McCain’s Pre-Debate Press Strategy

It has been reported that Team McCain has shut down editorial press access to Sarah Palin. Most of the response from the MSM and the blogs have been negative and has revolved around current and potential conflict issues between the press and John McCain. The McCain campaign is fully aware of the risk and I think they have made a wise choice to limit access to Palin over the next three days.

McCain is going to be on center stage for his political life on Friday. If he does not perform well, this campaign is over. His campaign can not afford to be distracted by good or negative news about his running mate. Palin has been used effectively to rally the Republican base and to shift attention from Obama. This blackout is not designed to distance Palin from the media; it is a calculated move to focus attention on McCain between now and the debate.

Why else would the McCain campaign finally schedule a press conference after 40 days of silence?

From now until Friday’s debate, McCain and Obama will be more accessible to the press than they have been in weeks.

Obama and Democratic Racism

Last week, Joe Gandleman wrote an interesting piece regarding the AP – Yahoo News poll taken last week that addressed racial discrimination on the part of some Democrats in their decision whether to vote for Barack Obama. My question to the pundits is the following: did you really need a poll to tell you that some white Democrats are still racists?

Perhaps these politically knowledgeable people did not take an American history course. For those historically challenged people, here is the story of Democrats and race in an abbreviated version. It was the Democratic Party in the South that blocked voting rights for African-Americans for 80 years through Jim Crow laws. Most African-Americans were Republicans through the end of the 1950s, and the first post-reconstruction United States Senator was a Republican by the name of Ed Brooke from Massachusetts.

This excerpt is from Frances Rice: “During the civil rights era of the 1960’s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court which resulted in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision ending school segregation.”

In fact, the crown legislative jewel of suffrage for African-Americans, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was a political ploy of Lyndon Johnson to make sure that black folks would vote for the Democratic Party for the next two hundred years. I will not repeat the infamous quote of President Johnson; however, I will simply note that the “N-word” was used.

It is not a surprise to me that there is still some anxiety by some white Democrats to vote for Barack Obama. My surprise is that this anxiety is a shock to people who should know better. We are only 40 years removed from the assassinations of Dr. King and Malcolm X. Only thirty years removed from George Jefferson, Benson, and Huggy Bear, the television caricatures of African-American males. We are a nation that has only elected three African-American United States Senators and three Governors since 1870.

This is not a question about Barack Obama, his candidacy and his potential for leadership. It is my belief that even Colin Powell would face similar questions about race and voting. However, at the end of the day, these voters will make a decision between comfort and ability. The comfort of a white John McCain in spite of his policy flaws vs. the ability of Barack Obama, even though he is an African-American.

Comfort vs. ability…a decision that may be decided in black or white.

Earmarks = Representative Democracy

What is wrong with earmarks? If Senator Biden is correct that paying taxes is patriotic, what are we paying taxes for? My guess is that Biden would answer that government allows us to provide services for citizens that we as individuals can not do for ourselves.

We pay taxes to fulfill the promise of the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. For those of you who have not had the time or need to read it recently, here it is for your information:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We may, and do, disagree on the types of programs and the extent of revenue needed to pay for the government to provide these services but the general point is quite clear: the people coming together to take their aggregate resources to build a “more perfect Union.”.

Most of us would agree (liberals and conservatives) that the national government should not keep tax revenue to use as it sees fit. So how do we get the tax revenue back to our states and localities after we send it to Washington, D.C.? We elect our representatives to go to the House and Senate to bring back our money from the national government. These earmarks pay for needed expenses such as road and school construction, funding for our local first responders (police and fire departments), and provides funding incentives for small business development through enterprise zones.

Our money should come back home to benefit the people who sent it to Washington, D.C. The question should be whether the revenue was used for the public good or private gain? Was the money earmarked to be spent back home used wisely? If the main stream media wants to provide a public service during this election cycle they should focus their energy and resources on finding out who were good stewards of earmarks and who misused or was inept in their use.

Legislators who have gotten resources for their states have been part of the representative democratic process since the beginning of the Republic. Despite comments by John McCain to the contrary, his running mate Governor Palin has used earmarks while she was Mayor and Governor. Stop wasting my time telling me who did or did not use earmarks. I want to know who was an effective manager of our resources and who has squandered them.

Hollywood Binge, Main Street Cringe

Barack Obama went to Hollywood last weekend and raised $11 million dollars. This should not be a surprise because every four years the entertainment community ponies up big dollars for the nominee of the Democrat party. In 2004, Barbra Streisand headlined a fundraiser for John Kerry, and Kerry was as far away from Hollywood glitz as you can get.

John McCain gave the typical Republican response of separating Hollywood from the rest of the continental United States. Although I am a registered Republican, I have to ask McCain a very simple question: From where did all of these “Hollywood elites” come? For the most part, these people come from small town USA.

The biographical histories of the people we see on our television sets, in concert halls, and in the movies embody Republican ideals and they come from small towns and neighborhoods all across our country. Don’t we try to sell the idea of individual hard work, sacrifice and perseverance to make a success of our lives? Take the story of Barbra Streisand, the favorite target of conservatives. Ms. Streisand grew up in Brooklyn and was the daughter of a camp counselor father and a secretary mother, hardly what one would call an elite upbringing. Her father died when she was fifteen, and her mother told her not to pursue a singing career. After high school, Streisand worked in odd venues in New York and in Winnipeg for two years before catching her first break.

The Hollywood connection from Youngstown, OH, where John McCain was speaking on Tuesday, includes the Warner Brothers, “Harry Potter” director Chris Columbus, singer Maureen McGovern, and actor Ed O’Neill. Ed O’Neill’s career included stints as a high school teacher, a bus boy, and a steelworker. His hard work to achieve success is an example of thousands of people who work in the entertainment industry. O’Neill, like Streisand and Oprah Winfrey (Kosciusko, MS), donate significant resources to their hometowns through their foundations. We welcome them home by giving them the key to the city or naming them honorary marshals of the Fourth of July parade.

These small town success stories are real-life expressions of the American Dream. I thought we are supposed to celebrate hard work and success. Oh, I get it…only if the “elite” gives money to your campaign.