Obama debate mistake

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Wednesday September 24, 2008 · 11:14 AM PDT

2008/09/24 · 11:14

The Commission on Presidential Debates has made clear that the candidates' campaigns have requested a change in the topic scheduling of the debates. Evidently, the results of the negotiations include that the first debate will focus on foreign policy while the final debate will focus on domestic policy. Until recently, however, the order for the topics had been the other way around. According to a friend who had worked on the Commission for Presidential Debates for over thirteen years, this renegotiation was at the request of the Obama campaign. This was a mistake.

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ArgumentAdvocate

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Friday September 12, 2008 · 7:46 AM PDT

2008/09/12 · 07:46

I study political advertising, and I think I can shed a small amount of light on the GOP advertising approach. From the outside, it looks like rapid-fire distraction and smoke-screen. But having studied some of the effects and the symbolism in these ads, I think I can offer something valuable here. Three things are going on, inoculation, disaffection, and distraction.

Regarding inoculation, the McCain people have had to re-code the meaning of Palin. Lakoff would argue that it is important for the GOP to frame her in way that is favorable to GOP prospects. The problem is, she's been lying. The bigger problem for the GOP is that the media began to make a theme of this in coverage. The latest GOP spot, the "Desperate" spot, is an effort to contextualize claims of lying in a narrative that has Obama and Co. attacking in various ways. So, they are struggling to keep the maverickiness despite the lying, giving it a positive meaning - something like, "Strong woman overcomes black man's lies."

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ArgumentAdvocate

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Tuesday September 09, 2008 · 5:37 PM PDT

2008/09/09 · 17:37

I'm getting fatigued by being two-steps behind the McCain campaign. Each day since the convention he has added a new twist to the campaign and it makes me wonder what the f(*& Obama is doing. We have an economy down the tubes, a lead in fundraising, an enormous lead in registered voters, an unpopular war, terribly unpopular GOP president, and yet we can't get traction. This should be a perfect storm, but we are only harnessing the energy of a tea-pot tempest.

Now, someone is going to say the media is playing fast-and-loose with the polls. Fine, but here's the problem. Why is any of this surprising anyone?

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ArgumentAdvocate

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Tuesday September 02, 2008 · 8:05 PM PDT

2008/09/02 · 20:05

The Republicans are all on message with Palin. I've heard it on CBS Radio, on PBS and have read it in several columns today. The message is that the whole hub-bub is about Palin's child having a baby. This is being combined with a blame-the-media message. Once combined, the goal is to get the media to just move on. The GOP is trying to compartmentalize this moment, the last few days, as a mad mainstream media feeding frenzy over personal issues. If it works, the media withdraws with its tail between its legs.

The goal here is as much to get the media to withdraw from the Palin grandchild story, as it is to compartmentalize the moment. What I mean by "compartmentalize" is that they want to sell to the general public this idea that all of the media disturbance can be distilled down into an episode of the liberal media digging into the private life of a woman. Who knows, they may even frame this as just one more time when a woman was treated unfairly when running for a top office. The latter would be ballsy though, and probably not worth the effort, unless they are still trying to pass the selection off as an effort to attract disaffected Clinton voters.

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ArgumentAdvocate

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Sunday August 31, 2008 · 7:51 AM PDT

2008/08/31 · 07:51

Howdy everyone. This is an attenuated diary. WCBSTV in New York has an online survey asking if the choice of Palin makes you more or less likely to vote for McCain.

Please check out this survey and let readers know just how much Palin sucks. Because I believe action items are very important, I want to start providing links to these surveys and similar items whenever I find them.

check out CBS survey here.

McCain Announcement: BREAKING!!!

ArgumentAdvocate

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Friday August 29, 2008 · 9:14 PM PDT

2008/08/29 · 21:14

It was recently leaked to me that John McCain was convinced he didn't need a Vice President, but his hand was forced to pick a female church-going creationist by Dobson.

A Vice-President's job is to ensure that the President is replaced in times of death or incapacity. He stands in at state funerals and breaks ties in the Senate.

If any of you think he's going to die, just cut-and-run from life...

If any of you think he can't break ties on his own, by virtue of his un-resounding will...

If any of you think that McCain's thoughts and feelings need to be expressed by an in-the-flesh representative at state funerals...

then those of you who think that way are missing the fact that John McCain is a POW.

John McCain was a POW.

He was a prisoner of war.

For a long time.

Palin = Big Oil

ArgumentAdvocate

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Friday August 29, 2008 · 6:31 AM PDT

2008/08/29 · 06:31

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia about Sarah Palin, the presumptive front runner for McCain's ticket.

"Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart.[3] One summer when she was working on Todd's fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers.[3] Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope[9]"

Evidently, she is linked to big oil through her husband.

Now, she is not her husband. However, she has taken one of the tried and true paths to female Republican stardom - she was a news anchor just like Kay Bailey Hutchison before her.

Her beauty queen status (though McCain doesn't like celebrities!), her creds as a news anchor, and her attachments to oil more than make up, in Republican eyes, for her lack of testicles.

I think this choice is a desperate and transparent effort to make up for so much that is unglamorous about McCain.

My Goodness! What poor people will do #1!

ArgumentAdvocate

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Tuesday August 12, 2008 · 7:26 AM PDT

2008/08/12 · 07:26

A while ago I was in a hotel room at a conference with a person who is particularly bright. I flipped the channels past a news station that was discussing the opulence of Donald Trump's new home. How amazing the marble, granite, and gilding was. Ahhh. My friend said, "Isn't amazing what rich people can do?"

I got the joke. It is pathetic that our culture fixates on, believe it or not, just what can be purchased with money! Evidently, there is a correlation between how much money you have and how amazing your shit is. Research supports this.

The converse is also true. Americans love to fixate on those absurd things that poor people do. And the poorer people get in this country, the harder it is to peel yourself away from programs showing poor people sticking up banks and getting mauled by dogs. They never cease to entertain us! But, there is more and more of this trash, and it highlights a class issue. We laugh at poverty.

ArgumentAdvocate

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Friday August 08, 2008 · 4:47 AM PDT

2008/08/08 · 04:47

"Political efficacy," defined roughly, is the feeling that a person can effect the system. That their voice matters in the large scheme of things. Political efficacy matters because if people don't feel that they have much, they become increasingly unlikely to participate, vote, attend meetings, volunteer, and so on. This is what I think DailyKos is about.

DailyKos is important to Democratic political efficacy because it is a channel by which an otherwise untapped and once-disaffected LARGE group of citizens can gather to share information about races and effect those races. If the reader follows the larger narrative of this website, it started with Kos blogging and slowly coalescing a group of people who care about progressive politics.

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ArgumentAdvocate

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Thursday August 07, 2008 · 1:09 PM PDT

2008/08/07 · 13:09

According to Teagan Goddard's Political Political World, The Straight Talk Express is looking to deposit spam and other crap in your mailboxes and on websites throughout the virtual world. Specifically, we wants people to spread talking points all over the damned place:

"McCain Offers Prizes for Spam Comments
Sen. John McCain's campaign is urging supporters to spam blogs and forums with official talking points, according to the Washington Post. If you do a good job, you can even win prizes.

"That, in essence, is the McCain campaign's pitch to supporters to join its new online effort, one that combines the features of 'AstroTurf' campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper."

"People who sign up for McCain's program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain's webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express.""

More below the fold...

ArgumentAdvocate

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Tuesday August 05, 2008 · 8:40 AM PDT

2008/08/05 · 08:40

I used to love the regular posting of calls to action, calls to call, email and write so-and-so or such-and-such. I just joined Free Republic as a mole, and enjoy writing thoughts that are counter to their conventional thought, though more extreme and nutty than they write. It isn't received well by most, but is always buttressed by some loon. Anyway, in my short time there I've seen numerous calls to write, call and complain. It is my recollection that we used to do much more of that here, kind of a counter-push against the Freepers. Instead, I'm asked to give money all of the time - and I give as much as I can afford, but I have time and want to act. I don't have that much money.

What gives?

State Ground Machines Broken

ArgumentAdvocate

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Friday August 01, 2008 · 5:51 AM PDT

2008/08/01 · 05:51

In this diary I argue that state party apparatus is broken. Much like university presidents, the purpose of the parties, it seems, is to raise funds. They no longer function to give people access to their public servants.

What I mean when I discuss "state party apparatus" could be extensive, but I choose to focus here on the ground machine. These include the GOTV folks, volunteers as well as committee people and precinct captains. I've lived in three states in seven years, and I am politically active, yet I HAVE NEVER MET MY PRECINCT CAPTAIN. What has happened?

Illinois: As a very young man I was a political dork working for the Republican party. I volunteered time to my committeeman, who was about 80 years old and walking no precincts. He only made it in to vote on election day. He couldn't even function as a judge or a watcher. I was appointed a precinct captain at 15 years of age (Lyons Township -precinct 312, if memory serves). I assumed from that point forward that becoming a precinct captain must be easy. Most people are too old or uninterested.

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Obama debate mistake

GOP Advertising Plan

I'm getting fatigued

Compartmentalizing the Palin Moment: Moving On

Action Item: Palin Polls - IT'S MOVING!

McCain Announcement: BREAKING!!!

Palin = Big Oil

My Goodness! What poor people will do #1!

DKos - On Political Efficacy and ACTION ALERTS

Straight Talk Express to Spam America! (UPDATE #2)

Calls to Action? Where are you?

State Ground Machines Broken