Motley Moose – Archive

This is the third part in a series of posts examining how to create super-packed districts of one race. The other posts in this series pack blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites.

More below.

This is going to be a very short diary. I just received an email from the DSCC declaring victory in MN for Al Franken.

Here is the text of the email.

The image of Gov. Sarah Palin being promoted by the McCain campaign is of a straight-shooter who talks truth to power. The true image is of a person who lies repeatedly, even after being called out for her lies.

The Vice-Presidential debate offered more examples of her ability to lie with a straight face. All politicians obfuscate during debates and frequently misstate their opponent’s position. But, not all of them make up lies as they go along. Gov. Palin did that at least twice during Thursday’s debate.

One of the lies, about post-surge troop levels in Iraq, could have been caused by lack of knowledge on the part of Palin, but the other, about divestment of investments in Sudan, was a pure unadultrated prevarication.

There seems to be a disconnect between the way the pundits and the politically active class saw the debate and the way the average viewer saw it.

Since I’m in the politically active class, I definitely had a different take on it than the other people who were watching it with me. McCain exceeded my expectations, given his actions of late on the campaign trail. Obama, on the other hand, came across as the man I’ve come to respect and admire over the long course of this election cycle. I fell into a trap, because of those views.

Because Obama came across the way I expected, he gained no points from me for performance, while McCain did better than expected. This boosted McCain in my view. Uncommitted voters saw it differently.

Parsing the CBS post-debate poll (pdf) of uncommitted voters shows some interesting findings.

An enormous amount of Public Mass Media has been created this year in this transitional period following thousands of years of State-Controlled Media (see: “Egypt”), and dogging the heels of a few hundred years of Personally-Controlled Mass Media (see: “Rupert Murdoch”).  It presages a period that is much discussed and yet to be determined in type and form, and the impact of Public Mass Media is a matter of a great deal of current debate.

Four years ago the blogosphere had produced a set of individuals who had broken onto the public Media stage (see: “Drudge”) and public forums that set the precedents for places like Motley Moose (see: “MyDD” and “DailyKos”).  Today there are many individual contributors who have gained a fairly wide audience (see: “Ben Smith”, “”, “”) and a broad gamut of forums where Public Media is created by significant numbers of contributors.  Four years from now there will be a pervasive public understanding of how Public Media shapes our culture.

Now, we stand on a brink and often wonder “Does any of this make a difference to what happens in the world?”.  

Yes, it does.

Hi folks!

There are so many good video clips out there, I’ve been wanting to make a place to keep the best of them.

Angry Mouse wrote another great diary with this will.i.am clip from the DNC, so I figured it’s as a good a reason to start a collection as any.

Please add your own favorites here and we can all dive into this cache.

Before the end of the Democratic primary process there was much speculation about Barack Obama’s support among women. The fact that Obama’s support amongst women was weak while he was running against a woman candidate gave many pundits all the excuse they needed to suggest that support would remain weak once the primaries ended. They were obviously wrong, as the current polls show.

Another premise put forward by some pundits is that women vote more with their emotions than on the issues. They are as wrong about this as they are about Obama’s weakness with female voters. All that is needed to disprove this claim is to look at women’s voting patterns over the years.

Women have always favored the Democratic Party over the GOP. The Democratic Party is also the party with the best record and issues platform when it comes to women’s issues. Put those two factors together and it becomes apparent that women have been voting on the issues all along.

Q&A with Palin on the issues in July 2006

Palin and “Femistists for Life” oppose Birth Control

The problem is that FFL doesn’t just oppose abortion. FFL wants abortion to be illegal. All abortions, period, including those for rape, incest, health, major fetal defects and, although Foster resisted admitting this, even some abortions most doctors would say were necessary to save the woman’s life. (Although FFL is not a Catholic organization, its rejection of therapeutic abortion follows Catholic doctrine.) FFL wants doctors who perform abortions to be punished, possibly with prison terms.

It was extremely difficult to get Foster to say what she thought would happen if abortion was banned. At one point she would not concede that women would continue to have abortions if it was recriminalized; at another she argued that criminalization was no big deal: Instructions on self-abortion were posted on the Internet. I had to work to get her to admit that illegal abortion was common before Roe, and that it was dangerous–numbers on abortion deaths were concocted by pre-Roe legalization advocates, she told me. Yet the FFL website prominently features gory stories of abortion mishaps and discredited claims that abortion causes breast cancer. (Challenged on the cancer connection, Foster says they just want women to have medical information. Asked why they don’t then link to the 2004 Lancet article debunking their cancer claims, she says they are not medical experts and have considered taking the cancer pages down.) So legal abortion is dangerous but illegal abortion would be safe? When I pointed out that in countries where the operation is banned, such as Brazil and Peru, rates are sky-high and abortion a major cause of injury and death, she professed ignorance.

I got similarly evasive answers when I asked why FFL didn’t promote birth control, and when I asked if FFL considered the pill an “abortifacient.” She did tell me that “birth control doesn’t work” for swing-shift nurses because they lose track of their body clock–interesting, if true–or for teenagers, which I know to be false.

Palin visits D.C., lobbies for Alaska issues Feb 25, 2008

Palin unqualified to serve as vice president

‘Creation science’ enters the race

GOVERNOR: Palin is only candidate to suggest it should be discussed in schools.

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest – a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours — Hillary Rodham Clinton.  To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia – I love you so much, and I’m so proud of all of you.

rest of speech after the break…

Tonight, August 28, 2008, Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver, Colorado. This speech may well be ranked as one of the best speeches of the 21st Century.

Democrats are uniformly ecstatic about the speech. Republicans are trying desperately to give it a negative spin. Neither group really matters. What ultimately matters is what independents and undecided voters think of the speech. I can’t see how anyone could listen to that speech without being moved.

Even conservatives, like Andrew Sullivan were moved by the speech.

more after the break…