Tomorrow morning Obama will be on "Good Morning America" and he finally does some pushback on the McCain townhall BS. For those who may not know, John McCain has been blaming Obama's non-acceptance of his invitation to do townhalls as the reason why his campaign has gone so negative. Outside of the fact that "Obama won't travel around the country with me" is the LAMEST excuse ever for being an asshole, it just doesn't make sense. Well, we've been waiting on SOMEBODY, ANYBODY to ask McCain what exactly Obama not doing joint townhalls has to do with the price of tea in China, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen, so Obama has taken the situation into his own hands.
This whole thing about town halls I think is a little bit of a gimmick. . . (aka, bullshit) The reason that we're not talking about the issues doesn't have to do with the fact that we didn't have town halls. The reason that we're not talking about the issues is because John McCain has shown a lack of interest in talking about the issues. That's how their campaign's been run.
(stuff in parenthesis is mine) And Barack Obama is right. Remember, Rick Davis has said that the McCain campaign has no intention of fighting this one out on the issues, instead it's going to be a personality war.
"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."
Personally, that doesn't make sense to me because a dead fish has a better personality than anyone on the Republican ticket. But whatever.
Barack Obama has been TRYING to talk about issues his entire campaign, but as he pointed out the other day, the media chooses to focus on 4 basic things:
"I think it was Roger Ailes of Fox News who said that the media basically covers four things," said Obama, who held a private meeting with Ailes and Rupert Murdoch in June to clear the air on Fox's coverage, only to see Murdoch's New York Post issue an early, strong endorsement of McCain this month. "[The media] cover polls, scandals, gaffes and attacks. Those are the four things they cover. And so it is very hard to get a focus on the issues."
Seems to me Obama's lost all tolerance he previously had for BS. Too many people mistook his kindness for weakness, so the gloves are coming off. He still parses some of his wording (like the inability to say the word "lie" sometimes), but he's done letting stuff slide. The campaign has overall been getting tougher on McCain. Yesterday I posted a diary about the new commercial Obama was running about McCain's lobbyists connections. In that diary, I noted that McCain has already hired a lobbyist to head his transition team should be win. Well Obama has already released an ad about it. Wanna see it? Here it goes :o)
OBAMA: I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.
ANNCR: His campaign is run by lobbyists.
Now we find out McCain’s White House will be lobbyist-run too.
McCain just picked a Washington super lobbyist to plan his administration.
A "consummate insider" who lobbies for oil companies. The credit card industry.
Corporate special interests rigging the system against hard working Americans...pushing failed Bush economics. Does that sound like change to you?
We just can’t afford more of the same.
With this ad, the campaign also circulated a memo:
To: Interested Parties
Fr: Obama Campaign
Re: McCain’s Team of Lobbyists Grows, As They Plan for a Lobbyist-Run White House
Dt: September 14, 2008
Joining the ranks of the seven lobbyists running McCain’s campaign, William Timmons, a top Washington lobbyist, has been named to plan McCain’s transition effort. With at least 177 lobbyists helping advise, raise money and run his campaign, there was little doubt who would be influencing McCain’s White House, should he win, but this appointment just confirms: a John McCain White House will be organized, managed and influenced by lobbyists and the same old Washington politics John McCain has decried. Campaigning on reform while surrounding himself with lobbyists for the oil industry, big drug companies and foreign interests doesn’t seem much like change, and nothing shows that more than naming a top Washington lobbyist to plan his transition.
"We know John McCain’s campaign is run by Washington lobbyists, and we just learned that he has hired one of Washington’s most famous and powerful lobbyists to staff his White House. It’s not a Team of Mavericks who’ll be running Washington if John McCain wins — it’s a Team of Lobbyists." Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor
See below for more information on William Timmons, and go to www.mclobbyists.com for more details on McCain’s team of lobbyists.
And the best part about all of this? He's not LYING! He's simply telling the truth. Speaking of lying, Gov. Palin once again trotted out her BTN lie, and the eBay lie. Go figure, she really is a one trick pony.
Oh, and as a bonus, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been going after Palin HARD, check this out from this morning's Face The Nation:
SCHIEFFER: You’re saying she doesn’t know anything or you’re saying that’s what she’s been asked about?
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, she’s been asked what she knows. She’s been asked to demonstrate her foreign policy knowledge, which she clearly has very little, based on the Charlie Gibson interview. I mean, she didn’t know what the Bush doctrine was. She really had almost no grasp of America’s foreign policy. She really knew very little about domestic policy.
Quite honestly, the interview that I saw and that Americans saw on Thursday and Friday were similar to when I didn’t read a book in high school and had to read the cliff notes and phone in my -- and phone in my report.
She’s cliff-noted her performance so far. And all of that is fair game. The American people deserve better than that. They don’t deserve more of the same, which is what they’re getting from John McCain and Sarah Palin .
ZING! She also gets in some good lines against Sen. Hutchinson and Gov. Swift. She's quickly becoming one of my favorite Obama surrogates
Also, Obama is releasing a new ad about which candidate is REALLY the wrong choice for women:
OBAMA: I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.
UNKNOWN: Women earn just 77 cents to the dollar a man makes for doing the same work. John McCain must think that’s OK, because he opposes a law to fix the problem.
McCain’s equal pay proposal? Women need more education and training. He just doesn’t get it.
McCain says making corporations pay women the same as men for the same work would be a burden on business. Standing with business, not our families. We can’t afford more of the same.
When I find the video I'll put it up :o)
People wanted offense, well I'd say this is some damn fine offense!
UPDATE
SEIU has released the following ad hitting McCain on the economy. Also, Obama himself will go after McCain on the economy tomorrow morning on GMA:
(I'm working on the transcript)
More on the ad:
On Sunday, the Service Employees International Union unveiled an ad featuring a white, working-class family struggling to get by after the husband named Henry lost his job eight months ago. The 30-second ad, which cost $2.1 million, will air in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Iowa.
"We have three kids, I like to send them to school looking nice, you know," says an unnamed woman in the ad. "I work two shifts usually, and we’re still behind."
The ad attacks McCain, quoting him as having said that he still needs "to be educated" about economics and that he said the country is better off today than it was eight years ago. And it rolls a clip of Obama saying that his proposed tax cut would benefit the middle class three times more than McCain’s plan.
[snip]
"While other candidates might want to talk about lipstick and pigs, we want to talk about economic issues, jobs, healthcare," she said. The campaign ad is SEIU’s second major one this year, following a $1.5 million ad buy in April in Ohio.
And Karl Rove said McCain has gone too far, Obama campaign has a kick ass response. See it here.
Also, Obama does have a great ad up about the economy right now, but I can't find it online. I'll add it when I find it.
UPDATE
Please stop saying Obama hasn't been putting up ads on the economy, because he has. Here are some:
And these are some that have been national buys, he's also been hitting states with local-themed ads. Like this one for Michigan:
So he HAS been focusing on the economy, and he will continue to focus on the economy. Don't believe the hype, Obama's campaign does a LOT of stuff under the radar, and stuff the media won't latch on to because it's not "sensational" enough.
UPDATE
VP Biden was kicking some McButt in Missouri today:
We need a little bit of honesty in this campaign," he said, asserting that the GOP is failing to tell voters that they would do little to change the nation’s economic policy.
Instead, he said, Republicans are making false assertions about the Democratic proposals of Biden and presidential nominee Barack Obama.
For example, he said, Republican presidential nominee John McCain isn’t talking about his plan to tax the health-care benefits that millions of Americans get through their employer.
Biden called McCain’s health-care plan, "a bridge to nowhere."
And of course, all the McWhine campaign could do was complain about it being a "negative attack." HA!
I'm sure there are more memorable quotes that will come out. I'll add them as I find them :o)
UPDATE
This has nothing to do with Obama, but in Ohio right now where I am, we are the lucky recipients of the remnants of Hurricane Ike. The wind has knocked out the power for over 175,000 homes in Franklin County (where Columbus is) alone. I've been hearing some sirens every now and again, other than that it's just wind. I'm hoping the power comes back on soon (mostly because I was in the middle of doing laundry and I need to read my assignments for tomorrow). So the "storm" in my tip jar is only a bunch of wind. Just thought you guys would like to know.