Liberal Medium

The other day we asked the rhetorical question, How Bad a Republican Liar do you have to be to get Karl Rove to admit it on Fox News?

Today it turns out that if you’re a big enough Republican liar to get Karl Rove to say you are, you also stand a good chance of getting Mitt Romney to chime in and label what you did a "false accusation" that is "wrong and reprehensible".

Of course the punch line is when he says, "I think people are going to really say ‘What’s the heart and soul of the Republican Party going to be going forward?’"

No, that’s what Republicans are going to say.  Mitt, much as I can see you’re applying for the job, the rest of us find the expectation that the Republican Party may suddenly sprout either a heart or a soul to be a faith based initiative at best.

Thanks to Miscweant, and hat tip to Skippy.

Smash and Grab Capitalism and You
An excellent thumbnail treatment and reflection on how our economy got where it is.

Bob Barr on the Huffington Post?
Well, that’s a surprise, but I enjoyed his comments on Barack and John McSame at least as much as I enjoyed his critic pointing out that he, too, was running against his own record.

Conservatives Turn on McCain / Palin
Hooray, it’s not just Democrats who eat our own young.

Where’s Bush?
He’s probably on vacation again.

George Bush Becomes a Socialist
Oh, that’s where he’s been! 

And now, Liberal Media the movie…

Chris Matthews on the offensive.

The other day on the Charlie Brown for Congress Facebook Page, I posted a response to Neil Pople’s Wall Post:

Politico, one of the nation’s most popular political journals, just listed Charlie’s race as one of the Top Ten in the nation. Check it out!

I can’t quote my response for you verbatim, because the point of this article is that someone took my response down down.  But as background, if you read the Politico article Neil was referring to, you’ll find it links to this other Politico article: In Calif., Brown Distances self from Dems.  (I also wrote about Brown distancing himself from the Democrats — including me — here and here).  

So my response isn’t up on the official Wall anymore, but I can tell you that my response was was something to the effect of:  "Wow, I just got here and you’re distancing yourself from me [i.e., a Democrat] already?…" along with a link to the Politico article about Brown not endorsing Obama.

Is This Not a Legitimate Question?

First of all, I want to make it clear that I believe that all blog owners / managers have the absolute right to delete comments, so I’m not complaining per se that they removed my question.

I do think, however, that in the case of a political candidate running as your elected representative from your political party, you might at least make a token effort to take the guy aside privately and say, "look, John, here’s the thing — I really, really want to get elected and so I’m not supporting Obama because as you know, El Dorado County is full of Republicans".

Being Expedient Is One Thing, But That’s Just Rude

Personally, I don’t think Democrats should act like Republicans by doing any damned thing to get elected, but at least if someone on the campaign had dropped me a note privately telling me that’s what they were doing, I would have thought to myself, "now here’s a candidate who cares cares enough about the support of his Democratic constituents to answer my question", even if I don’t like the answer.

But that’s not what happened. 

What happened, as I said, was they just took the question down.  It’s like I don’t even exist.

And of course, I don’t.  As an El Dorado County Democrat, I’m statistically a non-starter.  This county is so Republican that our Democrats are Republicans.

I wonder if we have someone in our local Green Party who’s a closet liberal Democrat.  I hate to throw my support behind McClintock, since he’s clearly your typical Republican global-warming-denying nutjob, but there doesn’t appear to be a Democrat in the Fourth District to support.

A fascinating story, starring Democratic hero, Joe Biden.

I am a former McCain Democrat.

What’s a McCain Democrat?  Well, in my case it’s a guy who’s really a liberal Democrat who registered as a Republican in 2000 so I could vote for McCain against George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican Primary.  Back in 2000, McCain had yet to become as bad as Bush.  This is why he lost, according to the principle that the Republican Party will always find the worst guy they have running and nominate him.

It’s Official

I just put my new voter registration form in the mail today to the Secretary of State, with "Choice of Party" box clearly marked:  Democratic. 

So I’m very happy to report that as soon as the Secretary of State can change things around — which should definitely be in plenty of time for the November 4th Election — I’ll be a registered Democrat again, as God intended.

Hooray.

I’m Calling on Charlie Brown to Join Me in Endorsing Democratic Nominee, Barack Obama

Living in El Dorado County is embarrassing.  For years we had our own crooked Republican, John Doolittle, as our Congressional Representative in the Fourth District.  Finally, Doolittle was forced to retire in early 2008, thanks in large part to an FBI investigation into the alleged fundraising irregularities and connections he and his wife had to Jack Abramoff, resulting in Doolittle’s home being raided in April of 2007.

Needless to say I was very excited — eight minutes ago when I got political — to discover that Charlie Brown had almost defeated Doolittle in 2006, and that he was leading (or in a statistical dead heat, at least) against Republican Tom McClintock in 2008.

So I was disappointed when I later found out that Charlie Brown had yet to endorse Obama for President, choosing a sort of stealth strategy of not letting too much Democrat-ness show.

Indeed, I notice Charlie Brown’s Energy Policy follows the Republican usage when discussing the Democratic Party:

"Ultimately, energy independence is not a Democrat [sic] or Republican issue – it’s an American issue." 

And don’t think Brown’s wishy-washiness is lost on his opponent.  McClintock zeroed in on Brown’s weak allegiance to his Democrat party colleagues in a press release, Is Brown a Democrat, Republican, or _______________ (Fill in the Blank).

“We presume since Charlie is running as the Democratic Party’s candidate for Congress, he would support that party’s presidential nominee,” said McClintock spokesman Bill George. “But he won’t give an answer to the question of whom he supports for President. Charlie do you support your own Democratic Party’s Barack Obama or Republican John McCain? Charlie appears to be endorsing BOTH candidates. Too bad he can only vote for one,” George said.

"Democratic" Party — see, Charlie, it’s not hard to say.  Bill George gets it right.

Shut Up, John, He’s Winning

Given that Brown was (almost) whooping Doolittle since before I even started paying attention, and given that during this time I was a registered Republican as a holdover from my days voting in primaries against Bush, perhaps I’m being overly fastidious here, but it would be really nice to see Charlie Brown endorse Obama. 

I mean, come on, Charlie, if a disorganized McCain Democrat like me can declare himself as a real Democrat-ic party voter in time for this election, maybe it’s time for you to take a stand and endorse Obama.  It’s not hard.   Just say "I endorse Barack Obama" out loud, somewhere where someone can hear you.

You can do it here if you want.  If you do I’ll put a big Charlie Brown sign in my yard.  This isn’t the greatest venue, because no one will notice it here, but if you do it somewhere like on KCRA and drop me a note, I’ll still put a big sign in my yard.

I’ll even mow the lawn first.

I love these McCain versus McCain videos.

Although some of this video is a little bit of McCain versus reality.

When Turd Blossom says you fail the 100% truth test, could it be that you’ve been lying up a blue streak? 

But even more telling than Karl Rove admitting this, even CNN carried the story.

We may be getting somewhere here.

I would like to learn more about Charlie Brown’s campaign.  Given my belief that generally you should fire a Republican if you can, I’d love to publish more about it.  If you’re a campaign official and would like to provide some campaign material for the blog, that’d be great.

On the one hand, I’m very excited that a Democratic candidate is as close to taking the fourth district seat (where I live) as Brown is.  I’m tired of living in a red county — it’s embarrassing! :)  According to Politico.com’s article on Hot 2008 races, Brown’s race against McClintock is one to watch.  That’s very cool — it makes me want to volunteer.

One area of concern I have though is what I read in the more detailed Poltico article about Brown’s campaign.

Ask Charlie Brown if he supports Barack Obama, and he’ll tell you he hasn’t endorsed anyone yet. Ask him whether he plans to vote for Obama in November, and he says that “a lot’s going to happen” between now and then. Ask him if he’d want Obama to campaign for him, and he says, “I’d like to see both McCain and Obama come to the district and have a debate out here rather than ignore California.” 

So, OK, I give up, are you a Democrat or what, Charlie?  Politico.com goes on:

Running in a district where Republicans enjoy a double-digit advantage in party registration, Brown is following the playbook the Democrats used to win special elections in heavily Republican districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi earlier this year: Keep the D on the down-low.

My emphasis.  OK, granted I’m the wrong guy to ask about political strategy.  This blog is less than a week old and suddenly I’m political, having not campaigned for a candidate for 32 years (yes, I am that old).  I’m such a newbie to the Political blogging scene that I had to look up who was running in my own district just a couple of days ago.

So I’m no James Carville, and my reading of Machiavelli is rusty at best.  But here’s the thing.  I’m a Democrat, and my purpose in looking it up was I wanted to get behind and support a Democrat. 

I’m sure in my ignorance that I lack a certain political pragmatism, but it seems to me we already have a bunch of guys who’ll say anything to get elected.

They’re called Republicans.

Hat Tip to AmericaBlog for this one.