large army of Democratic volunteers to help Get Out The Vote! Call one of these groups today to volunteer:

• Collin County for Obama,
• Tom Daley for U.S. House of Representatives - TX 3rd Congressional District,
• Glenn Melançon for U.S. House of Representatives - TX 4th Congressional District,
• Rick Noriega for U.S. Senate,
• The Democratic Party of Collin County,
• The Texas Democratic Women of Collin County,
• and more (look in the left hand sidebar of this blog page to find all of the Democratic candidates that will appear on Collin County ballots this fall.)

Note: The boundaries of the 3^rd Texas Congressional District and the 4^th Texas Congressional District meet in Collin County. Your U.S. House of Representatives TX Congressional District Number can be found on your 2008 Orange Voter's Registration Card within the box titled "Congress."

Please vote early this year - you'll be glad you did. The first day of early voting is Monday October 20th.