The Bullshit Express

I have to think that if Obama flipped this hard that 1) he'd dislocate something and 2) he'd get roasted for it from coast-to-coast by the media.

Why is this not being covered?

Obama has 269 Electoral votes AT WORST

From 538: Taking all battleground states (states where the lead is less than 5%) out the Electoral count is 269 Obama, 163 McCain



If McCain wins EVERY battleground, it would be a 269-269 tie (that Obama would win in the house)

Now, if we allocate states based on current poll data, Obama picks up Virginia (4.4%), New Hampshire (3.4%), Ohio (2.4%), Florida (2.4%), and Nevada (2.1%).

Indiana is a tie and give McCain precarious wins in North Carolina (0.1%) and Missouri (0.4%) - niether of which is a given, and you come up with 338 Obama, 189 McCain


(maps generated at 270towin.com)

Palin Scorecard

Print this out and either make a mark every time Sarah says or implies one of the following. Or turn it into a drinking game. Just use something with a low alcohol content. I don't want you dying.

__ Average American hockey mom; can relate to the people

__ Has son at war; understands terror

__ Lives in Alaska; has foreign relations experience (drink 3 if she has the chutzpah to drag this one back out)

__ Turns not knowing a lot of facts into a good thing because "I'm not a Washington insider".

__ Blames the media (this is a given -drink slowly, your liver is important); ignores own past as a member of the media

__ Retarded baby; understand special needs

__ Executive experience (running a state smaller than Fort Worth)

Uses the following phrases:

__ "Back ta ya"

__ "there"; as in "we got a good basketball team there"

__ "ya"

__ "oooh ya"; "auh ya"; "hoa yah"

__ Liberal

__ elite

__ tries to say lots of names of foreign leaders that she obviously just learned

Fred defends Palin using Palinism

Sarah Palin couldn't name a Supreme Court case that she disagreed with because she had yet to be given a "list of cases to see," Fred Thompson explained Thursday, on the Early Show with CBS.

"You know, I think you got the answer there of probably almost 100 percent of non-lawyer candidates if they have not been given a list of cases to see; `They might ask you about this one, they might ask you about that one.'"
----
COMMENT: Really? Really?

Debate coach

My ears are bleeding.....

The surge IS working

Diageo/Hotline

Among registered voters surveyed in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Nevada, Obama tops McCain 50 to 40%. Just a week ago, Obama led 45% to 42%.

And these guys are (ostensibly) on her team

George Will - "obviously not qualified to be President"

Kathleen Parker - "Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first."

David Brooks - "Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

David Frum (former Bush speechwriter) - "I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States,"

What more do you need? Her own people, accustomed to carrying water for the likes of George Bush, are deserting her.

Yes, she's THAT dangerous for the nation.

Are you SURE that's the angle you want?

One could say that this there is one of dose rhetorical binds that aur gal Sarah finds herself in.

She's making age jokes about Biden, and when Katie Couric asks her about it, she says: "you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience based on many many years in the Senate and voters are gonna have a choice there of what it is that they want in these next four years."

Umm.... Sarah, are you SURE that's the tack you want to make? Really? Want to think that ove.....? Now, is that what Oba.....

Never mind. I'm just being sexist.

A real Green Meanie.


Also, on Salon:
The Sarah Palin Pity Party
When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude, then I don't feel bad for you

Obama by 10: 51-41

The Research 2000 poll puts Obama up by 10. The data is of likely voters canvassed from Saturday through Monday. It's post-debate numbers.

If this is true, and holds up, a 10 point difference is an electoral landslide.

538 has the Electoral totals at Obama 329, McCain 209. Obama could lose Virginia and Florida and still take the election.

Fareed's analysis: Palin must drop out

In the latest Newsweek CNN Foreign Affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria says McCain did not put the country first in making his V.P. choice, and he says Palin is not qualified to lead the United States.

Here's a follow-up interview with Wolf Blitzer:

MOOOOOOOOOOOM, TELL NANCY TO STOP PICKING ON ME

John Boehner cries that Nancy Pelosi's speech hurt their feelings and so they voted against the bailout plan. Barney Frank fires back: "Somebody hurt my feelings so I'm gonna punish the country."

This wasn't about hurt feelings, it was about shifting blame because Republicans couldn't muster 80 votes. The GOP is in disarray, their leadership has absolutely no control over their members and so they try to shift the blame to distract from their lack of balls to stand up for the nation.

Vishnu bless Barney for being one of the few people in Congress with real stones.

THEN

John McCain took to the air in the early afternoon, before the vote, to take credit for passing it. This is awful news for McCain, because it shows one of two things: a) he's completely out of touch with his own party or b) he has no leverage within his own party to exert his will over them to aid in showing leadership in order to win an election.

The correct answer is c) BOTH.

The vote count was:
Democrat 145 YES - 95 NO
Republican: 65 YES - 133 NO

In a vote that was supposed to about 50-50, the bill would have passed with only 35% Republican participation and McCain/Bush/Boehner couldn't muster that. 12 more votes. That's all. 12.

So what, exactly, in Pelosi's speech proved so searingly partisan that it sent Republicans running away from the bailout bill? There are only a couple of clauses that seem remotely partisan. At one point, Pelosi claimed, fairly, that "Democrats insisted that legislation responding to this crisis must protect the American people and Main Street from the meltdown on Wall Street."

She also included some criticism of the current White House: "It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration's failed economic policies -- policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system."

But the only mention of "Republican" in her prepared remarks came in this line: "Over the past several days, we have worked with our Republican colleagues to fashion an alternative to the original plan of the Bush Administration."

Democrats stopped John McCain from saving America

McCain economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin (of "McCain invented the Blackberry" fame) says Democrats stopped John McCain from saving America.

Watch David Schuster rip into Doug. I'm starting to like Shu again, even though he is a blowhard.





And (see above) Boehner accuses the Democrats of being overtly partisan...... rolleyes....

McCain later gave a statement in Iowa that said that now is not the time for blame. But I blame Obama.

rolleyes redux....

Nice.....

cowardly bastards

Sarah vs Ralph

Bob Cesca points out that Sarah Palin's answers to questions are starting to approach Ralph Wiggum.




Ralph: Me fail English? That's unpossible

Ralph: [whispering] Lisa, what's the answer to number seven?
Lisa: [whispering] Sorry, Ralph. That would defeat the purpose of testing as a means of student evaluation.
Ralph: [pauses] My cat's name is Mittens

Ralph: When I grow up, I want to be a principal or a caterpillar.

Ralph: Principal Skinner, I got car sick in your office.