MetaFilter posts tagged with mccain

Because Metafilter will Never Be Rid of Her

Weebot — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:07:42 -0800

Vanity Fair recently published "It Came From Wasilla", Todd Purdum's lengthy profile piece about Sarah Palin, her involvement with and the inside workings of the McCain campaign, and her political future. While a lot of the stuff in Purdam's article have been reported elsewhere, they haven't been reported with this much detail or with this context. Purdam documents Palin's meteoric rise in Alaska, her relationship with her fellow Alaska politicians, as well as her icy relationship with the McCain staff.

The End of an Era?

912 Greens — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:12:33 -0800

According to political scientist Wayne Parent, “The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics.” Are we finally seeing the end of Nixon's infamous Southern Strategy? For years Republicans have depended on the region to win elections. Some now argue that the G.O.P. has "transformed itself from the Party of Lincoln into the Party of the Old Confederacy." In any case, playing to racism and resentment [PDF] isn't as effective as it used to be. Furthermore, many Republicans have publicly disowned such tactics.

from 52 to 48, with love

heatherann — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:34:36 -0800

from 52 to 48 with love : Ze Frank collects post-election messages of unity and reconciliation. From his blog: "i would love to see a group project where obama supporters reached out to the mccain folk in a gesture of reconciliation... something with the intimacy of the http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ project - but without the partisan divisiveness. simple messages. the feeling of being left out or ignored, or the target of payback is what made the last eight years so hard. perhaps it is naive. the differences are real, i know. but we have to repair the damage done from this election cycle somehow... it's a tough and delicate challenge - if you want to try it - send a pic of you with a sign, or a vid, or anything to ze@zefrank.com"

How Obama Did It

thbt — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:56:33 -0800

How Obama Did It: an in-depth look behind the scenes of the campaign, assembled by a special team of reporters who were granted year-long access on the condition that none of their findings appear until after Election Day.

We have the facts and we're voting...

dw — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:05:53 -0800

At 12:00am EST, in the Ballot Room of the Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the 2008 Presidential Election began.* The vote was 15-6 Obama -- the first time a Democrat has carried the village since 1968. Despite their "first in the nation" status, though, they have only picked the winner 50% of the time. * - Hart's Location, which Obama also won, would beg to differ. Notably, Hart's Location is 3-for-3 in voting for the eventual winner.

We Can Talk Politics All Night

Navelgazer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:54:44 -0800

You Can Vote However You Like

Say You, Say Me

gman — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:12:23 -0800

Call a phone number and explain why you're voting the way you are. Brought to you by these guys.

You Betcha

digaman — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:41:01 -0800

This f*cking election. A babble tower.

Oh shi... IT'S ON!!

not_on_display — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:01:03 -0800

[SLYT, ElectionFilter, 2:40] Dance-off!! The teams: Obama Dance Crew vs. John McCain's Grand Old Posse. It's ON!!

Host your own illegal fundraiser!

kothar — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:23:26 -0800

British students, ambassadors, even singers are all at it. Don't you want to host a political fundraiser too?

My friends, here's to HOPE!

blue_beetle — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:44:32 -0800

Synchronized Presidential Debating

Syria's business

Bathtub Bobsled — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:02:24 -0800

"US helicopter raid" in Syria. Could this be an October Surprise? Many have hinted this election's October Surprise will be the capture of Osama Bin Ladin or a resurgence of terrorist activity. As we recall, news media had jumped on a McCain Aide who claimed a terrorist attack would benefit McCain in the Election.

Obama Wins in a Landslide

bwg — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:13:40 -0800

If the World Could Vote

Crafting for Change!

orange swan — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:37:44 -0800

As the U.S. election approaches, you're getting fidgety. You've donated, you've volunteered for your candidate's campaign, but you've still got time on your hands for election-themed activities. What to do? Well, you could make some snazzy Obama or McCain earrings to wear to the polls on decision day. You could make presidential candidate finger puppets out of yarn, paper, or felt and re-enact the debates. You could knit a party animal so as to have something to snuggle up to at night when you wake from nightmares of stolen elections. You could decorate some oranges. Slate has a slideshow of political craft ideas, my favourite of which is probably the Homeland Security Quilt. For more ideas, check out the Obama Craft Project, where crafters are crafting for change and fundraising. There you'll find everything from Obamaware to a cool Yes We Can scarf, to a cross-stitch portrait, to a cozy Obama cap. Lest you think I'm being too partisan here, I'll say I did search for Republican-oriented crafts and there just didn't seem to be many. It seems Obama's got the crafting demographic, um, all sewn up.

Decisions, decisions...

aheckler — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:22:19 -0800

The Choice 2008 is the newest report from PBS's Frontline. It examines the backgrounds, both personal and political, of John McCain and Barack Obama. You can also watch the entire two-hour show on YouTube.

The Insiders

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:55:04 -0800

Jane Meyer of The New Yorker explains how John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin Jane Meyer offers a fascinating account of the mating ritual performed between Palin and Republican elite in the year leading up to the general election. Excerpts: ``From the start of her political career, Palin has positioned herself as an insurgent intent on dislodging entrenched interests. In 1996, a campaign pamphlet for her first mayoral run—recently obtained by The New Republic—strikes the same note of populist resentment that Palin did at the Convention: “I’m tired of ‘business as usual’ in this town, and of the ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ network that runs the show here.” Yet Palin has routinely turned to members of Washington’s Old Guard for help. After she became the mayor of Wasilla, Palin oversaw the hiring of a law firm to represent the town’s interests in Washington, D.C. The Wasilla account was handled by Steven Silver, a Washington-area lobbyist who had been the chief of staff to Alaska’s long-serving Republican senator Ted Stevens, who was indicted in July on charges of accepting illegal gifts and is now standing trial. (Silver declined to discuss his ties to Palin.) As the Washington Post reported, Silver’s efforts in the capital helped Wasilla, a town of sixty-seven hundred residents, secure twenty-seven million dollars in federal earmarks. During this election season, however, Palin has presented herself as more abstemious, saying, “I’ve championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress.” ``In February, 2007, Adam Brickley gave himself a mission: he began searching for a running mate for McCain who could halt the momentum of the Democrats. Brickley, a self-described “obsessive” political junkie who recently graduated from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, told me that he began by “randomly searching Wikipedia and election sites for Republican women.”... ``By the spring, the McCain campaign had reportedly sent scouts to Alaska to start vetting Palin as a possible running mate. A week or so before McCain named her, however, sources close to the campaign say, McCain was intent on naming his fellow-senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, who left the Democratic Party in 2006. David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, who is close to a number of McCain’s top aides, told me that “McCain and Lindsey Graham”—the South Carolina senator, who has been McCain’s closest campaign companion—“really wanted Joe.” But Keene believed that “McCain was scared off” in the final days, after warnings from his advisers that choosing Lieberman would ignite a contentious floor fight at the Convention, as social conservatives revolted against Lieberman for being, among other things, pro-choice. ``“They took it away from him,” a longtime friend of McCain—who asked not to be identified, since the campaign has declined to discuss its selection process—said of the advisers. “He was furious. He was pissed. It wasn’t what he wanted.” Another friend disputed this, characterizing McCain’s mood as one of “understanding resignation.” ''

McCain and Obama at the Al Smith Dinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:10:50 -0800

Events are moving fast in my campaign. And, yes, it is true that this morning I dismissed my entire team of senior advisors. All of their positions will now be held by a man named 'Joe The Plumber.' No, not Saturday Night Live, but the real John McCain at this year's Al Smith dinner, where he and Obama poked fun at each other as well as themselves. McCain's funny and graciously touching speech: McCain Part 1. McCain Part2. Obama's speech is here: Obama Part 1. Obama Part 2.

No Mudslinging.

gman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:06:25 -0800

Batman vs. The Penguin. SLYT

When She Turns 18, I Almost Guarantee She's Going to Rename Herself Michelle

WCityMike — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:24:25 -0800

Ava Marie Ciptak was born on Friday, October 10, 2008. Except that her name wasn't Ava Marie Ciptak. Her father, Mark, of Elizabethton, Tennessee, "sort of secretively went behind [his wife Layla]'s back and changed the paperwork" by using two separate birth certificate forms. Instead of naming his daughter John McCain — his initial plan — he named his daughter Sarah McCain Palin, "figuring hopefully [he] would get two weeks in the doghouse rather than two months."

Elections are fun!

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:49:54 -0800

Welcome to The Sacramento County Republican Party. The official website has removed content calling for Obama to be waterboarded. But it still contains fake quotes supposedly from Obama's memoir. In this political climate, 33% of voters do not identify Obama as Christian, and 8% believe he is Muslim. Yet, the polls predict a landslide, hinted at by early voting. McCain needs something spectacular, and he may be regretting his decision to invoke Bill Ayers in tonight's debate; and perhaps other things.

Chomsky on the elections, economy

Dragonness — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:03:14 -0800

Chomsky on the elections, economy

John McCain and democracy

shetterly — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:56:09 -0800

John McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America in the 1980s. As the head of the IRI, he helped finance coups against democratic governments in Haiti and Venezuela. Were those governments fairly elected? The 1984 elections were perhaps the freest and fairest in Nicaraguan history. Aristide...won the first free and fair election in the country’s history with 67 percent of the vote. In Venezuela, all of Chavez's victories in elections were monitored and certified by a variety of observers including the Organization of American States, the European Union and the Carter Center.

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.'"

Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

phrontist — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:34:12 -0800

A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century