POLITICAL OVERDOSE (10/15)
Third & FINAL Debate Tonight – 20 Days 'Til Election
I'm not sure what Sen. John McCain needs to do tonight. But whatever it is, I hope he does a LOT of it. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
Until then, here are some stories from today's major media markets about the campaign.
PRE-DEBATE QUOTES OF THE DAY
Washington Times' Blankley writes, McCain 'has an unambiguous duty to the nation to force the public to at least be informed as to the nature and character' of Obama. 'He needs to lay out all the accurate available information' on Obama's 'prior alliances, affiliations and conduct both for the purpose of revealing' Obama's 'character and his radical policy disposition.' Obama's camp 'has raised to a high art the technique of politically intimidating people from commenting honestly about' him. 'Real racism is appalling, but the act of falsely charging racism undercuts the very causes of equality and tolerance' (10/15).
Talk radio host Mark Davis writes in the Dallas Morning News, 'when it comes time for voters to determine who will take the oath' of office, 'an appreciable number will realize that showering' Obama 'with adulation on the campaign trail is one thing; handing him the keys to the Oval Office is quite another.' McCain 'will win not because' his voters 'are actively thrilled' with his agenda, 'but because they are sufficiently repelled by his' (10/15).
Sen. McCain will be on 'Fox News Sunday' on 10/19, live from Columbus, OH, according to sources for the National Journl's Hotline, 10/15).
Sen. McCain's New 'Unethical' Ad:
www.youtube.com . . .
OBAMA VOTED 'PRESENT' ON MORTGAGE REFORM
WALL STREET JOURNAL - In each of the first two presidential debates, Barack Obama claimed that 'Republican deregulation' is responsible for the financial crisis. … But one essential fact was missing from the senator's narrative: While there has been significant deregulation in the U.S. economy during the last 30 years, none of it has occurred in the financial sector. … If Sen. Obama had been asked for an example of 'Republican deregulation,' he would probably have cited the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA), which has become a popular target for Democrats searching for something to pin on the GOP. This is puzzling. The bill … was supported by the Clinton administration and signed by President Clinton.
If Sen. Obama were truly looking for a kind of deregulation that might be responsible for the current financial crisis, he need only look back to 1998, when the Clinton administration ruled that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could satisfy their affordable housing obligations by purchasing subprime mortgages. This ultimately made it possible for Fannie and Freddie to add a trillion dollars in junk loans to their balance sheets. This led to their own collapse, and to the development of a market in these mortgages that is the source of the financial crisis we are wrestling with today.
Finally, on the matter of deregulation and the financial crisis, Sen. Obama should consider his own complicity in the failure of Congress to adopt legislation that might have prevented the subprime meltdown.
online.wsj.com . . .
WALL STREET JOURNAL – ACORN Probes Focus on Advocacy Group's Voter Registration:
online.wsj.com . . .
ACORN'S Chaos Strategy
The following is an excerpt from today's Political Diary from The Wall Street Journal. To sign up, click here:
secure.djnewsletters.com . . .
A federal appeals court ruled last night that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must provide county election boards with state voter registration information so they can check the validity of some 666,000 new voter registrations submitted to Ohio officials in recent months. The order, which Ms. Brunner vigorously resisted, will mean county boards will be able to stop counting absentee ballots if the registration linked to them doesn't match the name of a real person listed in government databases.
Ms. Brunner's office had argued that the federal Help America Vote Act did not require any such matching, and that delays in processing absentee votes could mean some valid votes wouldn't be counted.
Meanwhile, thousands of additional suspect registrations turned in by activist groups like Acorn have surfaced in Ohio. Local election officials tell me the volume of possibly fraudulent registrations will make it difficult for them to process those that are valid.
'It's almost as if groups like Acorn want deliberate chaos in the election system, which they can then exploit on Election Day to demand that suspect votes be given the benefit of the doubt and counted,' one county official told the Journal's John Fund.
NY Times – Is Pressure Cracking ACORN?
ACORN officials 'sought to provide assurances' on 10/14 'that instances of wrongdoing were not widespread.' They 'acknowledged cases where canvassers submitted false or duplicate registrations, but said they represented only a tiny fraction' of its 1.3M registered voters.
ACORN spokesperson Kevin Whalen: 'Out of 13,000 workers there were inevitably a few who decided they'd pad their hours by duplicating a card and filling out another one or making up a name. If we discovered this, we not only turned that information over but turned the information we had about that former employee -- because they'd been fired by that point -- to elections officials and asked for their help in prosecuting that person.'
Also on 10/14, ACORN 'was surveying local offices to come up with a tally of the number of 'problematic' registration cards it had submitted to states.' A spokesperson 'indicated that the number of employees who had been fired for job-related problems could reach' 1K 'or more nationwide, but later backed off that estimate.' The spokesperson 'confirmed that more than 100 Acorn workers' in OH and MI 'had been fired' (Falcone, New York Times, 10/15).
OTHER STORIES OF NOTE:
NEW YORK POST - Barack Obama's tax plan is about "spreading wealth around":
www.nypost.com . . .
NEW YORK POST - Obama's 'Robin Hood' Moment:
www.nypost.com . . .
HERE'S THE VIDEO OF PLUMBER:
www.youtube.com . . .
WASH. TIMES - "Biden Routes Campaign Cash To Family, Their Firms":
www.washingtontimes.com . . .
WALL STREET JOURNAL - McCain Puts New Tax Cuts on the Table:
online.wsj.com . . .
NEW HAMPSHIRE UNION LEADER - McCain for President: A real leader for America:
www.unionleader.com . . .
WILKES BARRE (Pa.) TIMES-LEADER – Palin Resonates With Admirers:
www.printthis.clickability.com . . .
WASH. POST – Can Gov. Palin Save The Mainstream Media?:
www.washingtonpost.com . . .
NEWS SNIPPETS
Rep. Lewis Claims Mission Accomplished
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) on 10/14 'said he had no regrets for claiming' that GOP rhetoric in WH'08 'reminded him of words spoken by segregationist' AL Gov. George Wallace -- 'but he admitted that he could have made his point 'in a different way.'
Lewis: 'I do not regret what I said. Maybe it could have been said in a different way, because it was not suggesting that John McCain or Sarah Palin was closely related [in] any way to the actions of Governor Wallace. It was all about what I call toxic speech -- statements [and] an audience that can unleash bitterness and hatred. And I don't need anyone to lecture me about my feelings, or what I have observed for more than 50 years.'
'Regardless of any criticism, which he characterized as overblown, Lewis said his protest had its effect.' Lewis: 'I think it checked some of the things that had been going on. I don't think you're going to see people making reference to a young man who is the nominee of his party as running around with terrorists. I don't think you're going to have that anymore' (Galloway, 'Political Insider,' Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/14).
Raising The Double Standard
National Review's Goldberg writes, Lewis 'sold off another chunk of his reputation by coughing up some absurd partisan talking point about how the McCain-Palin campaign reminds him' of Wallace.
'McCain has done nothing to fuel racism. Or, put another way, his campaign has done as much to promote prejudice' as the Obama camp 'has to inflame the vile passions behind the 'Abort Sarah Palin' bumper sticker, Madonna's stage video lumping McCain in with Hitler, the eugenic snobbery aimed at Palin's son with Down syndrome.'
'Why is it racist to treat Obama just like the four white guys who preceded him? Talk about double standards. If Obama were a white' Dem 'named Barry O'Malley, the GOP would be going after him twice as hard. But liberal' Dems 'would still caterwaul about fomenting hatred and racism, because that's what they always do' (New York Post, 10/15).
IN CASE THERE'S ANY DOUBT ABOUT
WHERE THE MSM PUNDITS STAND
Meanwhile, discussion continued over the McCain camp's recent attempts to question Obama's past associations:
•Boston Globe's Lehigh writes, Palin's 'charge that Obama 'is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country' is the most repellant we've seen from either ticket so far.' And 'mind you, it's not clear that McCain really will pursue a different path in the remaining weeks' (10/15).
•Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tucker writes, 'there is no evidence to suggest McCain is a racist.' But 'don't feel too sorry for McCain. Throughout his 26-year political career, the GOP has used a strategy of blatant racial appeals to disaffected white voters, the most infamous of which was the Willie Horton ad' against Michael Dukakis. McCain 'never publicly objected to those tactics. So he shouldn't be surprised that he is now associated with them' (10/15).
•Chicago Sun-Times' Greeley writes, 'playing the race card explicitly merely guarantees what I have thought from the beginning -- racism in this country precludes the possibility of a sepia-colored man becoming' POTUS. However, 'the last-ditch attack on him guarantees that McCain and Palin will be blamed as the candidates who were content to hear crowds calling for the death of Obama' (10/15).
•New York Daily News' Dalek writes, 'the anti-Obama rhetoric has a different cast. Infused with the incendiary issues of race, religion, terrorism and conspiratorial thinking, it is reminiscent of the kind of far-right hyperventilating that movement leaders' once 'sought to quell in order to make conservatives more viable politically.' If 'conservatism's elder statesmen' don't 'see the danger and turn the ship back toward the mainstream, the damage to the movement could be profound' (10/15).
•Writer Ron Manuto and Furman Univ. prof. Sean Patrick O'Rourke write in the Columbia State, 'the question now is whether' McCain 'will allow his operatives to misrepresent Obama's past associations, religion or ethnicity. And they are misrepresentations.' In the end, 'smear tactics work only if we allow them to, if we are so gullible as to buy this nonsense. ... Have we learned nothing from the 2000 primary?' (10/15).
•Chicago Tribune's Page writes, 'it makes me downright proud to see the familiar principled side of McCain rise to the challenge of damping down some of the uglier sentiments being expressed in his supporters' ranks' (10/15).
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