Category: Politics

Criegh Deeds, in his own words, in today’s Washington Post:

The day after I’m elected, I will begin assembling a bipartisan commission to craft a comprehensive transportation package. Like Gov. Baliles did, I will appoint Republicans, Democrats and independents along with private-sector leaders and transportation experts. The commission would begin work in December and issue its report early next year.

Emphasis mine. But just to make sure you didn’t miss it:

THE DAY AFTER I’M ELECTED

THAT is when Creigh Deeds intends on begining to come up with any sort of solution for transportation.  That is when he’ll start telling Virginians his plans for the roads they drive on (or sit on for hours on end) every day.  Not before, no, not when you and I are supposed to consider Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell’s positions so we can make an informed decision on who to vote for Governor.

And who will he stock his bipartisan committee with?  Maybe the tax raising Republicans who have endorsed him?  You know, the same bipartisan individuals who brought up Mark Warner’s tax increase?

A bipartisan tax increase is good for Deeds and Democrats. Gives them political cover from any hounding they’d face for raising taxes during a down economy.
On the issues that matter to Virginians Deeds fails.

Transportation he has no plan.

Jobs? He’d raid the general fund that is so vital for education (in his words) to maybe help create some. Probably union jobs, but we don’t know because he can’t take a stand on card check.

Unions? Love em! And their money! Even though only 4% of Virginians are members of a union.

Is he for collective bargaining or against it for police officers? Depends on which police organization he’s talking to.

And this is all from a guy who can’t even appear on the same stage with his opponent!  A guy who can’t articulate basic answers to basic questions about whether or not he’ll raise taxes without snapping on a reporter simply trying to do her job.

From a campaign that touts “Deeds not words” they really aren’t delivering much of either.

Following Rep. Joe Wilson’s “you lie!” outburst and the Democratic response, this really has to be said:

How can Democrats say health care reform is a “moral imperative” yet deny coverage to millions of human beings (illegal immigrants) merely based on whether or not they pay into the government system?

The two don’t mesh.

Lynn Mitchell puts it best when she quotes an old carpentry saying:

“Measure twice … cut once.” In other words, be certain before putting saw to wood because there’s no turning back.

Yesterday, Ben Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato measured once and then cut clean through his thumb, posting a picture of a Confederate flag near a Sportsmen for McDonnell booth and shouting from the hilltops that clearly, despite the rigged angle of the shot, that flag was smack dab in the middle of the McDonnell booth, displaying for all that McDonnell’s campaign is as wrapped up in southern heritage as Senator Jim Webb and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds.

Lowell Feld of Blue Virginia felt equally aghast and jumped on the bandwagon as well, going so far as to compare it to George Allen’s appearance in Gods and Generals.

Problem is, it ain’t Bob’s flag:

Hugh Crittenden, the founder and manager of the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show, is backing up McDonnell.

Crittenden said he invited both campaigns to staff a booth at the show, which draws 20,000 people each year. McDonnell’s campaign decided to show, but came late, so Crittenden assigned them the only booth left open: Number 43.

It happened to be next another vendor who also signed up late, Down Home T-Shirts, which got Number 44. According to material submitted to the show, Down Home T-Shirts sells “Confederate T-shirts and more.”

He said even if McDonnell’s staffers had asked for a move, the show was so crowded that they could not have been accommodated.

“I don’t want Bob McDonnell to get a bad rap from my show. He was there trying to be there for the outdoors people and the hunters,” Crittenden said.

Not good enough for Ben Tribbett, who, according to the Washington Post, feels the McDonnell campaign should have marched right up, ripped that flag down an thrown it into the racist face that dared to display it.

Or move to another location.  Which Crittenden says would not have been possible.

So what’s a campaign to do?

Well, in the case of the Deeds campaign, they allow their entire new media playbook to be blown wide freakin’ open.

Shortly after Ben Tribbett’s post goes live, Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey chews it up and then spreads his cud to the Twitterverse:

“BREAKING NEWS: MCDONNELL HAS CONFEDERATE FLAG POSTED IN HIS BOOTH AT GUN SHOW IN RICHMOND”

Suddenly this becomes big news. But not because of the flag. No, because, well, not only is the flag flap fake (alliteration can be fun!) but the Deeds campaign just got their hands dirty, ruining their message machine, at least, according to Lowell:

The story about the Confederate flag that ran on NLS (and also here at Blue Virginia) should have stayed on the blogs. In other words, the Deeds campaign shouldn’t have touched it with a 10-foot pole.

…

First of all, the Deeds campaign touches the Confederate flag story, a mistake on so many levels it’s hard to even know where to begin (distracts from the campaign’s real messaging, is a controversial subject that is much better off being handled by “surrogates,” etc). Then, in the Washington Post no less, we’ve got the campaign’s senior communications guy clarifying and contradicting the campaign manager. Not good at all.

The second part of this Dear Abbey letter is very true, and plays right into the hands of those defending McDonnell because, well, what the heck are you guys doing in the Deeds camp?  Focusing on the issues or kinda sticking stuff up on the corkboard and letting each person throw a dart to figure out what they’re going to do today? Where are your priorities?

The first part is a gem.  Lowell is saying, “Hey, Deeds camp, keep feeding us the dirt and the mud and the things we do best (you know, NOT fact checking) and we’ll do all the nasty work while you guys can just go ‘oh, we don’t care about that, we’re just focusing on the issues, lah dee dah…’ *wink*wink*”.

Thanks for sharing, Lowell.

So here we have a campaign for governor trying to gain traction with its base by ignoring the issues that matter like jobs, transportation, education and instead focusing on abortion and feeding the bloggers who call their rural efforts a “Deliverance Tour” a horrible picture in an attempt to associate the McDonnell campaign with the south.

Oh, and Deeds is down by double digits in every poll but one that only has him down by nine.  Oh, and that abortion issue is one that those polled trust McDonnell on 12% more than deeds.

And we have two of the biggest Democratic bloggers in the state running crazy with a picture.  Just a picture. And it’s not a picture of someone doing something inappropriate or even picking their nose. No, it’s a flag near a candidate’s booth at a gun show.

Ben Tribbett ran Bob “Cooter” Jones’s campaign against Eric Cantor.  The other drafted Jim Webb, for whom the Confederacy “simply reflects Southern pride“, to run against Haris Miller.  Southern heritage wasn’t much of an issue then.

And THIS is supposed to excite Deeds’s base?

This is turning into one LONG August for the Deeds camp.

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?

“Why We Must Ration Healthcare” – Peter Singer, New York Times

The problem with Singer’s opening statement is by putting government in control of healthcare you aren’t making that decision – THEY are.

Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. 

This flies in the face of arguments about expanding access to care – it argues that there’s not enough care to go around, so the government will have to make decisions on what is the best bang for buck and whom to DENY care because, well, there’s not enough to go around.

If the government is going to get into the business of doing something – health care, utilities, etc. – then it has a moral obligation to do it right. This argument? This isn’t right.

In an attempt to respond to a McCain surrogate saying NOVA is not the “real Virginia”, Daily Kos gives us this:

What’s worse are some of the ignorant comments left on Raising Kaine, but I’ll leave those be for now.

The map is inaccurate.  When talking about “real Virginia” and “fake Virginia” the split isn’t so far southwest.  At best it’s the northern border of Stafford County, worst case scenario the northern shore of the Rappahannock River.
It’s all about Northern Virginia.

I have yet to find anyone outside of Northern Virginia who is insulted by the “real Virginia” comment.  Please, if there is someone, step up and let me know.

But here’s the thing:  Norther Virginia is NOT like the rest of Virginia.  At all.

There are many reason for that.  One is that it’s been growing leaps and bounds up north and that’s been good for the state.  But you now have a small area that is top heavy with people who either have not been in Virginia very long or do not care about the rest of the state on the whole.  Their focus is on the DC region, not Virginia.

Now this is not to say they’re not “real Virginia” but they’re not the same.  For better of for worse.  And this is not a distinction that the McCain camp has just pulled out of thin air.  The Washington Post and Northern Virginians (particularlly the “progressives” and other left of centers) are pushing this NOVA/ROVA (Rest Of Virginia) split that has created an us vs. them mentality.

You’ll have folks try and paint this as a ignorance or racial thing.  It’s a matter of the more educated, urbanized Virginians showing those podunks in the middle of nowhere how to truly live.  Well, it’s certainly bigotry, but not how they’re describing it.

It’s elitism.  It’s a “me first” mentality.  And it’s disgusting.

The 2008 battle for Virginia is merely further highlighting this split that is happening between Northern Virginia and the rest of Virginia.  NOVA is very quickly taking over the reins of the state at the expense of the rest of Virginia.  Issues relevant to Northern Virginia aren’t so to much of the rest of the state, but as they are the population and economic center of the state you can expect their needs to take a front burner to those of elsewhere in the state.  Military bases are closing in southeast Virginia, jobs are bleeding out of southwest Virginia, but we’re focused on the critical need of a transportation plan that mainly benefits NOVA, nevermind it may cost the entire state to pay for it.

This is turning into a split that is only going to get worse.  2009 will further highlight this and drive the divide.

Thing is, this is not a shared belief among all people in Northern Virginia.  Typically this divide is hammered by “progressives” and Democrats in Northern Virginia.  They want to highlight their superiority to the rest of the state and the ignorance of the rest of it.  But that’s because they don’t get the rest of Virginia, a Virginia with real needs and beliefs that are different than those held by the urbanized elite.

The “real Virginia” argument was started by these elitists.  These are the same “progressively” minded folks who firmly believe the rest of Virginia is full of racists and bigots and must be dragged to the light.  They have a strong misunderstanding of who makes up the rest of Virginia.  As long as that continues the “real Virginia” argument, the NOVA/ROVA argument will continue to exist as long as it serves their political purposes.

If Obama loses Virginia or even if he wins but loses the “rest of Virginia,” expect to hear a lot of shouting from Northern Virginia’s “progressives” about how awesome they are and how backwards the rest of us are.  Expect them to carry that standard into 2009 legislation and elections.  Expect them to keep hammering this divide.

And expect them to be insulted when you highlight this false divide that they themselves have created in a way that doesn’t suit their wants.

Earlier today I wrote about the bailout at Bearing Drift but forgot to mention one point that the news has reminded me of: in order for the government to fund this bailout it’s going to have to make money.  When the government makes money out of thin air, all money loses value.  Thus inflation.  Thus a record jump in oil prices.  Thus Main Street suffers.

So in case you missed it, there’s been a big to do lately about Barack Obama’s use of the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig” when referring to the policies of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Now, did Obama mean for this to be about Palin, using code words to speak negatively of her without coming right out and saying it (see “uppity“)?  The Obama campaign and many Democrats have been using the term “lipstick” when speaking of Palin over the weekend and days leading up to Obama’s utterance.

Or is Barack Obama a victim of spin?  Certainly possible.  It’s easy to take something someone says, something fairly innocent, and turn it into an insult and feign disgust with much success (George Allen and Macaca come to mind, though certainly under different circumstances).

Or are we seeing a problem in regional dialects meaning different things to different people (again, see “uppity“)??

Ask around.  Talk to folks from all over.  Particularly in the northwest or northeast, areas that aren’t too familiar with the rural and its slang.  See if they’ve heard the phrase before.  If you get results like mine you’ll find they’d never heard the phrase before.  You’ll find they immediately associate the phrase with the woman involved in the context, even if she wasn’t named.  Even if the origin of the phrase had nothing to do with women.

The dangers and joy of the English language.

UPDATE: Straight from the horse’s mouth (and, no, I am not literally trying to call Obama a “horse”):

“This is sort of silly season in politics, not that there’s a non-silly season, but it gets sillier,” Obama said. “And it’s a common expression in at least Illinois. I don’t know about New York City. I don’t know what you put lipstick on here.”

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac open up their wallets, they don’t just give change to CHANGE (har, har, I kill me):

Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008
1. Dodd, Christopher (D-CT) $133,900
2. Kerry, John (D-MA) $111,000
3. Obama, Barack (D-IL) $105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) $75.550

The Barack Obama campaign has announced that it will announce his Vice President nominee via text and e-mail sometime between now and the Democratic Convention.  While some might be willing to dismiss this as a ploy, it’s actually quite shrewd.  Potential millions wanting to be in the know are going to voluntarily give the campaign their cell phone numbers and email addresses and, perhaps most importantly, zip codes.  That’s a big pool to turn to for future announcements, not just for Obama but the Democratic Party as a whole.

This is a very smart move to get some long term traction and resources, win or lose.