MetaFilter posts tagged with campaign and mccain

The Palin Mob

4midori — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:28:14 -0800

The Palin Mob "It's no wonder that the slightest incitement from Sarah Palin or John McCain will turn one of their rallies into a lynch mob. Just talk to the folks who attend.

My camera was rolling for literally seconds before people happily said to me, on camera, that Barack Obama is a terrorist. If I hadn’t spent most of my time at the event inside, waiting for the candidates to show up, I could have gotten dozens of these people on tape."

Via Blogger Interrupted

Donna Brazile Is Not Going to the Back of the Bus

kirkaracha — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:56:21 -0800

Donna Brazile Is Not Going to the Back of the Bus. Stirring remarks from an October 4, 2008, New Yorker panel discussion, "If I Were Running This Campaign." Partial transcript:

I'm gonna say it and get it off my chest, because for the next thirty days, I'm gonna be the best Catholic woman ever....As a child who grew up in the segregated Deep South, we've come so far in this country....But I remember when I used to get on the bus: my mother would tell me, "Donna, when you get on the bus, you and your brothers go all the way to the back, and don't look at anybody." We have changed. This is a more tolerant, open, progressive society. And yet, we're having this conversation because [Obama] is biracial. He spent nine months in the womb of a white woman. He was raised...by his white grandparents...He got out of school and went to Harvard, and all of a sudden he's "uppity" and there's something wrong with him? What is wrong with us?...You can vote against him, but don't ever put me in the back of the bus. I'm not going to the back of the bus! I'm not going to be afraid! My black skin does not make me inferior! And may I add: being a female does not make me dumb! Don't let people trick you, and distract you and divide you...Don't let no one take us back! Because many of us are not going back--we're going forward! And come with us!

"Earlier, the panel's moderator, Jeff Toobin, had remarked: 'It's Donna's world; we just live in it.' Now all he could say was: "I will spare the other panelists from having to follow Donna.'"

The Ebay Solution?

Chinese Jet Pilot — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:41:02 -0800

U.S. Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain may be computer illiterate, but his campaign does think highly of eBay. Sen. McCain and Governor Palin have each suggested eBay as a fix for the economy, tool for government reform, and strategy for homeland security. Perhaps it's because former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, in spite of disagreeing with parts of his technology platform, is co-chair of McCain's campaign?

Campaign Finance Bites the Hand That Made It

shivohum — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:26:44 -0800

Last year, as McCain's campaign seemed stumbling into the grave, it applied for federal matching funds for the primary season. After Super Tuesday, McCain withdrew from the system. Or did he? If he didn't, he's capped at $54 million to spend till September -- and he's already spent $50 million of it. Former FEC Chairman Brad Smith tells, in bravura detail, the whole whirling story. (via Election Law Blog) McCain attempted to withdraw not having received any matching funds. Receiving any funds would have locked him into the system. He did, however, obtain a loan in December 2007 which pledged as collateral -- not the federal matching funds he had already qualified for, as that would legally lock him into the system -- federal matching funds which he would receive as a result of pledging, in the loan documents, to reenter the matching funds system if he dropped out of it in December and subsequently did poorly in New Hampshire! Now there's a question of whether he can actually withdraw or not. Meanwhile, the FEC lacks a quorum to make a ruling, and Obama put a hold on nominees who might have given it a quorum. And there are other complications, like how entering the matching system might have put McCain on the Ohio ballot at minimal expense. Brad Smith's conclusion: the law is way too complicated.