So seriously, how would it work?

John McCain has declared (to Rick Warren during his interview at Saddleback church) that "life begins at the moment of conception." John McCain followed that up by letting James Dobson and the theocratic wing of the Republican party pick his Vice Presidential nominee. It stands to reason then that, if elected, McCain would also let Dobson pick his Supreme Court nominees as well.

So let's play it out... There are already 5 votes on the Supreme Court (with the addition of Roberts and Alito) to overturn Roe (and Roe is based on Griswold which holds a fundamental right to the privacy of your own body). If McCain/Palin were to be elected, James Dobson gets to nominate 2 to 3 additional justices to the Supreme Court -- creating a theocratic super-majority.

If you believe, as McCain and Palin do -- that a fertilized egg is a human being and that abortion should be illegal in all cases including rape and incest -- then presumably you would want to use the coercive power of the state to force those 1.2 million women each year in the U.S., who would otherwise obtain an abortion, to instead give birth against their will. So how exactly does that work? First off, you can forget about responsible birth control (as you know, taking several birth control pills at once can serve as an abortifacient). But the ramifications go far beyond that. The abortion pill itself is really easy to hide and transport. Does the McCain/Palin government hire a network of secret police to monitor doctors? How do you know which women are pregnant? Does that mean that all women need to be under police/military surveillance as long as they are capable of reproduction? How do you know pregnant women are not harming the unborn child? Are pregnant women (read: "poor pregnant women") rounded up and detained in state run "birthing camps" so that the state can be sure that the baby is carried to term? What about travel? Republican-controlled states already have made it illegal for minors to cross state lines for an abortion. Will U.S. Customs Officers inspect women who want to travel to another country to make sure they aren't pregnant and leaving for the purposes of an abortion?

Is it really so unreasonable to think that McCain/Palin might want to institutionalize and operationalize their often-stated values?

How soon after McCain/Palin are sworn in, does the United States begin to look like a sci fi horror movie -- the patriarchal dystopia that many feared but never really believed could actually happen here? How soon after McCain/Palin are given the oath of office are hundreds of thousands of women (and their partners) applying for political asylum in Australia and Europe in order to not be subjected to state-sponsored control of their own bodies?

New McCain bumper stickers

Just announced! new bumper stickers from the McCain campaign:

McCain/Palin: Undoing Seward's Folly

McCain/Palin: Putting Country First (if by "Country" you mean the "Country of Alaska.")

McCain/Palin: Who says A Handmaid's Tale has to be a work of fiction?

McCain/Palin: All we are saying is give theocracy a chance.

McCain/Palin: Fuck your 401(k), vote for the crackers.

The Jed Report is rockin' it!

You gotta check out the Jed Report. Americablog has been linking to them pretty consistently for a few months and the guy is completely rockin it. For example check out today's video -- A Google Earth tour of McCain's many homes. I particularly love the voice-over narration -- it reminds me a bit of Odd Todd:

Everything you need to know about John McCain in 3 minutes

This video is incredible (even better than kitties on treadmills). Whether you are liberal, conservative, libertarian, green, or still making up your mind -- you owe it to yourself to spend 3 minutes watching this video before voting for President.



Brave New Films is doing absolutely incredible work right now. Click (here) to support their amazing efforts.

Bowlingual: translating Republican code words

(editors note: I hate this post. I hate the language in this post. I hate the fact that I feel the need to write this post. I hate the fact that I believe I live in a country where the things I write in this post are true. And yet, this is how I see it. When the political discourse in the country has become so despicable that merely to describe and reflect it back is to also become tainted by it, what are we to do? Ignore it? Call it what it is? Is there another option? But that's always been the Republican game plan right? To create a politics so repugnant that no one dare name the monster in the living room?)

Perhaps you've heard of the Bowlingual? It's a little electronic device invented by a Japanese toy maker that claims to translate dog barks into human language. "The console classifies each woof, yip or whine into six emotional categories -- happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, assertion and desire -- and displays common phrases, such as "You're ticking me off," that fit the dog's emotional state."

I thought it might be a good idea to apply the Bowlingual to the code words that Republicans use every election season.

The more I watch and listen to the political debate in this country, the more I think my political science professors were really over-thinking things.

The reality is that Republicans speak in code in the public square in order to get media outlets to carry their message to their base. Republicans believe that their base will respond to five "anger points" keywords. Their entire political discourse is directed to tagging their opponent with at least one of these 5 words: fag, nigg*r, bitch, terrorist, or communist. Not only do race and gender matter in American politics, the Republican messaging machine operates from the belief that race and gender are THE ONLY THING that matters in American electoral politics.

When Republicans say:	They mean:
"elitist"	fag
"San Francisco"	fag
"Volvo driving"	fag
"Latte sipping"	fag
"skinny"	fag
"windsurfer"	fag
"bad at bowling"	fag
"out of touch"	fag
"$400 haircut"	fag
"Breck Girl"	fag
"pessimist"	fag
"shrill"	bitch
"her voice is grating"	bitch
"castrating"	bitch
"ball buster"	bitch
"bitch"	bitch
"attended a madrassa"	terrorist
"partied with Bill Ayers"	terrorist
"unpatriotic"	terrorist
"no flag lapel pin"	terrorist
"hates America"	nigg*r
"hates our troops"	nigg*r
"hates the flag"	nigg*r or terrorist (you choose)
"doesn't reflect our values"	nigg*r
"presumptuous"	uppity negro
"engaging in class warfare"	communist
"marxist"	communist
"big government"	communist
"liberal"	communist
"communist"	fag
"terrorist"	nigg*r

EVERY SINGLE ELECTION SINCE 1980 HAS BEEN DECIDED ON THE BASIS OF THIS NARRATIVE.

YEAR	DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE	PORTRAYED BY THE MEDIA AS	REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE	PORTRAYED BY THE MEDIA AS
1980	Jimmy Carter	fag	Ronald Reagan	manly man
1984	Walter Mondale	fag	Ronald Reagan	manly man
1988	Michael Dukakis	fag	George Bush, Sr	manly man
1992	Bill Clinton	manly man	George Bush, Sr.	fag
1996	Bill Clinton	manly man	Bob Dole	old
2000	Al Gore	fag	George W. Bush	manly man
2004	John Kerry	fag	George W. Bush	manly man
2008	Barack Obama	?	John McCain	?

In the last few weeks, the Republican propaganda machine has rolled out the 'Obama is a terrorist' narrative. And it didn't seem to stick. So now, in the last week, the NY Times, ABC News, Wall Street Journal, National Review etc. have been rolling out the 'Obama is a fag' narrative. It's doesn't seem to be sticking either. But Republicans are gonna keep rolling out "fag", "nigg*r", "bitch", "terrorist", "communist" over and over and over between now and November to see if they can get any of them to stick. That's their drumbeat. If they get them to stick, they win. If they don't they lose. Clearly George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson got the memo.

Any talk of economic policy, foreign policy, domestic policy is all just dry ice smoke for the magicians. Republicans know that their base votes on the basis of one of those five anger words and all of their narrative about policy is really just designed to tag their opponent with one of those five words.

David Brooks, Bill Kristol, and George Will package these coded memes and distribute them to the wealthy and the powerful. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, and Joe Scarborough market these five words through their cable "news" shows. Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Don Imus peddle these five code words to regular folks who get their news through the radio. Michele Malkin and Ann Coulter market these five code words through blogs and interview appearances.

Update #1: Shakesville has a 100 part (literally) "Hillary Sexism Watch" which is excellent. They are also up to post #46 on their "Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Black Dude Watch."

Update #2: DHinMI also discusses the use of code words in a new post over at DailyKos.

Listen all ya'll it's a sabotage

Superbloggger Steve Benen, writing at Crooks and Liars, links to a post from Sir Charles at Cogitamus which is absolutely perfect (yeah, I'm quoting the whole thing):

Question for the Class

Do you think if Barack Obama had left his seriously ill wife after having had multiple affairs, had been a member of the "Keating Five," had had a relationship with a much younger lobbyist that his staff felt the need to try and block, had intervened on behalf of the client of said young lobbyist with a federal agency, had denounced then embraced Jerry Falwell, had denounced then embraced the Bush tax cuts, had confused Shiite with Sunni, had confused Al Qaeda in Iraq with the Mahdi Army, had actively sought the endorsement and appeared on stage with a man who denounced the Catholic Church as a whore, and stated that he knew next to nothing about economics -- do you think it's possible that Obama would have been treated differently by the media than John McCain has been? Possible?

And -- this is fun to contemplate -- if Michelle Obama had been an adulteress, drug addict thief with a penchant for plagiarism -- do you think that she would be subject to slightly different treatment from the media than Cindypills McCain has been? Anyone?

Yep, pretty much says it all.

I'd call it a conspiracy but the video for sabotage is so much better.

john and vicki and charlie and rick

(Some of you may remember the 1969 movie, bob & carol & ted & alice? I thought it was a fitting image to capture John McCain's fondness for surrounding himself with Washington lobbyists.)

John McCain sure does love him some lobbyists.

Here's what we know:

John McCain's describes himself as a "reformer."

His record shows that he is in bed with Washington lobbyists.

February 21, 2008, the NY Times reported that McCain's staff had to intervene because they believed he was having an affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Iseman is a partner with Alcade & Fay which has done $46.2 million in lobbying over the last five years. They represent clients such as CACI (linked to torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq) and Dow Chemical (one of the largest toxic polluters in the country). [Vicki is pictured on the right side of the picture above.]

Turns out, Vicki Iseman is just the tip of the iceberg.

McCain's campaign is crawling with Washington lobbyists -- 59 in all. They include:

Rick Davis, Manager of the McCain campaign, and Partner in the lobbying firm Davis Manafort, Inc. Davis's lobbying firm made $2.85 million in fees between 1998-2005. Davis's firm has lobbied on behalf of GTECH (the troubled lottery company), SBC, and the government of Nigeria. [Rick is the unhappy fellow second from the left.]

Charlie Black, Senior Adviser to McCain, and Chairman of BKSH & Associates. BKSH has made $57.4 million on lobbying since 1998. Black's company has done lobbying work for cancer-stick maker Philip Morris, Ahmed Chalabi (Iraqi huckster who gave misinformation to the U.S. to encourage the invasion of Iraq), and mercenary private military contractor Blackwater USA. Charlie Black admitted that now, he runs his lobbying business from inside John McCain's Straight Talk Express bus. [Charlie is the happy guy on the left side of the picture.]

So next time you hear John McCain describe himself as a reformer, just remember the 59 lobbyists he is in bed with.

Hat tip to Brave New Films for their documentation of McCain's lobbyist "Friends." Hat tip to Sourcewatch for their research on Washington lobbyists. And big props to my friend Paul Salamone (www.paulsalamone.com) for his awesome Photoshop work.

(The photo montage above is an RFK Action Front original. Feel free to send to your friends.)

Politics is like a hippie drum circle

In many ways, this has been the first official week of the Obama vs. McCain presidential race. And it has been unbelievably ugly. Mark Halperin of Time Magazine urged McCain's people to use more racially-coded language. The RNC commissioned a top secret poll to figure out how to not "appear" racist (while presumably continuing to use racially coded language). The Tennessee Republican Party put out a racist press release. Meanwhile, Republican surrogates like Bill Cunningham and Kay Bailey Hutchison field tested various coded sound-bites to try to figure out what they can get away with in public and what will stick (and be repeated by traditional media). Josh Marshall has an insightful analysis of the McCain gameplan (here).

Honestly, judging by this past week, there are going to be so many racist attacks during this campaign it will be difficult to keep track of them all.

Which got me thinking... a couple things. 1.) All you folks who jumped on the Obama bandwagon thinking he was going to get a free pass from the media and the Republicans? Honeymoon is over. Welcome to the big leagues. Buckle up, because it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

2.) Politics is like a hippie drum circle. There are thousands of different messages in the debate, anyone can bang out whatever they want (although different voices have different megaphones to amplify their message), and the debate is really really noisy. But that chaos eventually resolves itself into a discernible pattern. You want that discernible pattern to be your message, not the other team's message. So how does that happen?

Well, again it's like a drum circle. Our team has to play our tune (our message) over and over and over and over again until other people start playing it. By the same token, YOU NEVER REPEAT THEIR MESSAGING. That just amplifies their message and is counterproductive. I think this is the #1 biggest mistake progressive blogs makes -- they repeat the Republican frame and sometimes fail to reframe it-- assuming that others will be as outraged as they are (while in fact just amplifying the other team's message).

If we want the traditional media to be playing our song, we have to repeat our song over and over and over again until that is all that they hear.

So when McCain (or his surrogates) say something racist during the campaign, don't just repeat it (their beat) rather reframe it by saying, "McCain and the Republican Party are racists." -- that's going to be one of our beats. And say it over and over and over and over until others start repeating it too. It's not elegant. It's not intellectual. It's really really basic. But I believe it's how messages move in our culture. (And even though most Republicans have never been in a hippie drum circle, you can be dang sure that their marketing and PR people understand the importance of a well-framed sound-bite (beat) and endless repetition.)

To illustrate my point, check out this video by Arcade Fire (there's really never a bad time for an Arcade Fire video). When the video opens, it's total chaos--just noise and everybody playing at once (they are transitioning out of one song into another). But if you listen really closely, underneath all of the chaos, is a discernible melody. And then, about 19 seconds in (literally I think it's 10 measures in 4/4 time--IN THE MIDST OF ALL THAT CHAOS THEY ARE COUNTING!) all the noise drops away to reveal the beat that was there all along. 48 seconds in, Winn gets the whole crowd clapping the beat. And by 1 minute in everybody is on the same page-- the entire band, the entire crowd, all singing the same song. It's extraordinary. Three people kept the beat during the chaos and didn't waver -- and then 1 minute later thousands of people are in sync with each other. Enjoy:



[A side note, if you're ever been in a drum circle you know it is really really hard to change the beat once one has been adopted by the group. You have to fight and fight and fight to get your new beat heard-- and in the interim the sound is really dissonant. But someone with a cowbell can pretty quickly change the beat with a more persuasive beat. A cowbell just seems to cut through the noise -- perhaps because of its pitch? I think DailyKos, Americablog, Firedoglake, HuffingtonPost, and Brave New Films are the progressive cowbells that can sometimes shift a debate in an instant. And for that I send them a deep bow of thanks.]

John McCain's misplaced priorities

Vote Vets is out with a pitch-perfect new ad that looks at John McCain's misplaced priorities.



(hat tip to Nicole at Crooks and Liars for posting the video!!!)

Clinton and McCain advised by different branches of the same consulting company?

I was doing research today on Charlie Black -- the Senior Adviser to the McCain campaign who has been one of their key point people on managing the pushback on the Iseman affair (for example he was on Charlie Rose denouncing the NY Times on Thursday night). Charlie Black is chairman of BKSH & Associates a prominent lobbying firm in Washington D.C. Charlie Black is working for free for McCain (as if there ever is such a thing in politics) but also admitted that he has continued his lobbying practice literally from inside McCain's Straight Talk Express Bus.

So I went to the BKSH website to learn more about them and noticed a tab that said, "Integration with Burson-Marsteller." And I thought hmmm, that's interesting, because the President of Burson-Marsteller is Mark Penn who is Hillary Clinton's chief strategist. And sure enough, there on the BKSH website is a paragraph that reads:

BKSH & Associates Worldwide joined Burson-Marsteller in 1990. Since then, the BKSH offices in Washington, DC and Europe have worked closely with Burson-Marsteller, Penn, Schoen & Berland, Direct Impact, Marsteller and the Civitas Group. Our integrated methodology can solve a wide scope of public affairs issues with great breadth and depth.

So Clinton's campaign and McCain's campaign are basically advised by different branches of the same company!? How screwed up is that? What is even weirder is that Mark Penn is charging the Clinton campaign out the ass for his services (a reported $4.3 million so far for doing a terrible job) and Charlie Black is working for McCain for free. WTF?

I'm still trying to figure out what to make of all this. For Penn and Black it really isn't about principles is it, it's just about billable hours (Penn takes his now and Black is making an upfront investment in the hopes of a big payout later)? But in the end Burson-Marsteller wins either way, because they are playing both sides of the street? They just sell PR bullets to combatants -- they don't care who wins or who gets hurt along the way right? Moreover, they just want the fight to be as long and conflicted as possible -- so they can keep billing?

This whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It seems to me that if you really want to show that choosing a Democrat over a Republican will make a huge difference in people's lives -- DON'T HIRE A CONSULTING COMPANY THAT IS WORKING BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET! (Am I just being naive here?)

If Clinton loses this race it will largely be the result of Mark Penn's incompetence. If Hillary Clinton wants to turn this thing around, she needs to fire Mark Penn.

Update #1: Joe at Americablog posted a link to a must-read article in The Nation on Mark Penn that is really quite stunning.

Frank Rich today details the many failings of Mark Penn today in a NY Times piece entitled, "The Audacity of Hopelessness" (it's the #1 most e-mailed article on NYTimes.com).

Update #2: After Iowa, when it was clear that Obama had tapped into something deeper in the electorate -- it would have seemed that the smart move for Clinton would have been to go out and hire an inspiring speech writer (maybe Aaron Sorkin was available after Studio 60 got canceled). This speech writer could have tapped into these deeper themes and Clinton could have claimed to be both inspirational and pragmatic. Instead, she pursued a bizarre strategy of public seppuku by attacking Obama's appeals to hope, the Declaration of Independence, and MLK. Such a move doesn't make sense until you realize that Mark Penn simply does not believe there is such a thing as American culture or any broader themes. For Mark Penn it is all about micro-targeting. He sees a hopelessly fragmented America that only cares about very narrowly defined self-interest. So Clinton couldn't go out and hire an uplifting speech writer because her chief strategist does not believe a noble higher calling exists in the American psyche.

Furthermore, as a PR hack, Mark Penn really isn't that good at moving voters. He's really about moving elites -- he's good at moving a handful of key Congresspeople to vote a certain way -- and he usually has the option to just buy them off with campaign contributions. The American electorate is a much different animal.

Update #3: When the Republicans re-took control of Congress in 1994, they launched the K Street Project. The idea was to only work with lobbyists who were loyal to the Republican Party. From wikipedia:

Shortly after the 1994 elections which gave a majority of seats to Republican candidates, [Tom] DeLay called prominent Washington lobbyists into his office. He had pulled the public records of political contributions that they made to Democrats and Republicans. According to Texans for Public Justice, "he reminded them that Republicans were in charge and their political giving had better reflect that—or else. The "or else" was a threat to cut off access to the Republican House leadership."

Lobbyists were to give money only to Republicans and hire only Republican lobbyists. In the process, Republican lobbying firms would get rich (they were the only ones who had access after all) and they would enrich Republican campaign coffers through their donations. The goal of this revolving door of contributions and influence was to create a permanent Republican Majority in Washington, D.C.

Now we all know how that worked out... Republicans quickly became corrupted by the process and lost control of Congress in 2006. The new Democratic majority went back to business as usual -- working with firms that gave equally to both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats didn't want to lead an ideological crusade -- they just wanted to be the ones in a position to make the decisions in Washington.

But it seems to me that there was something fundamentally correct about the Republican approach which Democrats would do well to learn from. It seems to me that it is flat out bizarre for a Democrat like Hillary Clinton to hire a PR firm to help her advance Democratic health care issues -- only to have that same firm turn around and help Phillip Morris advance its pro-cancer business interests in Washington D.C. It leads to weird situations where Democrats try to advance a FISA bill that protects Americans from domestic spying and then Nancy Pelosi goes out and does a fund raiser for Al Wynn who is bought and paid for by the telecommunications companies who are trying to kill the very bill she is advancing.

I think Democrats in Washington D.C. would do well to start using an environmental and social filter in deciding which lobbying firms they will work with. It would be just like the filters that socially responsible investment funds use to screen out bad companies from their portfolios. For example, lobbyists who work for alcohol, tobacco, or any polluting industry would be denied access. Lobbyists who work to advance Democratic values and interests would be given preferred access. Call it the Main Street Project -- requiring that those who are given access return the favor by working to advance Democratic values in all aspects of their business. I know Democrats also value tolerance of different opinions but we can't be in the business of simultaneously working for and against our own interests.

John McCain has some 'splaining to do

John McCain seems to have a thing for the younger ladies. He was 42 (and married) when he met Cindy (who was then 25). Now comes news that Senator McCain may have been romantically involved with Vicki Iseman, a registered lobbyist who was 40 to McCain's 71! From today's NY Times:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

Stephen Boitano/Getty Images

(Vicki Iseman at an awards dinner in 2004.)

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

I want to make a few points about this:

1.) If McCain really was sleeping with a registered lobbyist, this is a huge problem. While McCain speaks out against trading votes for campaign contributions, this gives the appearance at least of his being willing to trade votes for sex.

2.) John McCain needs to disclose every single client Vicki Iseman represented and any actions he took on their behalf.

3.) This is not McCain's first ethics problem. He was also part of the Keating 5 -- a group of 5 Senators who told regulators NOT to investigate problems at Lincoln Savings and Loan -- which in turn led to the Savings and Loan Crisis in the mid 1980s. The S&L crisis cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

4.) I suppose adults can do what they want. But I don't want to hear any Republicans talking about so-called "families values" this election when the person they have chosen to represent them doesn't seem to hold himself to the same standards.

5.) When Chris Matthews and other blowhard pundits call John McCain a "maverick" -- is that just an old boys' club code-word for a guy who's getting a little something on the side? 'John, you 'ol maverick, she's 30 years younger than you!'

Update #1: The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Americablog, and DailyKos all have the story now too. It's also blowing up on Digg. The American Spectator (not a site I usually visit) claims the NY Times had this story for 5 weeks but withheld it. If so, the NY Times may have some 'splaining to do themselves -- did the editors who wrote the paper's official endorsement of McCain (before the Republican primary in NY) know that the paper was withholding a story that may have prevented his Super Tuesday victories?

Update #2: I wonder how Republican Apologist-in-Chief, David Brooks, is gonna try to spin this? I gotta figure he's wracking his brain right now -- "If McCain can score with younger chicks, it shows he really connects with younger voters? McCain really is the youth candidate after all! Yeah, yeah, that's it! Or maybe... McCain has shown that he can think outside the box when it comes to his marriage, so he'll be able to bring that same independent streak to um, um, screwing the voters? No, no, that won't work..." It's gonna be a long night for Mr. Brooks. I've got $5 that says David Brooks criticizes the NY Times for reporting the story in the first place. Make it $10.

Update #3: Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has posted a nuanced and thoughtful analysis of this story. Definitely worth a read.

Update #4: D.C. superlawyer Bob Bennett is now on record as saying he worked to stop publication of the article in the NY Times several months ago.

Absolute Genius

By now you've probably seen the will.i.am "Yes We Can" video in support of Barack Obama. It's brilliant and Scarlett Johansson looks hot in it and it was probably worth a couple points to Senator Obama on Super Tuesday. Well today, the Huffington Post links to a video spoof of the Yes We Can video that tries to apply that same magic to John McCain and the result is absolutely hilarious. Here's the original Yes We Can video:



But then check out this parody of John McCain.



The difference between the two videos really speaks volumes about the upcoming election. In Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton) we have a genuine leader who can transform the world. In John McCain... not so much.

Update #1: Here's the YouTube link to the parody video (from an LA comic calling himself john.he.is) so you can send it to your friends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs

Update #2: Americablog is reporting that the video was created by LA comedian Andy Cobb. Here are the folks who worked on the video:

Andy Cobb
Josh Funk
Nyima Funk
Marc Evan Jackson
Dave Pompeii
Marc Warzecha
Mark Kienlen

Deep bow, my friends, deep bow.

A closer look at the 2008 Republican frontrunners (new video)

Jason Lange and I are out with a new video, "Who are they really?" that takes a closer look at several of the 2008 Republican Presidential candidates. After several months of speeches and debates, a picture of each candidate is starting to emerge...(and it ain't pretty).



Feel free to share it with friends. (-:

A Closer Look at the 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates

Truth is, it's a pretty lean year for Republican Presidential candidates. There doesn't seem to be a genuine leader in the bunch. And I think we need to remind people of that every single time we mention the candidates' names (to the extent that we speak of them at all). So here are some keywords for describing the candidates, (along with explanations in the parenthesis), and the reason why this man should not be President.

Mayor and tobacco lobbyist Rudolph Giuliani
(he's never held a statewide or national office)
Chose to put the Emergency Commander Center inside the World Trade Center.

soon to be 72 year old John McCain
(he'd be the oldest President in U.S. history)
He's not the man he once was.

Former Massachusetts Governor Willard "Varmint Hunter" Romney
(The ultimate flip flopper.)
Have you read Under the Banner of Heaven? I'm all for freedom of conscience but any religion with secret underwear is wacky.

Thespian and asbestos lobbyist Fred Thompson
(I hope all those "shut up and sing" Republicans will remind Thompson that they want thespians to know their place and stop talking politics.)
18 year Washington lobbyist running as an "outsider."

Soft on Crime Governor Mike Huckabee
(Pardoned rapist Wayne Dumond who later raped and killed another woman.)
Can you say Willie Horton?