I received the following email from a friend, who sent it from MoveOn.org, a site I have to admit I've never visited. However, I think the information is important enough to post on this blog, even though it isn't directly about the potential Democratic nominees. As always I welcome your comments, either on the blog or by private email. Next time I'll return to discussing the Dems. Here's her email:
"There are some things I never seem to hear about John McCain from the media. I thought you should see this list from MoveOn.org. Please check it out and pass it on! Below you will see the sources listed, which we never see in fwd. political e-mails. This election is an important one, so join with me to resolve to only send only legitimate and substantiated facts....
"10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):
1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.
4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."
5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.
6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.
7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
7. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
8. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."
9. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.
10. John McCain is not who the Washington press corps makes him out to be. So forward this email to your personal network! Thanks!"
"SOURCES:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008 http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html
"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008 http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/
2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us
"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/
3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/
4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/
5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008 http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007
"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007 http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/
6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80
"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home
7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022
"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008 http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/
8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/
"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251
9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3519
"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/
10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/"
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
#4 McCaikabee could be a problem....
“Moreover” (as one of my university students once BEGAN his out-of-class essay for me years ago), I really am trying to keep these posts shorter. But it’s not happening with this one.
So I uncovered that this student, who began his essay with “Moreover,” had copied it wholesale from US News and World Report. But for some reason he had started with paragraph two of the article. Cleverly, I had suspected early on that there was a problem with his paper. It was similar to the problem a friend of ours encountered years earlier as she began reading a plagiarized paper turned in by one of her high school students: “We British….”
A potential problem for the Democrats is a Republican McCaikabee ticket. John McCain is desperately trying to showcase his conservative credentials in order to sew up the nomination. Normally, I would think, ‘Hallelujah! We can grab the center of the political spectrum where we should have been in 2000 and 2004 as well!’
Well, Not So Fast, Blogger!. Both Hillary and Obama have no credibility as centrists. They have been branded as liberals and Barack, at least, has been voted the Senate’s most liberal member. That doesn’t particularly bother me: in my current state of residence, I look like a liberal. But I’m not the problem. I’m voting Democratic whichever one is nominated. Hell, I’m voting Democratic even if no one is nominated. The problem is that a lot of folk out there won’t vote for perceived liberals.
A potentially bigger problem for the Democrats is that McCain isn’t really a deep-down, dyed-in-the-wool, across-the-board conservative, and that’s why he’s having so much trouble convincing his own party’s base that he is. Oh, sure, he takes some political stands that conservatives take, but he also takes some stands that they oppose. To me that makes him more independent/not-partyline/perhaps-even-centrist. Oops.
Possible Republican Strategy?
Right now, here’s my thinking, subject to change of course, since I’m not running for president and don’t have to endure the shouts of “HE’S FLIPFLOPPING!” Several TV analysts on Super Tuesday stated that, if the Republicans were smart, they’d at least consider a McCain-Huckabee ticket.
It is true that Huckabee appeals to significant portions of the far right, with particular power in the south, and only in part because he’s from Arkansas: more to the point, his religious views resonate with a large minority of voters, and his fiscal views can pick up enough other voters to carry perhaps all of the old confederacy, with the possible exception of Florida (and even FL, we may remember, has had trouble deciding its electoral preferences, or at least how to cast a vote for them).
Of course, Republican strategists may be put off by the January Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that showed forty-five percent of Americans have concerns about an evangelical Christian as president. On the other hand, that leaves fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed who have not stated having such concerns. Besides, Huckabee would be second on the Republican ticket…behind a man nineteen years his senior. Oops…again.
But wait. There’s more: Huckabee has taken positions, online, that may provide specific areas of alarm for moderates, such as evolution and gay marriage. His various websites include the following innocuous-sounding comments:
"I think that the state ought to give students exposure to all points of view. And I would hope that that would be all points of view and not only evolution. I think that they also should be given exposure to the theories not only of evolution but to the basis of those who believe in creationism.... I think [evolution] is something kids ought to be exposed to. I do not necessarily buy into the traditional Darwinian theory, personally. But that does not mean that I’m afraid that somebody might find out what it is."
"I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life."
Well, okay, they’re actually NOT innocuous-sounding. And they sure as heck aren’t innocuous. But they’re very appealing to extreme-right conservatives.
Thus, in a general election against an Obama- or Hillary-led ticket, McCain could try to take the middle ground, and Huckabee could try to secure the further right (furthest right?) for the Republican ticket. Look at a red and blue map from the last two elections, and you’ll see it favoring the GOP again. Third “Oops.” Unless…
Possible Democratic Strategy?
The Democrats may have blown it already, with two perceived liberals the only potential presidential nominees left in the campaign. At the very least, whoever is on the Democratic ticket will have to hold on to the blue states, and win at least one midsized red state, or two or three small red states in order to get the electoral votes needed. I don’t think an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket will succeed.
Obama may be electable IF (and this is a big If) the young people who have flocked to his campaign continue at his side, and actually register and vote. They have large numbers. The current Democratic nomination process, reformed after the 1968 nominating process that subverted the significance of Eugene McCarthy’s anti-war youth following, could result in an Obama nomination. And a continued strong showing of new young voters could propel him to victory. I like his policies, and would be happy to vote for him. My vote, however, and the vote of both of my friends, may not be enough.
Right now at least, I believe that Hillary is less electable than Barack. Legitimately or not, she has been portrayed as divisive, and folk are currently buying that picture. I find that so incredibly ironic: dubya ran in 2000 as a Uniter (even before he called himself the Decider), but the only thing he has successfully united is the strongest opposition to a president’s policies since Viet Nam.
My concern is that people won’t listen to what Hillary Clinton’s policy points are, and hence won’t recognize that her proposals are reasonable and humane. Further, her position on health care is vital to our future, and to our children’s futures, and to their children’s futures.
With either of these senators at the head of the ticket, the Democrats will need a moderate (i.e., centrist) vice-presidential candidate. Preferably a popular and moderate Democrat from a red state. If we look in the right places, several medium-to-strong possibilities emerge. Over the next several posts we can begin to look.
So I uncovered that this student, who began his essay with “Moreover,” had copied it wholesale from US News and World Report. But for some reason he had started with paragraph two of the article. Cleverly, I had suspected early on that there was a problem with his paper. It was similar to the problem a friend of ours encountered years earlier as she began reading a plagiarized paper turned in by one of her high school students: “We British….”
A potential problem for the Democrats is a Republican McCaikabee ticket. John McCain is desperately trying to showcase his conservative credentials in order to sew up the nomination. Normally, I would think, ‘Hallelujah! We can grab the center of the political spectrum where we should have been in 2000 and 2004 as well!’
Well, Not So Fast, Blogger!. Both Hillary and Obama have no credibility as centrists. They have been branded as liberals and Barack, at least, has been voted the Senate’s most liberal member. That doesn’t particularly bother me: in my current state of residence, I look like a liberal. But I’m not the problem. I’m voting Democratic whichever one is nominated. Hell, I’m voting Democratic even if no one is nominated. The problem is that a lot of folk out there won’t vote for perceived liberals.
A potentially bigger problem for the Democrats is that McCain isn’t really a deep-down, dyed-in-the-wool, across-the-board conservative, and that’s why he’s having so much trouble convincing his own party’s base that he is. Oh, sure, he takes some political stands that conservatives take, but he also takes some stands that they oppose. To me that makes him more independent/not-partyline/perhaps-even-centrist. Oops.
Possible Republican Strategy?
Right now, here’s my thinking, subject to change of course, since I’m not running for president and don’t have to endure the shouts of “HE’S FLIPFLOPPING!” Several TV analysts on Super Tuesday stated that, if the Republicans were smart, they’d at least consider a McCain-Huckabee ticket.
It is true that Huckabee appeals to significant portions of the far right, with particular power in the south, and only in part because he’s from Arkansas: more to the point, his religious views resonate with a large minority of voters, and his fiscal views can pick up enough other voters to carry perhaps all of the old confederacy, with the possible exception of Florida (and even FL, we may remember, has had trouble deciding its electoral preferences, or at least how to cast a vote for them).
Of course, Republican strategists may be put off by the January Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that showed forty-five percent of Americans have concerns about an evangelical Christian as president. On the other hand, that leaves fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed who have not stated having such concerns. Besides, Huckabee would be second on the Republican ticket…behind a man nineteen years his senior. Oops…again.
But wait. There’s more: Huckabee has taken positions, online, that may provide specific areas of alarm for moderates, such as evolution and gay marriage. His various websites include the following innocuous-sounding comments:
"I think that the state ought to give students exposure to all points of view. And I would hope that that would be all points of view and not only evolution. I think that they also should be given exposure to the theories not only of evolution but to the basis of those who believe in creationism.... I think [evolution] is something kids ought to be exposed to. I do not necessarily buy into the traditional Darwinian theory, personally. But that does not mean that I’m afraid that somebody might find out what it is."
"I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life."
Well, okay, they’re actually NOT innocuous-sounding. And they sure as heck aren’t innocuous. But they’re very appealing to extreme-right conservatives.
Thus, in a general election against an Obama- or Hillary-led ticket, McCain could try to take the middle ground, and Huckabee could try to secure the further right (furthest right?) for the Republican ticket. Look at a red and blue map from the last two elections, and you’ll see it favoring the GOP again. Third “Oops.” Unless…
Possible Democratic Strategy?
The Democrats may have blown it already, with two perceived liberals the only potential presidential nominees left in the campaign. At the very least, whoever is on the Democratic ticket will have to hold on to the blue states, and win at least one midsized red state, or two or three small red states in order to get the electoral votes needed. I don’t think an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket will succeed.
Obama may be electable IF (and this is a big If) the young people who have flocked to his campaign continue at his side, and actually register and vote. They have large numbers. The current Democratic nomination process, reformed after the 1968 nominating process that subverted the significance of Eugene McCarthy’s anti-war youth following, could result in an Obama nomination. And a continued strong showing of new young voters could propel him to victory. I like his policies, and would be happy to vote for him. My vote, however, and the vote of both of my friends, may not be enough.
Right now at least, I believe that Hillary is less electable than Barack. Legitimately or not, she has been portrayed as divisive, and folk are currently buying that picture. I find that so incredibly ironic: dubya ran in 2000 as a Uniter (even before he called himself the Decider), but the only thing he has successfully united is the strongest opposition to a president’s policies since Viet Nam.
My concern is that people won’t listen to what Hillary Clinton’s policy points are, and hence won’t recognize that her proposals are reasonable and humane. Further, her position on health care is vital to our future, and to our children’s futures, and to their children’s futures.
With either of these senators at the head of the ticket, the Democrats will need a moderate (i.e., centrist) vice-presidential candidate. Preferably a popular and moderate Democrat from a red state. If we look in the right places, several medium-to-strong possibilities emerge. Over the next several posts we can begin to look.
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