I was listening to KQED Forum talk about election funding. They were talking about what is happening in the current presidential election with fund raising. Obama is just blowing McCain away. The question is will this year's election change the way funding happens in the future.
One of the people on the show said that Obama has more money because he is more popular. He used the example of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom being popular before he won his first term and raising a lot of money also.
This reminded me of something my friend Fling93 says, "Price holds information." The idea is that price is really important. It tells companies the demand of their product. It tells companies if they should get into a business or not. It tells companies how to set their business priorities. The person is saying the same thing, Fund Raising holds information.
There is an important idea here. I am just not sure where the lines around this are. Fundraiser is good, but it can be bad also.
If you want to know more about election fund raising, look at Open Secrets. It is a good tool with good fund raising information.
Now that both conventions are over, we can look at the speeches and the facts. I have seen a lot of twitter posts and blog posts about the facts around the Sarah Palin convention speech. It should not be surprising that she is the only person who has stretched the truth. You should also check out the fact checks on the Obama, McCain and Biden speeches. I think it is really cool that this information is on the web. Every voter should check it out.
Was I the only person who woke up this morning humming John Melloncamp's "Smalltown" after seeing Sarah Palin's speech last night. You might not agree with the content of the speech, but the speech did make it clear why John McCain picked her. After the speech picking Sarah Palin seems like a much smarter pick than it did a week ago
Sarah Palin did a lot to cash in on the idea of being from a small town. Her speech went a long way to say "I am more like you than I am like them." The them being the inside Washington types and the costal media. She went a far way to define who she is. She went very far to say that is who she is and who she will fight for. Many people I know who live in small towns feel very alienated from the major American cities. I can see Sarah Palin playing well in these small towns.
I hear lots of people in the Bay Area use the term "fly over states" and that is exactly who she is trying to appeal to. She went as far as name checking the states that might be in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Minnesota. These are the places where she can make a difference. She is not meant to pick up New York or California Hillary Supporters. She is meant to pick up some of the places where Hillary did well and Obama did poorly. According to the CNN Electoral Map, these are places where
Why did John McCain pick her, because he has a gender gap problem. More women are democrats and John McCain is not going to win without closing that gap. He does not need to close the gap everywhere. The CNN political map points out some of the places Palin can make the difference.
Yes John McCain knew what he was doing when he picked Sarah Palin. I do not think she was his first pick. I do not think he thinks she is the best choose to be President if something happens to him. The VP is not about the best person to be president because they cannot be president if they cannot help win the election.
There is part of me that things that John McCain picking Sarah Palin is a comment about how the media covers the election. In the four days since she was selected I have hard the media say a lot of things about Sarah Palin. I have not heard anything about the job she is doing as governor. I have not heard what kind of bills she is signed into law. I have not heard and analysis about which campaign promises she kept. I have not heard anything about how the state agencies are running under her administration.
So far from the media I have got four stories over and over again, Her Bio, The scandal with the Public Safety Commissioner, her daughter is pregnant, and she lacks experence. The problem with the 24 hour media culture is that they end up covering less and not more. CNN only runs about 22 minutes worth of stories all day long. MSNBC does a little bit better with about 42 minutes of stories all day long. it is still not much.
Since Barack Obama picked Joe Biden I have not seen one story on the television news looking at his record in the Senate. I get high level overviews about who is his and what he stands for. For this reason alone I can see what McCain picked Sarah Palin. The media is not going to check what she really did as governor McCain gets to write that story. People can say she is inexperienced, but they do not have the job experence information to back it up. I think that the media is a big reason John McCain picked Sarah Palin.
I have been reading a lot about people hitting McCain for picking Sarah Palin because she is not qualified. I have seen lists of republicans more qualifed than Sarah Palin. When I read these lists again after they remove everyone over 60 off this list. When I saw her on the news her age stood out to me. I think age is playing a big part in this election.
This pick to me said something clear. John McCain is worried about having two white guys running against the Obama-Biden ticket. It would look bad for the idea that John McCain represents the status quo. I think McCain see that he will not win that way. I think that an old white woman might still give that feeling of the status quo.
I also want to see this list without centrist Republican candidates. If McCain picked Christie Todd Whitman he would get killed by the conservative wing of the party. That might be enough to get those voters to stay home.
I know that this leave Condoleezza Rice on the list. While I like Condoleezza Rice. She might be the Smartest person in the current White House. Nothing would say "Third Bush Term" more that Condoleezza Rice for Vice President. John McCain is More of the Same was a major part of the Democratic Primary. I think that message is currently making head way with the voters.
If you look at the Democratic Primary there was the message that experence is not important. People what change more than they want experence. If they do this might be the right pick.
To be honest, I am holding my opinion on Sarah Palin until the Convention and her speech. The left has really gone after her for this pick. I think there was no good pick for VP for McCain. Every door had a tiger behind it for him.
I was thinking about John McCain picking Sarah Palin for his vice president. Everyone's first reaction is that he is just doing this to pick up some of the Hillary Clinton supporters. Her first speech even mention the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. The press has called this move everything from pandering to brilliant.
Many of the hard core Hillary supporters will not go for this. I do not expect them to. There are still a group of PUMA's out there that are not happy after the convention. Bill Clinton became president by appealing to Centrist democrats. It is those democrats that McCain is going after with Sarah Palin.
Yes, some former Hillary supporters who will go for this. The key is that not that many have to go for McCain for this to be effective. You just need to swing some in the battle ground states. This pick is not for the San Francisco-Feminist Hillary Supporters. This pick is for the Rural Ohio and PA democrats that are members of the NRA. I am surprised that more democrats do not realize this.
I recorded the CNN coverage of the political convention. I will admit that I picked them because they are in HD. If MSNBC was also in HD on my cable service I might need to pick them.
In the first three hours that I watched, it was 80% about the Clinton and Obama struggle. Will the Clinton support vote for Obama? Did Obama do enough to reach out to Clinton and her supporter? Are Bill and Hillary to blame for being bad losers? The same questions over and over again to different people.
The next 20% were about the horse race between Obama and McCain. What Obama needs to do to win. How he needs Clinton Supporters to win. How McCain is trying to drive a wedge.
They used up a lot of time without making mention of the platform at all. They did all this without even covering what Obama wants to do as president. I think this is one of the big problems with American political news. They cover the race far better than they cover the polices and platforms. In the end the electorate is much worse off for it. No surprise that Americans vote for the candidate who they want to share a beer with and not whose policies are better.
PS. CNN, stop having Wolff Blitzer say "The Best Team in Politics." It is cheap and cheezy.
It is also an election of ageism. Everybody seems to have fun making fun of McCain's age. How come native Indians chose their "Elders" as leaders and why are older people in China the most respected as they are looked upon as wiser than younger ones? Only in our rotten civilization, we are required to "shut up" once we are past the average "dinks" age of 40. Nobody asked Hilary for a medical exam although she could have aids or STD with all the women who s...her husbands d.....
I had not thought about this before, but I should have. A friend brought my attention to younger than McCain. The point of this to mock age. I know that Obama's campaign is all about change. His message is that McCain is part of the Old Guard and that will be business as usual.
I can tell Munichmaedchen why age and wisdom is not valued in our culture. It is bcause we are always looking for something New. America was made on the next idea America was made by people trying to get away from their past. That is way experence is a dirty word in politics.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the ageism going forward. I think it will become an issue when McCain picks his running mate.
Don't look now Ann Coulter, but you might be singing up to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign. After tonight McCain is looking pretty good tonight. I wonder if Ann Coulter is a person of her word.
