Motley Moose – Archive

Are you sitting there waiting for the next series of Gallup and Rasmussen polls to come out and hoping Obama has a good day?

Do you wake up each day and click on all of your bookmarked political websites to see what the narrative of the day is going to be and hope the media sees it your way?

Do you cuss and scream at the current economic crisis were in, the Iraq War, gas prices, lack of healthcare, lack of equal rights, etc.?

You do?  And what are you doing about it?

crossposted at MyDD

Obama did exactly the right thing in proposing principles for a plan to bail out the financial industry rather than a plan, both politically and Presidentially. Presidents set agendas and principles and have staffs to draw up the nuts and bolts (or: you don’t think FDR crafted all that legislation personally, do you?). Obama’s not going to take the lead on crafting a plan in the Senate, can’t, and shouldn’t. That’s a job that’s going to require the full attention of the people involved. It’s also not what you expect a president to do either. Presidents set principles, goals, objectives, criteria, agendas, that sort of thing. Presidents should be overseers, not wonks (a bit of wonkiness, good; too much, bad). Presidents are not Senators. Acting as a Senator now is a necessary but not sufficient part of Obama’s campaign for the Presidency; being Presidential is much more valuable.

I don’t think that voters want a specific plan from Obama right now. They don’t want to (and won’t) read through legislation. Voters want leadership. This is step one of leadership (step two is standing by it and using his position to promote his principles and hold Congress, or at minimum Democrats, to them). McCain (and anyone else Obama didn’t mention, in laying out the principles) is now in the “follower” position, unless they start from a different set of principles and win the fight over whose principles are better (and even in that case, Obama’s still taken the leadership position by switching the debate from plans to principles).

I was born in Pakistan in the early 1980s. That’s where I grew up, my first years under a repressive dictatorship.  When Zia-ul-Haq died I was six years old. One of my early memories is hearing that news on the television, the newscaster on the state run TV channel crying as he read it out. I also remember the odd air of elation around me on what seemed on the face of it, at six years of age, an unambiguously sad event. I remember the electricity in the air when Benazir Bhutto was elected Prime Minister and the slow return of cynicism as it became obvious things weren’t getting a whole lot better anytime soon.

Well, John McCain can’t really make friends anywhere these days.

Today, NEWSMAX (yes, you heard me right) reported that Rush Limbaugh ripped Senator McCain a new one.

Rush Limbaugh wishes John McCain’s economic proposals would stop bashing Wall Street, thinks the Arizona senator is running against the wrong people, and deplores his demand that SEC Chairman Chris Cox be fired — and he wants everybody to know it.

Yesterday, I criticized “advice” from a Huffington Post blogger on how to bring Clintonistas onto the Hopemobile.  Today, I offer my suggestions for reaching out to Clintonistas.

Yesterday, I criticized “advice” from a Huffington Post blogger on how to bring Clintonistas onto the Hopemobile.  Today, I offer my suggestions for reaching out to Clintonistas.

Public Policy Polling has released a new poll of the opinions of North Carolinians about the presidential race.  It’s good news for the good guys:

Obama 46

McCain 46

Barr 5

The poll had a large sample of 1,060 likely voters.  It was conducted September 17 to September 19 and had a standard error of +/-3%.

PBS, in conjunction with NOW, has created a simple online poll to ascertain whether people think Palin is qualified for Vice President. I’m sorry to say that at present it reports that 52% of respondents (from Alaska? from Mars?) say she is qualified and only 46% say she isn’t. It doesn’t seem to be restricted to US citizens, so please spread the word and maybe something other than truthiness might be represented… http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/p…

I can’t tell you how many times Americans seem amazed/impressed/appalled that I care so much about their election.

Maybe it’s a side effect of being the world’s remaining superpower, culturally and militarily, that you can’t see the impact you have on the world, and hence wonder why any ‘furreners’ who show any interest. But can I tell you something…

As a pretty politically active Brit, especially in the 90s, I can rarely remember a British election arousing so much interest, enthusiasm and debate. Yes, Obama has been the subject of most my political conversations for the last nine months now…

True, I’ve got a personal affinity. Having studied, worked, and lived in the US, having had both my brothers marry Americans (as I did) and been traveling there frequently since I was 19, America is the country I admire/distrust/can’t ignore in equal order. But it’s not just me – my whole country shares much of this fascination. My whole continent actually…

We aliens have no voice in this election. We have no votes, we can’t donate money. So instead, I’m donating something else. I’m sending my first born son, aged only 18, to do what he can (in a quiet way) to work for the campaign