By Michael Crawford
Cross-posted at Bilerico
Gird your loins folks because the political sh-t is really about to hit the fan.
Over the next next days we can expect the McCain campaign to unleash an unprecedented wave of slanderous attacks and lies aimed at attacking Sen. Barack Obama as un-American, terrorist-loving Muslim on a mission from Iran to destroy America. And, let’s not forget that Obama is BLACK.
By Michael Crawford
Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate and Log Cabin Republican’s BFF, recently said that if elected she would push for a Federal Marriage Amendment that would ban marriage between same-sex couples. That did not sit well with newlywed Ellen DeGeneres.
In this clip Ellen shares how she really feels about Palin and her plan to write discrimination against LGBT people and our families.
Things may be looking good for Sen. Barack Obama right now, but that does not mean that our work is done and that we can start planning for inauguration day. Two weeks is a long time in an election and the McCain undoubtedly has many dirty tricks up their Rovian sleeves.
We must work as hard as we did when Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were down on the polls and Sarah Palin had just begun winking her way into the hearts of (male) right-wing ideologues. That’s why you should read the following and do all that you can to get out the vote for Obama and Biden on November 4.
TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN’T REST EASY
1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.
2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They’re whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.
3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.
4. Those who forget history… In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!
5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.
If you agree that we shouldn’t rest easy, please sign up to volunteer at your local Obama office by clicking here:
http://pol.moveon.org/obama/office.html?source=blog&id=14534-4287560-uoUVCox&t=1
By Michael Crawford
In an interview with Fox News reporter Chris Wallace John McCain said that his decision to pick Sarah Palin as his VP nominee was a “cold, political calculation” to “counter the liberal feminist agenda.”
So much for putting country first.
By Michael Crawford
Cross-posted at Bilerico
With little more than two weeks before election day, now is the time to pull out your little black book and contact everyone in it about Barack Obama.
This election is the most important in at least a generation and for LGBT Americans it is even more crucial. We have the chance to play deciding role in electing the most pro-LGBT president in history. And, the difference between Sen. Obama and John McCain could not be clearer.
Allowing McCain to be elected as president would four more years of the kind of anti-LGBT policies that we got from George Bush. Electing Sen. Obama has president opens up the definite chance for us to finally pass an inclusive ENDA and the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and to finally develop a national AIDS strategy.
By Michael Crawford
On Meet the Press moments ago Gen. Colin Powell crossed party lines to endorse Barack Obama for president. This is amazing and follows the Obama campaigns announcement of its fundraising totals for September.
David Plouffe, Barack’s campaign manager, reported the news to supporters via a special online video update. The average contribution was $86. The previous record was $66 million set by the Obama campaign in August. The total number of people that have contributed to the campaign is 3.1 million.
This news will undoubtedly make the McCain/Palin campaign and the GOP go apoplectic. They will unleash a wave of racist, xenophobic and slanderous attacks against Barack and Joe Biden unlike anything we have seen in recent presidential campaigns. Already McCain has hired three of the attack machine specialists who spread the lies and innuendo that sunk McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000. Among the lies they spread during the 2000 South Carolina primary was that the Bangladeshi child that McCain and his wife Cindy adopted was McCain’s illegitimate Black daughter. If they are were willing to go after a member of their own party like this, can you imagine the bile they are prepared to unload against Barack?
This makes it all the more important that for the next 16 days we do all that we can to ensure that Barack is elected our next president. The time for the viciousness of hyper-partisan Republican politics is over.
By Waymon Hudson
Cross-posted at Bilerico - Florida
That’s what a poster that greeted visitors to the John McCain campaign office in Pompano Beach, Florida has to say. The sign was headlined “Barrack Hussein Obama” and compared Obama to Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, and Fidel Castro. The poster questioned Obama’s call for change:
Who else called for change in this fashion? Each and every one called upon youth movements.
Karl Marx. Joseph Stalin. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini. Fidel Castro.
And you want Obama for President? Are you nuts!
More after the jump…
By Michael Crawford
Cross-posted at Bilerico
That is the question that popped into my mind this morning while reading yet another story about the gutter style politics of John McCain. You remember The Grinch, right? He was dead set on stopping The Whos from celebrating Christmas.
Let’s look at the evidence after the jump…
By Richard J. Rosendall
First published in Bay Windows, October 9, 2008
All the talk of mavericks during the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate started me humming the theme from The Magnificent Seven. There they are, a ragtag bunch of rugged loners in a wild country. Will they learn to work together in time to save the beleaguered townsfolk from the marauding villains? Hey, wait a minute — they ARE the marauding villains.
Maybe I just have movies on my mind, since Washington’s gay film fest starts next week; but the McCain campaign increasingly feels like a movie in which the director is desperately trying to make us suspend our disbelief and buy the Republican nominee as the guy to fix the wreckage wrought by the Republican incumbent over the past several years.
Barney Frank is having none of it. The congressman from Massachusetts pounds a simple point he has made for years regarding the gay dimension in politics: that the far better record of Democrats on gay rights points to a partisan conclusion.
By Waymon Hudson
Cross-posted at Bilerico - Florida
Disgusting.
That is all that comes to mind when I heard Cindy McCain unleash yet another low blow attack on Obama while stumping in Pennsylvania. Funny how the campaign that kept screaming “leave families out of it” when it came to very valid discussion of Palin’s teenage pregnant daughter and abstinence only teaching is now using their children as political pawns. Here’s part of Cindy’s screed:
The day that Sen. Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body. I would suggest that Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day and see what it means … to have a loved one serving in the armed forces and more importantly, serving in harm’s way. I suggest he take a day and go watch our fine young men…and women deploy, get on those buses and leave with a smile.
Video after the jump…