Tonight’s Town Hall Debate, Latest Polls, and the Differences Between Obama and McCain.
This post will take a look at what to expect at tonight’s debate, the latest attempt to turn the election away from the economy, and links that can help you find out what candidate agrees with you on the issues.
First they were upset because Sarah Palin hasn’t been invited to appear on Oprah Winfrey’s program, even though the latter has openly stated that she supports Barack Obama. Several Republican women’s groups have asked viewers to boycott Oprah’s show.
Now they’re upset because PBS’ Gwen Ifill, who is scheduled to release a book in January which analyzes the new era of black political leaders (obviously including a section on Barack Obama), is moderating tomorrow night’s Vice Presidential debate.
They want Sarah Palin to appear on Oprah. They don’t want Sarah Palin to be questioned by Gwen Ifill.
Hmm!
Let me see, the neocons are trying to discredit both Oprah Winfrey and Gwen Ifill.
What do Oprah and Gwen Ifill have in common?
?????
Still Thinking …….
Still Thinking …….
Ah yes, they’re both members of that evil, elitist, left wing media.
Well, if Sarah Palin is worried about Gwen Ifill being biased she can always ask John McCain to sit in the audience. That way he’ll be able to run up on the stage and answer any questions that he feels are too hard for Sarah to handle. After all, Sarah has been listening to Joe Biden since she was in the second grade and seems to be in awe of his experience.
This is getting to be too ridiculous
Related posts:
Heather and Eric from Care2 rant and rave about this week in politics…
Here is a guest post from community member Marcia G. Yerman, who also blogs at The Huffington Post.
[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]
I knew something was up when I turned on my computer and saw a number of e-mails that had similar subject titles. The two standouts were, “Please Respond and Forward” and “Women Say No to Palin.”
As I opened them, each featured the same text in the body, with different introductory clauses.
“We must do something;” ”Please sign this;” “I am outraged by McCain’s choice.”
I was beginning to get the concept.
The letter began:
“Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,
We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement
of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party.”
The note raised the issues of Palin’s stated beliefs and record, and questioned her preparedness to
“become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.” It featured a sentence that clearly
articulated, “We are not against Sarah Palin as a women or a mother,” making a point to take theconversation out of the personal realm, where much of the discourse has recently been.
It went on to say:
“First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold
our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.
Therefore, we invite you to reply here with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.”
The site, Women Against Sarah Palin, is housed at blogspot. It has a clean design and features quotes from “American feminist role models,” photos, information and activist links (including a “Register to Vote!”), in addition to the blog archive. One of the letters is from Margaret Sanger’s 30-year old great great niece.
I spoke to Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston, the originators of the letter. Both women hail from California, and are associate editors at Modern Painters magazine. They were taking their daily work break, with a walk around Chelsea, discussing the choice of Palin as Vice-President. Latimer came up with the idea that they “had to do something.” She clearly emphasized that they were “not in the habit of calling out women.” However, they did feel that they needed “to come out as women because she [Palin} doesn’t represent our interests.” Kilston said, “McCain is the one to blame,” and stressed that that she opposed Palin on the basis of “her lack of experience and her positions.”
Memo to the Media: Stop Covering Manufactured Controversies, Start Covering Issues.
It’s infuriating that the McCain campaign is continuing to claim statements they make are true, when many have been confirmed to be untrue. Deception to change your perception, is what the Republicans seem to do best, and it’s only proven to win them elections. So why would they stop? Even more troubling, is that this behavior has become an “acceptable” practice in politics. Not necessarily acceptable to you and me, but acceptable to the media, which in turn leads to the deception of the American people.
From Washington Post…
“We have created a system where there is not a lot of shame in stretching the truth,” said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
However, I’m discovering that the “real” truth isn’t in debunking the lies, it’s in seeing through the lies.
See…We have all fallen for a classic bait-and-switch here. Clearly, if the media continues to chase down facts (that are purposefully misleading), then the McCain campaign successfully diverts attention away from the “real” issues. Which is EXACTLY what they want to do (what they are doing).
Why is it that the only people who can see through this smoke-screen are comedians? Or, is it just that they are the only ones who are “allowed” to speak the truth? Isn’t that kinda backwards?
I am happy to announce that this weekend, our Political Voices of Women Community has surpassed 100 members. Our growing community is a mix of political opinions and affiliations, from liberal to conservative, and everything in between. [see community here]
The Political Voices of Women (main site), began as a list of 100 women political bloggers. In less than a year, that list has grown to well over 500 (see list here). We now have a growing community, and have recently added twelve contributing editors…
In addition to our regular contributors, we also have many guest bloggers each week. The Political Voices of Women is becoming a powerhouse of women political bloggers.
Our community members can contribute posts to our blog, and often these posts are used as guest posts on the primary site. Here are some of our most active community members…
Members can comment on posts, start and participate in forum discussions, promote their personal blogs, upload videos and images, make new friends, and more. Our main site is open to both men and women, but our community is strictly women…I think the all women aspect of our community promotes “real” and “honest” discussion, without the need for visoral and personal attacks. Even though we often disagree within the community, we also want to promote a safe place for these disagreements, so respectful disagreement is what you will find here.
If you are a woman who blogs (or would like to blog) about politics, I hope you will consider joining our community.
Here is a clip of Erin Kotecki Vest being interviewed live on CNN. GREAT JOB ERIN!
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Erin Kotecki Vest from BlogHer, did this interview earlier today, with Valerie Jarrett of the Obama campaign…
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After watching the full evening of the Democratic National Convention on C-SPAN I decided to pop over to CNN just to see what they were saying. I was amazed. I couldn’t believe that we had watched the same event.
The CNN pundits repeatedly harped on the fact that there wasn’t “enough red meat” and how the Democrats didn’t attack Bush/McCain enough.
Now lets think about this for a moment.
Here we had the opening night of a convention to nominate a candidate who promises to bring together people across party lines, a candidate who wants to prove that we are not a nation of “red states” and “blue states” and the media pundits want the opening night’s speakers to come out like attack dogs. Duh!
Apparently while millions of Americans are desperate for political change, the media wants to see the same old political games. In fact, some of them are practically salivating and dreaming of a repeat of 1980.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that the next few nights will provide the media and us with enough Bush/Cheney/McCain bashing to get our fires going. In fact, I’m hoping that someone is going to pull another Ann Richards’ speech out of the bag. And, I’m sure that more than one disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporter will be caught on camera with their “Hillary 2012″ tee.
But Monday night it was refreshing to watch an evening of ordinary people taking the stage and speaking about their encounters with Barack Obama. It was nice to see the faces of the people that the party has shied away from like former President Jimmy Carter and Senator John Kerry (D-MA).
The first night of the Democratic National Convention was for the “true believers”, “the new believers” and “the I want to be a believer(s)”.
Just seeing Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reminded us that bridges are falling down in America. Watching the children of Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduce their mom reminded us of how important this election is to young people. Watching former President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Jimmy Carter interview Hurricane Katrina survivors reminded us that we MUST care about the most vulnerable in our society. Seeing Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) reminded so many of us of just why we’re Democrats. ( Yes, I did shed a tear when he walked on stage.)
And, Michelle Obama… she reminded us that Dr. King’s Dream is inching a little closer and maybe, just maybe the world will begin to view African American women in a light other than some of the popular stereotypes.
So I highly recommend that if you’re planning on watching the remaining nights of the convention, watch C-SPAN first and decide what the speeches mean to you. Save the pundits for later. I’m glad that I did.
The Democratic National Convention begins today, and the latest poll numbers are being spun by the media as proof that Hillary supporters are not on board with Obama. How much weight do you think these polls really carry?
From where I sit…The media (not Hillary or Hillary supporters) are responsible for any real or imaginary riff in the Democratic Party. In a nutshell, it goes like this – Build her up, knock her down, and then suggest she bail-out before all the votes are counted. The trouble is, media manipulation does affect actual outcomes, and the Republicans are champions at media manipulation. A perfect example is the Bush administration, and how they learned very quickly, that the media couldn’t change lies into truth, but they could change lies into the perception of truth. Unfortunately for democracy, perception trumps truth every time. So, not surprisingly, the McCain campaign is using all the latest media hoopla to their benefit. Will it work? What do you think? Here is the latest from around the web.
Answering the question, Where are all the women political bloggers? Well, if you are here, you have found them. We are dedicated to giving women bloggers a voice, starting with our list of over 500 women political bloggers. And now, in addition to guest bloggers, and our growing community, we will also feature regular contributing editors.
The Political Voices of Women