Monthly Archives: September 2008

(Community Matters) The polls keep coming in and they overwhelming report a material lead for Obama/Biden. It’s ours as long as our voters show up at the polls and we fully fund the final 44 days of the campaign!

fivethirtyeight.com

It won’t be stolen because our people have been on the ground in the states and at the court houses since June (vs Oct in the ’04 election). Please, please contribute one more time to help make sure this happens. Contribute here

(Community Matters) Barack on Face the Nation. Good gosh, he’s gotten much better at this- more succinct and focused. He managed to remind Bob Schieffer of McCain’s earlier statements. Nevertheless, what they are both saying today is that this risk is real and the most threatening we’ve seen since the 1930’s great depression.

He’s not crowing but he is reminding us that it’s Bush’s economic philosophy (“voluntary regulation” of investment banks and deregulation) and that McCain has voted with George Bush more than 90% of the time. And, it was Barack calling Paulson and the administration two weeks ago saying that the solution needed to include: 1) oversight, 2) taxpayer protections and equity upside, 3) CEO compensation limits & 4) mortage relief for dupped (not fraudulent) borrowers.

A foreign policy meltdown as well as an economic meltdown. Barack saying what he doesn’t understand is McCain’s continued support for Bush’s policies. He’s become as clear and deliberate on foreign affairs as any longer tenured political leader.

He needs to get more succinct with his answer to spending cuts. Good: scapel, not an ax. Good: some priorities and some cut backs. Closing loop holes part of the solution.

Barack did well.

(Community Matters) I’m watching McCain on This Week with Stephanopoulos. He’s holding his own. Mentioned middle class this time. Though now being pious about reform and ethics (see earlier posting below). Hmm, the Palin Afghanistan/Pakistan border question, sorta a dodge. He’s over the top “so happy” about Palin on the team. McCain’s just lied about Barack and decision to opt out of pubic financing – BO’s campaign attempted to negotiate the inclusion of RNC and DNC within these limits and McCain’s campaign refused.

(Community Matters) John Thornton in Insomniactive called out John Marshall’s piece on Thursday’s White House meeting and why McCain might have still been mad Friday during the debate.

(Community Matters) This may be old news, or even perhaps bad news. I haven’t kept up with Williamson County politics.

An email in my box this morning saying that Williamson County officials are under investigation for accepting contributions/kickbacks and payoffs from road developers. Since this is election season and I don’t know the sender of the email, I’m not naming names or parties. There’s a long history of developer and county official incest in Williamson County, however. Always struck me as curious that the most righteous, hardest-sentencing county in Central Texas had the most trouble with ethics.

(Community Matters) I’m hoping the graphics which accompanied this article in today’s Austin American Statesman is wrong and that it means approaching $60 trillion in derivatives rather than $600 trillion.

(Community Matters) I can only identify two potential game changers for McCain

#1 He replaces Sarah Palin with someone who can carry a critical state – like Colorado or Pennsylvania (New Hampshire, Virginia or Nevada to a lesser priority). Nothing but gut, but I expect Sarah to back out “for family reasons” by this Friday unless the debate is postponed or canceled.

#2 McCain votes no on the financial rescue (knowing that it’ll pass anyhow) and disgruntled Americans fall for his political move.

(Community Matters) “The Lying Game,” by Alan Wolfe

Conservatism is an honorable political philosophy whose most eloquent spokesmen, such as John Adams and Edmund Burke, proclaimed the truth as they saw it. This is a tradition that continues among all those contemporary conservatives who have been appalled at the direction the McCain camp has taken and have been willing to say so publicly. In contrast, the conservative populism that has swallowed up the contemporary Republican Party lies because conservative populism is itself a lie. It claims to be guided by faith when it is run by corruption.

(Community Matters) In Fox’s focus group, Obama wins there too

(Community Matters) Thanks to the Senate for slowing this one down. If I’m not mistaken, we’ve recently spent $85 billion for AIG, $200 billion for the GSEs, set aside a $40 billion fund for money market mutual funds, the House has approved $25 billion for auto manufacturers (Michigan lawmakers vowing to push for $25 billion more next year), we’re spending $6 billion-ish per month on the war, and we’re about to spend at least $700 billion on trash securities. This is why undergrads shouldn’t take mom & dad’s credit card with them to 6th Street.

(Community Matters) Barack needs to correct our campaign’s tack and avoid the slippery slope we’ve been indicting McCain for taking. Disappointed to read about our campaign’s misleading ads here. We don’t need to distort the truth about the last eight years.