Portrait in Political Suicide... McCain sets fire to his hair!

As Hostra University is located on Long Island, NY...the professionals from the CSI NY lab were called to the scene.  What awaits the techs behind the yellow tape is disturbing and yet like rubber necking on the highway...we just gonna take a peek!

John McCain's whole "comeback" strategy is hinged on Joe Sixpack, now newly rebranded as "Joe The Plumber".  As more and more stuff comes out about the Joe the Plumber, the more we know its a bogus story made up by a guy who clearly never intended on voting for Obama anyways.  But the wingnuts are claiming it doesn't matter that Joe Wurzelbacher's story is fake, his fake story is still symbolic of many small business owners in America who will supposedly be horribly hurt by Obama's socialistic tax increase.

Well, we know that's total unadulterated crap, but let's prove it.  We live in a fact-based world, unlike the wingnuts.  Let's put math to good use...

Saw this video and had to share. I do apologize in advance if this has already been posted.

Will post a transcript of her wise words as soon as I can.

She is the Oldest US voter and a catholic nun who is voting for Obama. This is only her second time voting in a presidential election.

Watching the debates between McCain and Obama it is clearly evident that McCain stands on a past foundation while Obama and supporters are building a new foundation from which our future will depend.

He certainly employed a good one setting McCain up for guaranteed failure in the final debate.  Obama's brilliant calculations, combined with McCain's misstep of blindly chasing after his mentally challenged and lipstik'd pit bull came together to limit McCain to one option for the debate:  Assume the position.

My parents are both registered Republicans, living near Wichita, Kansas.  My father is a Doctor and my mother is a stay at home mother.   My parents have always been moderates as it relates to social issues (both are in favor of Roe v Wade) and my dad has even stated that he thinks Bush II is the worst president we have ever had.  So, where's the problem?

I don't know if you noticed, but Obama is starting to use Fox News to symbolize the politics of smear. If you happen to make it to the last page of this lengthy New York Times profile (page 10 of it, actually), you are rewarded with this:

"I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls," Obama told me. "If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?

"I guess the point I’m making," he went on, "is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful. People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that. That’s why I say that some of that may have to happen after the election, when they get to know you."

That is a remarkable admission of something that we have been arguing for years -- that Fox News is a key part of an apparatus designed to destroy progressivism. He may call it "perpetuating this cultural schism", but that's merely that tactic used in pursuit of their broader strategy against us.

Obama used Fox News as foil again last night during the debate:

The notion that I voted for a tax increase for people making $42,000 a year has been disputed by everybody that has looked at this claim that Sen. McCain keeps on making. Even Fox News disputes it. And that doesn't happen very often when it comes to accusations about me.

For so long, Democrats have been afraid to call Fox News what it is -- the propaganda arm of the RNC -- and treat it as such. We had to fight tooth and nail during the primaries to keep Democrats from letting Fox host one of their debates. And aside from the insane rantings of Fox and its personalities, many Democrats were offended that we had prevented them from becoming target practice on the GOP's own network!

Yet here we are today, in the tail end of a hard-fought presidential campaign, and our own candidate for the White House is openly admitting what too many Democrats have been loathe to admit -- that Fox News exists to hurt Democrats.

NOTE: This diary is not about Joe the Plumber. It's about how Joe the Plumber isn't about Joe the Plumber. I encourage commenters to actually read the piece before making comments like "I've OD'd on Joe the Plumber." The whole point is that Joe the Plumber isn't important. As an aside - commenters who refuse to read diaries and yet persist in commenting on the diaries they refuse to read destroy the value of the entire diarying/community process. - D

Joe the Plumber is the latest of many colorful, mythic characters to grace the nation's presidential stage - an individual who epitomizes how our nation conducts its politics. Our democracy is kabuki theater, replete with symbolic archetypal Americans, some used as scapegoats (Reagan's "welfare queens") others used for fearmongering (Harry & Louise) and still others cited as mythic idols (Joe the Plumber).

Welcome to Things That Don't Really Matter, my humorous take on all things political.

Joe Knows Politics

Lets get right to it. Firstly, we were all touched when Senator John McCain mentioned Mr. Joe Plumber of Ohio during last night's debate, so we here at TTDRM (That being me cuz I'm the only one here) decided to hop in to the Matter-mobile and have a chat with this undecided voter. First we went to his house but his wife advised us he was out on a call, when asked who her husband was supporting Mrs. Plumber stated she believed Joe was leaning towards Obama.

(Sorry, Droogie - had to open this, in general I go anywhere else for news)

The short story:  Joe the Plumber IS NOT licensed as a plumber and IS registered to vote - as a Republican, and ain't gonna own the biz he works for any time soon.

AP Story

Joe the Plumber said Thursday he doesn't have a license and doesn't need one. Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, the nickname Republican John McCain bestowed on him during Wednesday's presidential debate, said he works for a small plumbing company that does residential work. Because he works for someone else, he doesn't need a license, he said.

But the county Wurzelbacher and his employer live in, Lucas County, requires plumbers to have licenses. Neither Wurzelbacher nor his employer are licensed there, said Cheryl Schimming of Lucas County Building Regulations, which handles plumber licenses in parts of the county outside Toledo.

I got a phone call from my husband while at work yesterday. He was upset. Our health insurance premiums are going up 45% across the board for all our employees in his small company.

This revolting development sucks for us, but...

It's probably a good thing for Obama.

What happened to us is happening all across small business America. Every business that offers health insurance is getting rate increase notices. They quietly started rolling out of the insurance companies since August-September and will continue to do so until the election.

...and John McCain was adamantly promoting his turkey of a health care plan last night obtusely unaware that many, many people who work for small business are either going to suck it up and pay a 45% increase on their health insurance premiums or lose their health care coverage at the end of this year.

Apparently Barack Obama sent out an e-mail for the DSCC today urging people to help raise $2.5 million to go to Senate races.  The hope is that the infusion of funds would put the Democrats over the 60 vote threshold to be able to beat back any filibusters from the GOP.

I'm as eager to get to 60 votes as well, but I really wish we didn't need to get to 60 votes.  This isn't some stupid appeal for bipartisanship or centrism, but a real desire to see the Democrats act like a majority party instead of the mewing band of simpering wimps they've been for the past eight years.

If we win five or six seats, even with tossing Lieberman over the side to the GOP where he belongs, we'll have 55 seats to the Republican's 45.  That means that over the last six years the American people have said that they prefer to have Democrats running the United States Senate.

The Wisconsin Advertising Project responds to allegations by both candidates in the debate that the other had run more negative ads:

"Analysis from the Wisconsin Advertising Project of Sen. John McCain’s television advertising for the week of September 28 to October 4 shows, in fact, that all McCain campaign TV advertising did have significant negative content – either spots that were comprised completely of attacks on the Democratic nominee or ones that combined attacks on Sen. Barack Obama with some talk about Sen. McCain’s own plans. We reported this finding in a press release last week that was widely publicized and this was clearly the number that Obama was citing in last night’s debate. That said, McCain’s advertising has not been completely negative over the course of the entire campaign. Looking at the tone of all of McCain’s advertising from June 4 to October 4, we found that 47 percent of the McCain spots were negative (completely focused on Obama), 26 percent were positive (completely focusing on his own personal story or on his issues or proposals) and 27 percent were contrast ads (a mix of positive and negative messages).

But what about Obama?  Our analysis reveals that 39 percent of all general election Obama TV ads have been positive (solely about his record, positions or personal story), 35 percent have been negative (solely focused on McCain) and 25 percent have been contrast ads – mixing a bit of both. So, on a proportional basis, the McCain campaign is and has been more negative than Obama.

But, Obama has aired over 50,000 more ads than McCain.  So, hasn’t he simply aired more of everything – including negative ads – than McCain has this year, or than anyone in history, as McCain may have alleged?

If one just looks at pure airings of negative ads, McCain has aired more than Obama. If one allocates contrast ads as half positive and half negative or considers contrast ads as negative – as the Advertising Project does – the tone of the McCain and Obama campaigns has been absolutely identical.

According to some press reports, the McCain campaign is backing up its claim with an analysis of TV ad spending from September 12 to October 11 that shows that Obama spent more on negative ads than McCain during this time period.  Does that analysis mean that the Obama campaign has aired the most negative ad campaign in history? Well, since, there was no television for most of history and we only have systematic data since 1996, we’ll have to restrict our analysis to the last four contests.

And it was in 1996 that former Sen. Bob Dole aired the greatest proportion of negative ads in recent presidential elections. Seventy percent of his ads in his contest against then-President Bill Clinton were pure negative spots and 12 percent were contrast.  In 2004, 60 percent of President Bush’s ads were negative and 12 percent were contrast. Multiplying the proportions by ad expenditures in 2004 reveals that the Bush campaign aired the greatest number of negative ads in recent history and spent the most money doing so. While there are still three weeks left in this contest, President Bush in 2004 has the record for the most number of negative spots aired in a race.

So what do we learn? That the McCain campaign is running 100 percent negative ads right now. We learn that despite Obama's massive advantage on the air, McCain has still run more purely negative ads, and when factoring "hybrid" ads, they are running even.

And we find that everyone's most hated president, Bush Jr, also ran the most negative campaign in recent history.

The GOP wins the trifecta of negativity.

In celebration of Obama's masterful performance in the debate last night, time for some light-hearted fun. This is one of the funniest user created videos for Obama I have ever seen.

If you recall pledges in the beginning of the campaign, Obama said he'd focus on the issues and disavow 527's. Of course, Obama also said he'd take public money and vote against FISA, but that's for another day.

But now that the mainstream media has descended on McCain, has Obama pressed the attack to leave the Repubs bleeding, or has he reverted to his original promise of honorable campaigns?

Should he? Honor and ethics aside, the tactical advantage of higher ground has gotten Obama to where he is. If the voters view McCain as an attack ad scumbag, then Obama is perfectly safe with getting off the high horse to personally kick the crap out of McCain. But what will happen if he goes too far, and the voters revise their opinions? Probably nothing.

I just can't see anything right about this.  The first impression upon reading and opening the flier is that it's directly calling Barack a terrorist.

Scans and transcript below the fold...

The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA) prints a story today about a recently distributed newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women.  They write that an Obama victory would lead to his face displayed on food stamps rather than dollar bills.  They go one step further by presenting an image of what this food stamp would look like:

Click here.

Joe the Plumber isn't in the range of the $250,000 income bracket that would see taxes slightly rise under Barack Obama's plan. But he's desperately afraid that he might someday be so successful, and then be subject to a raise in taxes. (In the meantime, his taxes will go down, but never mind).

The argument that Obama has made before, and should have pressed in the debate last night, is that a broke middle class doesn't create demand for plumbing.

I don't know what projects Joe's company works for. But I know that families unable to pay winter heating bills, medical costs, and college tuition aren't likely to, say, add new bathrooms to their houses.

They aren't likely to buy new houses, so the demand for new housing with attendant plumbing will drop.

Without money, they can't buy products and services, hurting business that might otherwise open - businesses that need plumbing.

Without a strong middle class, the economy collapses.