The common wisdom of this electoral cycle is that Michigan is going to be a key swing state in November. The presidential candidates, for their part, are fueling this speculation by showering our fair state with attention, in the form of both campaign visits and paid advertisements. The ads, in particular, are hard to miss - anyone who has watched television for more than 10 minutes has likely been urged to swear undying allegiance to one or both of the presidential hopefuls.

More so than his opponent, John McCain has swamped the Michigan airwaves with pleas for the support of Michiganders. Some of these ads, unfortunately, have been somewhat less than civil. More than that, they’ve been - in my (admittingly biased) opinion - surprisingly misleading. Barack Obama has responded with ads of his own, but they have been less aggressive (which may not be a bad thing) and far less numerous (which is definitely not good). Many loyal Democrats are wondering why Obama is allowing himself to be out-advertised and risk losing control of this election’s narrative when he has the resources to not only go toe-to-toe with the McCain campaign, but to possibly blow it out of the water! What gives?

The answer is perhaps Barack Obama’s biggest advantage: Read the rest of this entry »

Along with the rest of the world, I’ve been glued to the TV for Olympic coverage over the past week, and I love all of the different sports, competitions and stories about the athletes uniting their countries. One of the best aspects of these Olympics, I think, are the commercials. Stupid, right? But I love them because they encourage us to cheer for humanity, not just for Americans. To feel pride in our uniting humanism, rather than dividing nationalism.

Don’t get me wrong, I love cheering for Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, and all the other American athletes as much as the next person. But in a time when the world seems more split every day-Russians versus Georgians, Shiites versus Sunnis, Palestinians versus Israelis, the US versus pretty much any group one can think of, it’s good to take a step back and realize what the Olympics really stand for. Intergroup relations do not have to be a zero-sum game, and no one benefits in the long run from another’s suffering. The ads may seem like cheap, world peace rhetoric, but they inspire cooperation, as well as inspire people to go out and get credit cards. It’s ironic that the Olympics is going on just as the US gears up for an election season full of smear campaigns, political attacks and hate from both parties, but perhaps it’s a good thing.

I guess this was an off-day for blogging, so I’ll just take a minute to share an amusing story.

During the summer, I work as a camp counselor for kids entering third through fifth grade (ages 7-10). Today during some down-time, I happened to be reading an article about the election. One of my campers was looking over my shoulder and asked me who those two men were in the picture.

Shocked that these kids didn’t recognize the faces of Obama and McCain, I started walking around and showing the pictures to campers at random, asking them if they knew who these men were.

To my relief, most of them were able to identify them in some way, though there were a few who were totally stumped. A few of the campers immediately identified them with their full names, others with just their last names. There were a few who only recognized Obama (strangely, none that only recognized McCain.) A few of the funnier responses included “Those are the guys that are voting for president”, “They’re gonna be the next presidents”, and “I know he’s famous but I don’t know why.”

To the campers that correctly identified the candidates, I asked follow-up questions. In response to “Which is a Democrat and which is a Republican?” I got about 50/50 results. It seems that kids that age don’t know the difference. In response to the question “What are the issues they talk about?”, I got mostly correct (although incomplete) answers (gas prices, the economy, global warming.) To the question “Which do you want to win?” the most popular answer was “Well, my parents want Obama to win.” To be fair, this camp is in a liberal suburb of Chicago, Obama’s home city.

Other entertaining responses include: “This election has gone on for like 3 years! I’m sick of hearing about it.” and “He’s the guy who’s versing [sic] Hillary Clinton.”

And one camper incorrectly identified McCain as George W. Bush. Although who could blame her??

Disclaimer: This survey was merely for my personal entertainment and is not scientific in any way. My sample size was very small and not diverse at all.

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Unlike John McCain tasteless Paris Hilton ad, this counterstrike by the Obama campaign does a good job at redefining what “celebrity” means in this campaign…

Cuter than most of the puppy pictures we’ve posted here, but just as gratuitous.

Obama with his daughters on vacation in Hawaii. More after the jump.
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This is to make sure everyone knows where Georgia is (there’s no excuse now for an “Iraq shares a border with Afghanistan” type of comment)

Throughout the fighting between Russian and Georgian forces, just about all of the discussion has centered around who is at fault and how to get the conflict to stop. Here in the United States, there has also been a great deal of attention placed on the responses from Barack Obama and John McCain, with many believing that it is an important measuring stick of the two candidates would respond to an important international crisis.

There is another point of this conflict to talk about though. As this article observes, Russia’s military, while easily overwhelming Georgia, has demonstrated many flaws. From old equipment to outdated military tactics, analysts are now looking at this conflict and seeing a Russia with a military that is far from superpower status. Those who see Russia as a military challenge to the United States or the international community are mistaken. Militarily, Russia is nowhere near superpower status.

Why is this important to note? If you look at the statements made by John McCain and many others recently, you will see that Russia is still often viewed as a powerful threat. Some even see it as an enemy on the world stage, making Russia a country that we should worry us. Now, with the evidence from this conflict of a flawed Russian military, Americans and the West should be less worried about Russia. It may disagree with us on some issues, but it is not militarily powerful enough to directly challenge the United States and the West. Hopefully policy makers will keep that in mind.

I think Senator Obama dances almost as badly as me.

Like their state, Ohio’s seal shows a bleak field stretching into the distance with the hope of something interesting on the horizon. Also, I am pretty sure OSU students use that arrow bundle in their rioting.

We all dislike Ohio. The state to our south smells, we consider it’s citizens hicks, it screwed up the last election for the Democrats, and OSU is great demon, but a crafty loop hole in their election law provides Barack Obama with a huge advantage in the 2008 election.

From Talking Points Memo:

Ohio has created a window in the election calendar that would allow residents instant gratification — register one minute, vote the next. It’s also given the campaigns of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain a chance to bank thousands of first-time voters during that Sept. 30 to Oct. 6 window.

Weeks prior to November 4th voters in a select few counties in Ohio will be permitted to register and vote at the same time. It is being implemented in counties that urban, college town where Obama enjoys a 2-1 advantage amongst college students. The Obama campaign is expecting to be campaigning exclusively in Ohio during this week, almost like it was another primary.

In addition to helping Obama Mary Jo Kilroy, a Democrat runnign for a competitve seat in Columbus, sees this as the possible deal breaker for her campaign:

“There is no question that the huge effort to register and turn out voters at Ohio State University is going to have a positive impact on our race,” said Brad Bauman, a spokesman for Kilroy.

This sort of creative and helpful election law is surprising in a state where the Secretary of State in 2004 allocated voting machines away from urban areas, or left machines in storage near college campuses. It will be extremely interesting to see what impact this has in how Ohio goes once all the votes are counted.

Ok so someone has to finally touch on the John Edwards affiar…

Over the last couple of days the media have been opining on what a disaster it would have been if John Edwards were nominated given his recent affair.

Why?  The Republican candidate is an admitted adulterer and divorcee.  After a car accident left his first wife (a former model) crippled, he left her to marry Cindy, 17 years his junior with whom he had carried on an extended and (under the Uniform Code of Military Justice) illegal affair.  I almost wish Edwards had been nominated.  I’d love to make this election about sexual ethics, whether the Democratic nominee was Edwards, Bill Clinton or Hugh Hefner.

<–Family Values at work

I know that it is almost too easy to pick on James Dobson, but I can’t help it.  His group has a video on the web encouraging people to pray for rain during Obama’s acceptance speech at INVESCO Field in Denver.  Not only do they ask, but they ask in a light, joking matter: “Would it be so WRONG to pray for rain?”

I don’t mean to offend anyone more religious than I, but I really think praying for rain in order to damage the television broadcast of the Democratic National Convention is… silly.  How about praying for an end to world hunger instead? (although praying for rain will have the same, empty affect–how about getting off your asses and actually doing something instead?  I digress).  I suppose Dobson’s followers really, really believe in their ability to affect the weather by talking to an imaginary entity.  Regardless, it just seems kind of cruel, to pray for an event that negatively affects a specific person.  Perhaps a little, er, un-Christian?

But, as the spokesman explains in the video (viewed on the Atlantic Monthly website), he still believes in a right to life.  Thus, it is “not so wrong” to pray for rain.

Riiiiight.

(On a ever-so-slightly related personal note, my mother has taken to hoping that McCain will fall every time she watches him on TV.  In her version of reality, McCain falling is the only way he will expose himself as old and, therefore, unfit to lead.  She explains that she doesn’t want him to be hurt badly, just to embarrass himself a little, and that based on her own theories he must stumble on a regular basis.  Thus, it is just a matter of time until he does so on national television.  This is equally cruel, although my mother does not see herself as a leader of Christian America.  She is also crazy.  As is James Dobson).

You have to wonder if this man is auditioning  for a segment on DemTV… although these editing skills remind me of my 11th grade spanish video wherein we made guacamole and made a TV advertisement for it… in bad spanish.

Makes you wonder if they rented their camera from the Library of Congress.

I really like how they tack on a Wayne’s World clip at the end. Adding that to this video doesn’t seem ironic or funny, which I think the McCain was going for, instead it just punctuates that their campaign is simply not worthy.

P.S. ABC News went and counted the number of young, white women featured in this video… four. Flashbacks to Harold Ford.

Update: McCain campaign took down the old video and replaced it with a version that is nearly identical except that they cut out the Wayne’s World homage at the end. Copyright infringement or just trying to cover stupidity tracks?

Neither party has this for its voter registration policy. Should they?

This article from the Wall Street Journal provides a good overview of how Democrats and Republicans see voter registration. In short, Democrats largely see it as a priority to get as many people registered as possible to maximize turnout. Republicans have a focus on preventing fraud. The measures they have advocated have generally been intended to prevent fraud in various ways, through stricter monitoring and requirements for voters to display identification. One example of one of these measures is Rogers’ Law, which the Student Issues Committee here at the University of Michigan has taken great issue with.

Voter registration is set to be a huge battleground this election. The Obama campaign has already deployed the lawyers in all 50 states to make preparations for the election. The outcome of the struggle between the two camps on this issue may very well decide this election.

Russian Troops All Up In Georgia’s Business

War has broken out between the small country of Georgia and the reemerging power of Russia in a conflict that may define international relations for years to come. For a synopsis of the players…

• President Bush has taken a back seat to managing this crisis much like his presidency, while his UN Ambassador shouts but does nothing.

• The EU (specifically the French) have taken a very active role in international mediation.

• The Georgian President is proving himself to be a hero to his countrymen.

• Prime Minister Putin has clarified exactly what his role in the Russian government will be.

ON this blog we really only care about two players… John McCain and Barack Obama…

Read the rest of this entry »

If you are a small country wedged underneath your former Russian Overlords… Don’t make the decision to tango with this man. He will destroy you.

“One World; One Dream” is the slogan of the Beijing Olympics… apparently Russia, Georgia, John Edwards, and Kwame Kilpatrick did not get the message that this is supposed to be a peaceful time.

From the New York Times: Russia takes a giant step in their war against Georgia by moving troops into Georgia proper… threatening the capital - Tblisi. Politically, I would like to point out that when the fighting broke out Putin rushed back to Moscow, but George W. Bush has stayed in Beijing to watch the games while Vice President Cheney has taken the lead in this crisis. Cheney has stated that the Russian aggression “must be answered.” Note to self: start building bomb shelter.

Also… Georgia is withdrawing the 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq, which is the 3rd largest contingent.

From HuffPo: A conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski on why Russia’s move is like Stalin’s invasion of Findland or Hitler’s invasion of the Sudeten.

From Talking Points Memo: Imagine this weekend if John Edwards had won the nomination or was selected for the Veep spot… I was once an Edwards supporter but this man betrayed his wife, his family, his supporters, and his party with his reckless actions.

From Slate and HuffPo: Slate’s exhaustive coverage of John Edwards and HuffPo explores why this could hurt McCain more.

From Salon and Politico: why Obama is not doing better than he is in a year where Democrats should be killing McCain.

From Harvard Dems: why the Politico sucks.

From the Detroit Free Press: Kwame might have broken the conditions of his bond agreement again this weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »