Is race a factor when it comes to voting?

Theres a new poll that states that race wouldnt be a big factor when it comes to voting. For Obama to be the first African American president would be a symbolic change. But many people feel that many people is voting for Obama because of his race. Many Republicans say that race influences their votes where they wouldnt be voting Democrats this year claimed by CNN polling director,Holland. He also states that the amount of votes Obama may be loosing due to his race will be equal to the amount of votes he is getting, where race would work with and against Obama. The poll will also show that age will also be a factor too. McCain would be the oldest president, so for many voters his votes would also impact McCain's standing as well.
When deciding on a candidate there are many factors that will either make or break each candidate. Both McCain and Obama has potential down falls that can be seen through polls. So to point out that race is the reason why some people are supporting Obama is contradictory because some people is voting for McCain may be for the same reason. Theres so much to consider, but the main focus on voting has a lot to do with what each candidate would do to office.

Biden vs. Palin

In terms of how each candidate should act towards this debate is evident especially since they both have some kind of weakness, such as Palin inexperience. The way each candidate approach each other has been counted for such as how Palin asked Biden if she may call him Joe which also shows similarity towards the young and old distinction is being played with Obama and McCain as well. Palin has also taken the approach to applaud Biden for his opinions instead of "bashing" his claims. This was a smart role for Palin since her inexperience would be questioned if he was to cynical towards Biden when her accountablity is constantly questioned.On the issue of same sex, both Palin and Biden both were opposed. How ever, Biden claim that he want to give same sex couples the same crediablity as heterosexual couples. But Palin says that she supports the "traditional family values." Before being direct about where she stood, she made sure that Biden also agreed. This action made me question if she did this for understanding or to not make her self look like the "bad guy."On the issue of deregulation, Palin avoided the question that was asked of her and replied that she will answer the question the way she feels that she need to. Thus, instead of answering the question, Palin just talked about her credentials which had nothing to do with what was really asked. Biden says that the reason she is avoiding this question is because show that her "team" support deregulation.Palin says that it is not patriotic to raise taxes for Big Business when it would decrease the "growing economy."( This means that she want Big Business to prosper for sake of the economy-not mentioning the American people that she is so "passionate" about).I noticed that Biden emphasizing on important difference he share with Palin really had an affect on the audience and the way one would think about the positon they are placed in. When Biden broke down the health plan it is evident that the audience did have an affect to that. His ability to emphasize on his points than to really ridicule Palin, seems to make him more attracting to watch and listen. How ever, Palin has occasionally been playing the "mom card" where she feels that she can relate to everyone "since her family is so diverse" and her connection to the kitchen table. Biden has also shared his experience of being a parent to make his point of experience actually noticed since Palin obviously gave her self the image of being a "mom."

What did he just say?

A recent post on Politico yesterday highlights elitism and its relativity to the campaign and its voters. In the interview between Brian Williams and Palin/ McCain, the Republican ticket gives interesting insight into their definition of the American elite.

Sarah Palin describes the elite as those "who think they are better than everyone else", apparently without regard to education, political power, or wealth, terms which are the characteristics of ALL American social elites. So, according to Palin, you don't have to be wealthy or educated, or politicians, to be part of the elite network of American culture, a notion completely untrue and manipulative in that it positions the Republican ticket as serving the interests of the middle class. She has clearly been taught how to be ignorantly vague in hypocritical subjects. These remarks further lead to the candidates using the media to denounce elitist "outsiders",  surely of which they aren't a part. 

Later, they directly contradict each other, Palin defining the term itself instead of its application, while John McCain claiming those arrogant elites (who?) have fundamental centralized locations in DC and NYC. What might that imply, Mr. McCain? I find it hard to understand how McCain claims not to be part of the elite if he has friends among them, and runs a campaign that spends 150K at Neiman Markus and Saks for the VP. Yes, those scummy elitist snobs who "think that they can dictate what they believe to America rather than let Americans decide for themselves". 

McCains Brain

On top of discouraging polls, McCain is now becoming the object of mockery like his vp, Sarah Palin. The presidential hopeful is now part of a video series called McCains Brain, a skit of what does through his head during the debates. All of these are carefully thought out and perfectly positioned to tear McCain down. 

The videos are part of mainstream media, being on youtube. They are part of a five part series, personally i think that the fifth one is the funniest. Check them out!

number one!

number two!

number three!

number four!

number five!

White Privilege and the '08 Campaign

The following link is to a blog post which purports to give examples of white privilege from the presidential campaign, which I thought the rest of you might find interesting since it bridges class topics. Warning: contains liberal content.

http://www.siasaduni.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-is-white-privilege.html

An excerpt:

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

What do you all think of this?

John Kerry's Joke?

John Kerry took a jab at John McCain at a summit concerning about energy issues. Kerry joked, "Barack got asked the famous boxers or briefs question...then they asked McCain and McCain said, 'Depends'." Depends referring to the adult sized diaper used mainly be geriatrics. Is this joke a reflection of this elections personal attacks and ill humor, or a harmless jab?

Muslims in America

One of the attacks that many Republican surrogates have been making against Obama is that he's secretly a Muslim - and that's somehow something bad, and scary.  Well, he's not, he is a Christian and has been one his whole life.  But it begs the question - what if he were a Muslim?

In an OP - ED article today in The New York Times, Maureen Dowd brought up the same point.  Sure, there are Islamic Extremists in the Middle East, and they hate us and want to destroy America, but that does NOT, in any way, reflect on American Muslims.  It's disturbing that the Republicans want us to think that all Muslims are evil, and want to kill us, but Obama should show some respect for his roots (his father was a Muslim), and refute the attacks on Muslims.  

It's just as bad as racism, or sexism, to discriminate based on religion.  So far, in class,we've mainly been talking about racism, and how it appears in society.  But religion hatred is just as bad, maybe worse, because it isn't hidden - it's right out there, plain for everyone to see.  In the 21st century, we should be recognize the difference between an extremist and someone who is given solace and purpose by a little religion in their life.  JFK was the first Roman Catholic president, Obama may become the first African-American president, but will we ever be able to elect a Muslim president?

The "real" America

Recently, Palin and other Republican surrogates have begun declaring that the "real" America is the one that supports John McCain.  Ridiculous!  And John Stewart tells us why.  Check out the video.

And they say McCain's methods are bad...

Now more than ever McCain has been highly criticized for his method of getting voters to support him: negative attack ads, associating Obama with Ayers, and allowing pundits to slander Obama's race and religious preferences. But why are they criticized? Well, they are offensive to most, conveyed only partially truthfully, but most importantly, they stray from the key political issues. Now I don't condone McCain's tactics, but I think people too easily accept some of Obama's more suspicious campaign methods, while fuming at McCain. Obama has been using/abusing his celebrity-like popularity to his advantage.  For example, I was talking to my boyfriend who told me at his college, Obama campaign officials had set up a booth offering free shirts in exchange for participation in an Obama march. Now is bribing college students a good way to get their vote? Absolutely, hordes of people flocked to get a shirt. But again, it ignores the substance of what this election should be about, the issues. So as much as we would all like to believe Obama doesn't use any questionable methods to gain support, at times he can campaign just as dirty as McCain.  

The Bradley Effect

As of October 20, 2008, according to pollster.com, the current polling percentages between the two major party candidates are Barack Obama with 49.3% and John McCain with 43.7%. As Barack Obama’s polling numbers grow, I have heard a growing use of the term “the Bradley Effect” being used by pundits and political analysts in the media. This term “Bradley Effect” is used to describe the discrepancy between the projected polling numbers and the actual outcome of election results for non-white candidates.
This effect is believed to be caused by people giving inaccurate polling responses to pollsters saying they would vote for the non-white candidate in order to not be perceived as racist instead of stating their true preference. This originated from the 1982 gubernatorial election in California in which Tom Bradley, an African-American democrat ran against a white, Republican candidate George Deukmejian and lost. In the last days before the election, polls showed that Bradley had a significant lead over Deukmejian, yet on election day, Bradley had a worse turnout with white voters then formerly received and narrowly lost the election.
This effect is not always relevant to all elections between a white and non-white candidate as there are still non-white politicians. But in this historical election, the media appears to be becoming more skeptical of Barack Obama’s advantage in the polls and the term Bradley Effect has been making its way into the vernacular of the media. We will only know if this phenomenon had any impact on this election on November 4.

Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama

This morning on NBC's Meet the Press, Retired General and Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell formally endorsed Barack Obama after many months of observation through the conventions and the recent Presidential Debates. Powell's decision was based upon the financial crisis plaguing the nation and the attack ads McCain has been airing over the last two weeks. Powell said when he mentioned McCain's running mate, Governor Palin:

“She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired, but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president."

Following that, he explained why Obama was a better choice:

And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities – and we have to take that into account – as well as his substance. He has both style and substance. He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming in to the world, on to the world stage, on to the American stage. And for that reason, I’ll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.

With appoximately 2 weeks until Election Day, Powell's endorsement is the highest Republican endorsement since the beginning of the General Election campaigning season for Obama. McCain later on this afternoon dismissed the endorsement: "Well, I’ve always admired and respected General Powell,” he said. “We’re longtime friends. This doesn’t come as a surprise. But I’m also very pleased to have the endorsement of four former secretaries of state” - Henry A. Kissenger, James A. Baker III, Lawrence Eagleburger and Alexander M. Haig — “and I’m proud to have the endorsement of well over 200 retired army generals and admirals. I respect and continue to respect and admire Secretary Powell.”

As many would think, this is just another nail in McCain's campaign and just further's the Democrats chances of winning the election. Obama called Powell ten minutes after his interview on Meet the Press and thanked him for his endorsement. He confirmed that he would not be campaigning with Mr. Obama in the last weeks of the campaign but he did not rule out the possibility of a cabinet appointment.

Below is the video footage of his interview on Meet the Press:

Ayers and Obama: CNN Reports, You Decide

Fear of a Black Planet

In 1990, Public Enemy released Fear of a Black Planet, its follow-up to the 1988 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, which established PE as hip hop's political conscience. The title track on Fear ends with a question:

"Excuse us for the news
I question those accused
Why does this fear of Black from White
Influence who you choose?"

PE's front-man, Chuck D, strikes at the heart of a division that has been sown for decades in American culture and society. Michael Omi, a leading voice on the relationship between race and popular media, has argued that "a crucial dimension of racial oppression in the United States has been the articulation of an ideology of difference, or 'otherness'. This involves defining 'us' (i.e., white Americans) in opposition to 'them.'"

I've been making the case that recent efforts — undertaken both by the McCain-Palin campaign and a growing legion of official and unofficial surrogates and supporters — to de-Americanize Barack Obama not only taps into some Americans' xenophobia, but to some white people's racism. In other words, Obama has become a triple threat: a racial, religious and national Other. Now white. Not Christian. Not American.

Political campaigns, especially at the presidential level, are bloodsports. When one campaign has a lead and a large cash advantage, moreover, the campaign that is trying to refocus attention will often resort to negative campaigning. People say they don't like it, but history shows that it's an effective technique.

I'm not one to argue that Obama should be spared this rite of passage; he wasn't during the primary and it would be foolhardy to think he should or would be now. My concern is with the theme of the negative attacks. Calling Obama inexperienced didn't work. Deriding him as a 'celebrity' didn't work. Mocking his popularity didn't work.

If there's a silver lining here, perhaps it's that the right-wing attack machine saved the best/worst for last. But this is tinsel wrapped around a hurricane; as we've seen recently, McCain and Palin may have dialed down their rhetoric, but it really doesn't matter. The meme is out there, and others have picked it up and run with it. For instance, three days ago, the Chafee County Republican Women organization featured the image below in its newsletter.



Diane Fedele, who included the image, said she had received it as part of a chain email and has apologized to anyone who was offended but insists she did not mean this to be racist. She thought it was funny, since Obama had made a crack about not looking like all the other guys on U.S. currency. She did not see watermelon, fried chicken or ribs as being specifically associated with black Americans any more than she thought it might be problematic to circulate an image that links Obama to food stamps rather than currency. Ironically, the person who claims to have created this image did so back in May as part of a satire about Republican fears that Obama was going to run a 'black' campaign. The blogger, listed only as TK, maintains a blog called Please God, No, which seems to be in the vein of The Onion and features over-the-top satire and parody pieces. The giant flap Fedele has sparked seems only to have proved TK's original point, and goes some way as a cautionary tale about quoting someone out of context.

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Republican Party posted the image below to its official site last week before apparently bowing to widespread condemnation, including a sharp rebuke from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state GOP:



County party chairman, Craig MacGlashan, who manages the web site, offered a pretty spineless defense to the Sacramento Bee: "Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things." Translation: any impropriety was purely inferential, not implicit.

And while I'm the last one to defend crowd behavior at any sort of event, it seems worth including this assortment of McCain-Palin supporters in Johnstown, PA last week, not because the things they say or do is particularly represenative of, or particularly exceptional to, other things that are circulating in the air these days. Rather, I offer it as a coda to my initial point... now that the meme is out there, others will carry it regardless of what the campaign's official line is. Short of aggressive, repeated condemnations, such behavior is probably going to continue in certain situations, and as it does, it continues to promote an 'ideology of difference' that has historically worked to solidify and normalize racial antipathy in this country.





Update: In keeping with the growing frequency of these images starting to crop up, this flyer was just mailed to voters in Minneapolis and St. Paul, warning everyone about their vision of American under an Obama presidency. Unsurprisingly, the mailer seems have been sent anonymously. Not only classy, but courageous.

What's worse than a 3:00 am phone call...

Despite proclaiming "I don't care about a washed-up terrorist" when answering a question about William Ayers at the final presidential debate, John McCain's campaign is now flooding battleground states with robocalls that indicate the Straight Talker™ may have been a little less than candid:

Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500.

It's worth pointing out that during the 2000 Republican primary, McCain, coming off a major victory in the New Hampshire victory, seemed poised to steamroll through the crucial early primaries and lock up his party's nomination. But something happened on the way to the next primary, which was in South Carolina. A then little-known man named Karl Rove, chief campaign strategist for Texas Governor George W. Bush, flooded South Carolina with robocalls about Cindy McCain's addiction to prescription medication and implying that the McCains' adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually John McCain's illegitimate inter-racial child fathered by a black woman. Bush went on to win the SC primary and the party's nomination before ultimately winning the presidency by a final vote of 5-4 in the Supreme Court. McCain decried robocalls as hateful smear tactics. Indeed, just nine months ago his campaign manager Steve Schmidt denounced the practice. Apparently, they've changed their tune.


Sources:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/mccain-robo-calls-critical-of-obama/
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/flashback_mccain_condemned_rob.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/17/report-mccain-using-same_n_135699.html

New Dangers in Speaking Truth to Power

Imagine you are sitting at home minding your own business. There is a knock at the door, a presidential candidate is there, asking for your vote. In return for this privilege you ask him a question that reveals, to many in the country, a new perspective on his candidacy. For this you are subject to myriad of investigations,insults, your livelihood is threatened,and your dreams are belittled. This is the story of Joe Wurzelbacher, a regular citizen whose attentive questioning brought into question the nature of Senator Obama's tax plan.



No he doesn't yet make 250,000 dollars, he hopes too. No he doesn't have a plumbing license, he does residential work so he doesn't need one. Yes has a tax lien, but so does Obama's treasurer, a fact which has never been trumpeted with such vigor by the media as all of the little pecadillos of poor Mr.Wurzelbacher, an ordinary citizen whose only crime was to question Orthodox political thought. Here is a man who hopes to work hard, save, and achieve, slandered.

p.s. the idea that McCain's campaign needs to vet people who ask Obama tough but illuminating questions strikes me as a trifle absurd.

Also, Another American paying the price for his Heterodoxy.



Update, Quotes from the Plumber in Question:

"Hopefully they'll have me to thank for it as far as telling people to get out and find their own answers," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "That's where I hope they go with it."

"It actually upsets me," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "I am a plumber, and just a plumber, and here Barack Obama or John McCain, I mean these guys are going to deal with some serious issues coming up shortly. The media's worried about whether I paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America. They really don't. I asked a question. When you can't ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me."

When the Witch Wants a Witch Hunt

Anti-Anti-Americanism — a Hollywood story:
In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (better known by the acronym HUAC) began conducting public hearings in its investigation of allegations that communists had 'taken over' the film industry. As a result of these hearings, nine screenwriters and one director — who together became known as the Hollywood Ten — were sentenced to one year in federal prison after being found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to recognize HUAC's authority to inquire into their political views.

Ironically, the following year, the United States Supreme Court issued what is known as the Paramount decree, which found that the Hollywood studios — the leaders of which had pressed for the HUAC hearings — constituted an illegal, vertically integrated oligopoly (or trust), in which the eight major studios colluded to fix prices, restrict access to the production, distribution and exhibition of movies in the United States. A cynical person might look at this other 'group of eight', which did not compete in a free market but instead illegally sought to 'fix' the market — certainly not a communist attitude toward business, but not exactly in the spirit of the American dream that Hollywood had grown rich from making movies about either.

HUAC also laid the groundwork for the blacklist. This list, the existence of which studio heads vigorously denied, was used for well over a decade to keep anyone even suspected of having communist sympathies from gaining employment in the entertainment industry (which had grown to include television by the early 1950s).

HUAC also paved the way for the more well-known anti-communist witch hunts conducted by Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. In short, from late 1940s through the mid-1950s, acute fears of Soviet Russia and nuclear war fueled a number of ferocious assaults on American civil liberties — including restrictions on the rights to free speech, a free press, and especially when these were employed to criticize one's own government. People who voiced dissent, or were even suspected of doing so — often people with 'funny names' like Rosenberg or Maltz or Biberman — were accused of being "un-American" by individuals, industries and government bodies who sought to define 'Americanism' as a blind and total acceptance of the status quo. America was an unimpeachable beacon of freedom, and if you thought otherwise, you were free to 'go back to Russia', to jail or to hell.


Anti-Anti-Americanism — Bringing Irony Back
In his testimony as a friendly witness before HUAC, Jack Warner began his remarks by declaring that "Ideological termites have burrowed into many American industries, organizations, and societies. Wherever they may be, I say let us dig them out and get rid of them."

Yesterday, on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman (MN-R) became the latest to sound the "Obama isn't one of us" alarm. Only this time, she manages to trump Palin's xenophobic saber-rattling. Bachmann doesn't bother with silly innuendoes about Obama "palling around with terrorists". And she's not interested in summoning Palin's classic Everymom tone she uses when talking to rallies about Obama — "And I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America, as the greatest source for good in this world." — as if she's warning the neighborhood association that a godless pedophile was running for elementary school principal and ahead in the polls.

No. Bachmann just calls 'em like she sees 'em. "I think the people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large" and "I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views."

Partisan smears like this are ugly, but hardly unprecedented. What's truly terrifying, however, is that these remarks were used to pitch a much broader call to arms, in which Congresswoman Bachmann actually called for "The news media should do a penetrating exposé and [investigate] the views of the people in Congress and find out are they are pro-America or anti-America."

Notes from the Debate: Facts on Colombian Free Trade

Congress, oh mighty home of the ineffectual part two, Colombian Lobbyists have put the full court press on Congress to approve a free trade agreement that would eliminate tariffs and normalize trade relations between that Andean Republic and ourselves. Businesses here look to benefit far more than their Colombian brethren as our tariffs on Colombian exports are significantly lower then Colombian’s tariffs on our exports. Congress seems to oppose the deal on human rights grounds, which would at least be a legitimate base for discussion except we are supplying the country with billions of dollars of munitions, financial aid, and we have special forces in country training their soldiers. This is akin to Congress and Senator Obama saying, “here’s large pistol and a box of explosives, Let me show you how to use them. But, no, we don’t trust you to sell us guava juice. “ If the Colombian regime is so egregious that it would be criminal to trade with them then it seems beyond belief that we should be arming them. If instead, as our strongest ally in South America and a country which has made great strides in ending its own civil war with our aid, we deny them a trading deal they want that would in the short term benefit our producers more then theirs, well, it seems a gross inconsistency bordering on madness. Oh, and naturally they have exportable oil. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a friendly country close by with oil to sell now that Chavez is drifting into cloud coocoo land? Oh well… perhaps just another example of Senator Obama’s habit of voting present when the tough issues come up.

20 Minutes of Political Hilarity

It's Friday, and we all deserve a little levity to kick off the weekend. Last night, John McCain and Barack Obama attended the Alfred E. Smith memorial dinner at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. The ultra-formal, white-tie affair is known for it's "roast"-like atmosphere, where speakers on the dais saddle up to the mic and play stand-up comedian for a few minutes. I doubt McCain or Obama wrote their own material, but they both seem to enjoy laughing at their own and one another's expense for awhile. Odds are, you will too. If only the debates had been this entertaining...

Joe the Plumber: The Real Story

In the debate on Monday, McCain made Joe the Plumber from Ohio a centerpiece of his policy points, especially when he attacked Obama's tax and health care policies.  Overnight, Joe was transformed into a political celebrity.  However, it seems that (surprise!) McCain didn't really find out the whole deal with Joe.  Like Sarah Palin, Joe Wurzelbacher was not vetted by McCain's team, and now there are some nasty truths coming out.

It turns out, Joe's not such a perfect citizen.  He owes the state of Ohio $1,182.98 in personal income taxes, doesn't have a plumbing license, and he actually makes less than $250,000 a year - so he would most definitely be getting tax cuts under Obama's tax plan, contrary to what McCain repeatedly claimed in Wednesday's debate.

But McCain doesn't care, he's a maverick - who cares what skeletons are in the closets of his people?  Palin abused her power in Alaska, but whatever - she's his VP choice and nothing will stop that!  Joe will actually be benefitted by Obama's tax plan and not McCain's, but hey, McCain doesn't care!  Joe has become the poster boy of the McCain campaign, being used as a talking point in rallies, and is the focus of a new ad that McCain has released.

As the new poster boy, Joe needs to be defended from the Democrats at all costs.  When Obama's campaign and the media began calling attention to Joe's less-than-perfect record, the campaign went on the attack.  Tucker Bounds, the McCain-Palin campaign spokesman, said, "It's an outrage that the Obama campaign and the media are attacking Joe the Plumber for asking a legitimate question of a Presidential candidate.  Instead of answering tough questions, his campaign attacks average Americans for daring to look at the reality behind his words."

The question being to referred to was when Obama met Joe at a campaign stop, and Joe asked about his taxes, claiming he would make $250,000 a year as owner of a plumbing business.  Obama responded honestly, that those making $250,000 or less would not get tax raises - which would include Joe, if he was honest in his taxes.  

So to me, Bounds' defense of Joe in inexcusable.  Obama and the media are only completing the vetting process that McCain utterly failed to even begin.  I mean, they found Joe on the Drudge Report, and immediately made him a campaign focus!  Which makes me wonder, where did McCain find Palin - in an old beauty contest magazine?

All of this only highlights a side of McCain that worries me.  It seems to me that he can be impetuous, making a decision without fully examining any background information, and then sticking by it no matter what.  We saw this with Palin, when it was revealed by the bloggers and mainstream media that her daughter was pregnant, and then that she was involved in a power-abuse scandal in Alaska.  Then we saw that she knew nothing policy-wise, with her despicable interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.  Unbelievably, McCain still stuck by her, when others began calling for her to be dropped.  Kathleen Parker, a well-known conservative columnist with the National Review, wrote an article in which she called for Palin to be dropped, and then stuck by her article, defending it to Stephen Colbert on an episode of the Colbert Report.  But still, McCain has made a decision, and he DOES NOT BACK DOWN! That would be showing WEAKNESS!  And now, he's made a campaign hero out of a man that is in no way someone that he should be trumpeting.  Come on, McCain!  Show some humility, accept the fact that you made a stupid, rush decision, and drop Joe the plumber!  I doubt he would mind, anyway - he never signed up to be a political celebrity.  I would say drop Palin while you're at it, but it's way, way too late for that now.  You're stuck with her.  

Of course, if McCain had changed his mind after choosing Palin, or even Joe, well, that would be flip-flopping, right?  And it's dangerous for a politician to change his mind on an issue, as we found out in 2004.  A leader needs to make decisions and stick by them, NO MATTER WHAT!  Like Bush once said, "I'm the decider!"

Yeah, right.

Sources: Politico.com: McCain Discovers plumber no ordinary joe

Stephen Colbert, a known satirist, compares the candidates to shakespeare characters. What he does with McCain is the interesting thing, comparing him to blood hungry ineffective man hungry for power no matter the cost. He also enlists a Harvard scholar to help entertain the idea. 

While apt to attack McCain and Palin, he quietly raises up Obama.

Watch Here!!