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.

From TPM…

Here, courtesy of the new NBC/WSJ poll’s internals, are some key numbers to chew over as we head into tonight’s debate:

• Thirty-four percent feel more reassured by Obama’s approach to dealing with the current financial crisis, versus 25% for McCain. Meanwhile, only 29% feel less reassured by Obama, versus 38% for McCain.
• Obama-Biden slaughtered McCain-Palin in the last two debates, with 50% saying Obama-Biden did a better job, versus only 29% for McCain-Palin.
• Obama’s advantage on the economy in general is formidable: 46% say Obama would be better on that issue, versus 29% for McCain.
• Obama holds a sizable edge on other domestic issues polled here, including the mortgage and housing crisis, and energy and the cost of gas.

The upshot: As many others have observed, the pressure on McCain tonight to do something to jolt the electorate into seeing this race in a new way is now enormous. The race’s dynamic is hardening by the hour: The public has gotten a close look at the candidates in debate settings, and feel more reassured by Obama-Biden on the issues that matter to them.

The problem for McCain is that he needs to go hard-negative in a dramatic, confrontational, attention-grabbing fashion, most likely on Obama’s associations, which of course risks looking desperate and allows Obama to remind voters that McCain’s own senior adviser said the McCain team doesn’t want to talk about the economic crisis.

McCain campaign will try to turn the page on the economy, fearing it is the only way they can win the election…

If scandal is how the McCain campaign wants to play it, I think Obama can counter McCain’s non-relevant claims, with something that effects every US citizen…the economy.

Here is a 13 minute documentary on the truth about “Keating Economics: the Making of a Financial Crisis” this is a documentary that shows why John McCain’s failed philosophy and poor judgment are a recipe for deepening the economic crisis. This is not a smear campaign, this is simply the truth about something that happened a long time ago, but has a direct affect on our current economy crisis.

This is a shocking documentary, I don’t even know how to respond to it. But, if anyone was questioning McCain’s ability to save our economy, I think this documentary says it all.

Get the most from the debate and your vote. Know how the candidates feel about the issues that are important to you.

Here are a few sites and tools that I have found to be both honest and informative…

Here is a great widget that allows you to compare Obama and McCain policies, by the issues that are most important to you.

http://politicsanew.com/2008/09/26/interactive-widget-comapring-candidates-on-issues/

I love, love, love, expert voter.  Because, this site allows you to compare the candidates on the issues, but the answers are all in video responses by the candidates.  It’s kinda like getting the news just on the issues that are important to you…

http://www.expertvoter.org/

Another great one is – Vote by the Issue Quiz…

This quiz features some of the issues that have gained traction this campaign season. Your job is to simply select positions that correspond with your own views.

The responses are quotes from all presidential candidates that have been collected from the campaigns or
culled from public speeches, interviews or statements.

Another informative site is…

OnTheIssues.org

How are the Obama and McCain ticket different?On Taxes – http://stephencrosehome.blogspot.com/2008/10/barack-obamas-seven-october-surprises.html 

I hope you find some of this information helpful.  Let me know what you think in comments.

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:

Ifill’s Book Is No Secret.

Oprah: Sarah Palin Can Come On My Show After The Election

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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.”

Latimer and Kilston stated that they didn’t “support the media jumping on the personal aspects of her [Palin’s] story,” but noted that Palin had spent a lot of time “talking about her role as a Mom.” Latimer, who described her own mother as a working-class feminist — who as a social worker often lived “paycheck to paycheck” — had an issue with Palin’s presentation of herself as the quintessential working mom. She admitted that it had touched a nerve. “I don’t like the Republican party co-opting family values and the working-class experience,” she said.

A substantial number of women writing in discussed their lives. Many made a point of conveying that they come “from small towns like Palin,” but differentiate themselves saying, “These are not my values.”

What started with an appeal to forty people comprised of friends, family, and colleagues has now grown to 140,000 responses. When I contacted Latimer by phone on September 15, she gave me the new numbers. Due to the overwhelming amount of replies, they have yet to compile “good stats,” however she did see several narratives taking shape. In terms of age, 50% seem to be from women in their late twenties and early thirties, with the remainder being older. Latimer pointed to “a huge number of women who introduce themselves as grandmothers worried about their children and grandchildren, and their possible future in a McCain-Palin administration. Their fears don’t simply extend to women’s rights, but to Palin’s stance on environmental issues (a big issue for the older women), education, and the economy.”

The themes that prevailed were concerns about Palin’s politics, experience, qualifications, and far-right ideology. Hillary-identified supporters who were “sort of on the fence” expressed both “anger and feeling insulted.” Contributors were encouraged to include their ages and location. E-mails came from small towns as well as cities, belying the “red state feminist” v. “blue state feminist” theory that has recently be getting play.

As reactions continue to pour in, Quinn and Latimer are envisioning how the site might evolve. They agreed in tandem, “You’ve got to get beyond identity politics. We’d love to see a women in the White House representing the interests of women across the United States.” Quinn added as an afterthought, “We’re trying to get away from fundamentalism, in any guise.”

http://technorati.com/claim/82mgjkcnv8

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 applaud the McCain campaign…Announcing Palin the day after the Democratic Convention was pure genius, and keeping the media at bay by using Palin as a diversion is brilliant.   This campaign has successfully changed the election from being about the serious issues facing our country, to a popularity contest.  And sadly, the Obama campaign is failing to redirect the media off of Palin, and back to the issues (admittedly not an easy task).

I think Arianna Huffington has explained it best…

Sarah Palin a Trojan Horse?

Palin, and the circus she’s brought to town, are a bountiful collection of small lies deliberately designed to distract the country from one big truth: the havoc that George Bush and the Republican Party have wrought, and that John McCain is committed to continuing. Every second of this campaign not spent talking about the Republican Party’s record, and John McCain’s role in that record, is a victory for John McCain. Her critics like to say that Palin hasn’t accomplished anything. I disagree: in the space of ten days she’s succeeded in distracting the country from the horrific Bush record — and McCain’s complicity in it. My friends, that’s accomplishment we can believe in.

From On The Wall…

Arianna Huffington hits the moose’s — sorry, bull’s eye when she declares that Palin is a smoke screen, a Wizard-of-Oz display set up to divert attention from the real issues caused by eight years of disastrous, destructive, crazy policies.

OK.  This is going out to all of you in the main stream media (MSM).

YOU ARE BEING PLAYED!

YOU ARE BEING MANIPULATED BY THE MCCAIN CAMPAIGN!

PLEASE, WAKE-UP!

Please, don’t let this Palin Trojan Horse take you away from your obligation to educate the voting public about the ISSUES. Please, put your ratings aside, and do right by the American people.  If YOU do not get this election back on-topic, YOU do a disservice to all the people of this country.  There is very little time left, before the voting public will need to make a critical decision about the future of this country.  YOU have a responsibility to those people, do right by them.

Also See:Mary Mitchell – Palin Should Be A Laughingstock To All Feminists.

How do you feel about the way the media has been covering the election lately?  Are they giving enough attention to the issues?  Let me know what you think in comments.

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…

• Kay B. Day
• Sarah Granger
• Tami Winfrey Harris
• Pamela Lyn
• Patricia Murphy
• PunditMom
• SJ Reidhead
• Suzanne Reisman
• Janet Shan
• Dana Tuszke
• Tracy Viselli
• Jill Miller Zimon

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…

• Penny Ronning – The NonSilent Majority
• Deb Della Piana – Turn Left Hypocrisy.com
• Emily D – Political Artwork
• Marcia G. Yerman – The Huffington Post
• Anita S. Lane -Unconventional Politics
• Card-carrying Buddhist – No Blood For Hubris
• Just Wondering – Vim and Vinegar
• Nancy Hill – Build Peace
• Carol Gee – South by Southwest
• Zaftig Redhead -The Zaftig Redhead
• Doris Anne Bearlieu – Life’s Ultimate Test
• Emily Kronenberger -  New Wave Grrrl

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.

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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.

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.

From The Swamp…

At the start of the Democratic convention, a new national poll portrays a dead heat between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.

Both draw the support of 47 percent of those surveyed by CNN and Opinion Research Corp., the first survey reported since Obama tapped his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, over the weekend.

This represents a slip for Obama since the last CNN Opinion Research poll last month – when Obama pulled 51 percent to McCain’s 44 percent. It mirrors what other polls are finding.

“This looks like a step backward for Obama,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland says. “Even last week, just before his choice of Joe Biden as his running mate became known, most polls tended to show Obama with a single-digit advantage over McCain.”

Part of Obama’s problem may lie with Hillary Clinton supporters. Sixty-six percent of Clinton supporters, registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee, are now backing Obama. That’s down from 75 percent in the end of June, CNN reports. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they’ll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

From USA Today…

Fewer than half of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters in the presidential primaries say they definitely will vote for Barack Obama in November, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, evidence of a formidable challenge facing Democrats as their national convention opens here today.
In the survey, taken Thursday through Saturday, 47% of Clinton supporters say they are solidly behind Obama, and 23% say they support him but may change their minds before the election.
Thirty percent say they will vote for Republican John McCain, someone else or no one at all.

From Campaign Diaries…

As the reality that Hillary will not be the VP sets in, some Clinton supporters who were on board might temporarily withhold their support from Obama. That might explain why CNN’s poll (taken after Biden’s pick was announced) finds such a drop in the support Obama receives. How temporary those tensions are will be crucial to determining the results of the November election – and things appear to be getting worse.

The convention was meant to showcase the reconciliation between Obama and the Clintons. But Politico now reports that the negotiations between the Obama and Clinton worlds over the past few days has taken a bad turn. Associates of the two camps are voicing bitter complaints about the other’s sense of entitlement.

From Daily Kos – An Open Letter To The Democratic National Convention…

“Today” is what matters for action, “tomorrow” is endless possibilities. “Yesterday” is simply done.

Nothing we do can change the past.

EVERYTHING we do can change the future…for good or ill! And that is an incredible responsibility placed upon us both individually and collectively by whatever higher power you may believe in.

Today the eyes of the nation are on you and the convention. We have been fed this image of hysteria and venom filled riots on the convention floor and throughout the streets of Denver by the media. We wait for the chaos with all the eagerness of a NASCAR fan seated on his couch awaiting a wreck. DENY US THIS PERVERSE PLEASURE!

Take a moment before the start of this historic event and ask yourself, “What do I want my Grandchildren to be taught happened here?” And then begin the first day of the Democratic Convention and the rest of your life.

Also See:

Huffington Post – What Obama Needs To Do In Denver
The Moderate Voice
TPM Election Central

Let me know what you think about this in comments.