Challenging Votes is UnAmerican

There has been a lot of talk about unamerican activities recently. Apparently significant swaths of the country are self hating. who knew? There are real parts and virtual parts of our country. this is of course utter and complete fail. I do believe that there is one thing being done in a systematic way across the country that is truly and deeply unamerican. No its not voter registration fraud and no ACORN is not responsible. The idea of challenging people's right to vote and making them prove that they have the right strikes me as deeply and unfailingly unamerican.

There are few things more sacred in our country than the franchise. Voting in our country represents the ability of the populace to legitimize the government, to participate in the course of the country. People have died in the effort to allow minorities and women the right to vote in this country. Voting is not a burden on a citizen it is the defining right of citizens in a democracy. When that vote is challenged and that citizen is told that he does not have the right to vote unless he can prove that he does that is wrong.

The entire system that allows for American citizens of legal voting age to be forced into a "provision ballot" should be abolished. Provisional ballots are a system where a person is guilty until proven innocent. Based on a challenge with an incredibly low burden of proof we tell citizens that they cant vote unless they can prove they are ok. the burden of proof is totally on the wrong party in this action. In our country the burden of proof is on the prosecution and make no mistake thats what these vote challengers are, citizen prosecutors alleging crime. They should not be aided by this rebuttable presumption in their favor. If anything it should be the other way, a person is assumed to have the right to vote unless it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that they do not.

We know that systematic voter fraud does not happen in this country. the allegations of it are done with one purpose and one purpose only, to stop people from voting. The people that are inevitably stopped are the poor, the black, the brown. The people who need to vote the most because the policies of the government will affect them the most. To go around the country and tell these people they dont deserve to vote because of a scrivener's error flies in the face of the ideals of liberty and democracy.

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I am Spar..Joe the Plumber!!

Really, it had to be done.



Now Compare



Cmon, this entire economic strategy built around Name the Occupation is about the most stupid and juvenile thing yet. It is beneath the dignity of a serious political campaign, luckily mccain is not running a serious political campaign. Serious political campaigns deal with issues and the concerns of voters, neither of which mccain addresses.

McCain has been running around telling people the center piece of his campaign is the economy. Clearly this is a laugh line. The center piece of the mccain campaign are lies innuendo and smear currently being spread by robo calls. Go over and read the NYT preview of the mccain campaign article. This pretty much sums up the mccain campaign

After that first brief meeting, Davis remained in discreet but frequent contact with Palin and her staff — gathering tapes of speeches and interviews, as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on “The Charlie Rose Show” that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn’t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, “I’m undecided.” What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues — energy independence and ethics reform — and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: “The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best — that’s your V. P.”

Could you ask for a more shallow and incompetent way to pick a running mate? Truly this explains why palin spent 150K on clothing, she was picked to look pretty distracting viewers from her filibuster and lack of knowledge. I mean they knew about the abuse of power investigation and ignored it. This validates every thing said about how the gop operates, they live to win campaigns and not to govern.

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This is a two party system...

I was reminded of this today...



Brilliant stuff.

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Obama Cmpaign Robo Calls

Obama has his owm Robo Calls out there to fight those of John McCain.

Here's a script:

Hi, this is Jeri Watermolen, calling for the Campaign for Change. I live in Green Bay and, like you, I've been getting sleazy phone calls and mail from John McCain and his supporters viciously -- and falsely -- attacking Barack Obama. I used to support John McCain because he honorably served our country -- but this year he's running a dishonorable campaign. We know McCain will continue many of Bush's policies, and now he's using George Bush's divisive tactics. In fact, he hired the Bush strategists whose attacks even McCain once called hateful.

Barack Obama will turn the page on these negative politics and stand up for the middle class. That's the change we need, and it's why I have changed my mind about John McCain. Join me in voting for Barack Obama. Paid for the Campaign for Change, a project of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, 608-255-5172, and authorized by Obama for America.

People want to know if robo calls work and i think the answer is that no they do not. People just dont listen to the calls. Calls with volunteers are the only call method proven effective. However that is hardly the point of these calls. The point is that now anyone mentions robo calls obama's will be included because of the need for balance. Obama will be able to get his message attacking mccain for being sleazy out in the free press echo chamber and now millions who would otherwise never been exposed to them are. It is similar to what mccain has been doing with his video press releases.

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Its all they know how to do.

2000 and 2004 were elections where the country felt it was in a relatively good place. Sure 2004 had the War in Iraq but the war was not universally loathed at that point in time and Bush still had a 50% approval rating. Bush strategist Karl Rove ran a campaign based largely on smoke and mirrors. He focused on cultural and other distraction issues designed to fire up his base and win on turn out and voter suppression.

Fast forward to 2008 ans Rove protege Steve Schmidt is running the McCain campaign. Schmidt is a veteran of the Bush campaign and he headed up the war room in 04. He spent his time learning at Rove's right hand. He has a masters in GOP campaigning. Unfortunately for him the election is not taking place in 2000 or 2004. The country is in a bad way. For the first time in a generation an election is about more than cultural issues. Sadly for the GOP those are the only things they know how to do.

Commentators and Bloggers have been looking at the mccain campaign and asking why they persist with ayers, acorn, etc when that stuff is totally unimportant to the public. it seems to make no sense. The answer is that this is all these people know how to do. it has been their specialty for the past two decades. It is all they have ever needed. Now though they are being asked to do something new and different and they are totally out of their depth. So they try to up the game on what they do know getting slimier and slimier. Unsurprisingly they are not succeeding. Schmidt and co is out of their depth.

This of course frustrates them. They lash out and they look desperate, because they are. They simply dont have a handle on what to do against obama and in the face of an actual crisis because they have waged the past elections with smoke and mirrors. When it comes time to deal with problems though tricks dont get it done.

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