Obama / Ayers connection
 

The Obama - Ayers connection has finally made it outside of talk radio and FOX news. For those of you who don't know Bill Ayers (a non-repentant domestic terrorist), this report from CNN's Anderson Cooper will provide some background.



As with Obama's relationships with Rev. Wright, the relationship and ties to other radical persons/ideologies either demonstrates the political nature of Obama who associates for political benefit and later disavows when these associations are challenged, or he is completely clueless.

I'm very interested to read your opinions regarding this story and how you believe his associations may color his decision making as POTUS.

Seems like a nonissue to me. Obama has denounced Ayers' actions, and it isn't like there is a lot of political capital to be gained by being an acquaintance of someone who hasn't done anything relevant for decades.

This is the kind of stuff that comes up when certain folk need a distraction from low poll numbers.
I think that certain candidates shouldn't throw stones from glass houses, but that's a different thread.

I think everyone is associated with people who aren't always the best of people sometimes. This is no different than McCain being linked to Keating and a group in the Iran-Contra era.

To me this is nothing more than a Rove tactic designed to take issues off of the table and try to rebound in the polls.

Besides, this didn't stick when Hillary Clinton brought it up in the primaries.

I think it's becoming pretty clear that there is only one Karl Rove, and that Republican attempts to replicate his skills are falling woefully short.

more muckraking. is this seriously the level you have to go to to choose the next "leader of the free world"?

Seriously. It's a non-issue. Obama is not friends with this gentleman; serving on a board together several years ago does not constitute any kind of relationship beyond a brief working one that obviously no longer exists.

The Ayers non-issue has already been checked out. It was dead, with the exception of neocon talk radio hosts. As a last ditch effort, the man who said he would run a clean campaign is calling his opponent a terrorist.

They don't have to, but the McCain/Palin camapaign will go even lower:

While talking about Obama, a Palin supporter yelled out "kill him" She kept going like nothing ever happened.

McCain has shown that he'll say or do anything to get elected. He deserves no respect.

otto...or perhaps to most objective observers, it is just a "smear and fear" campaign.

The most ignorant and frightening fall-out of this kind of campaign:

Hmm, how many degrees of separation does McCain have from Joe Vogler? A guy who said "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions” and "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won't be buried under their damn flag.” He wanted Alaska to separate from the US, even formed a group trying make that happen. So Let's see... McCain's VP pick is Sarah Palin who's married to "The First Dude" who was, until 2002, a member of the separatist group Vogler started. And the good governor made a welcome video for that group earlier this year.

So is that one degree or two degrees? And Obama's repeatedly denounced Ayers several decades old activity. And I have yet to hear McCain, Palin or "The First Dude" denounce any of Vogler's anti-American comments.
-----Added 7/10/2008 at 12 : 29 : 06-----
I didn't hear/know that, man these people scare the crap out of me.

But let me get this straight. Ayers looked around in the 1960's and decided maybe the only viable action against something he disagreed with was violence. Now decades later people who disagree with what he did think the viable action is violence? Maybe it's just me but my irony meter just blew a fuse.

I'm not surprised that there would be folks at McCain rallies who would say shit like that. Right now, you almost have to be a bit kooky to be really enthusiastic about the McCain/Palin campaign.

I'm not saying you have to be kooky to support them, just to be really enthusiastic about them.

It looks like focusing on the positive charactaristics of their candidate(s) is not working so the strategy now is:

- Wear larger flag pins
- Smear and cast doubt on Obama

I wish Obama would take the high road instead of following them into the gutter. I guess his advisors are telling him to fight back in kind.

To his defense, Obama hasn't really attacked McCain as hard as he could. However, he's in a weird predicament. When the Bush campaign started smearing Kerry, he wanted to take the high road and he waited too long to attack back which gave him a big hit in the polls.. so the Obama camp is trying to walk a fine line with this one.

This election however, I don't think a smear campaign will work when there are so many undecideds, and it's been proven time and time again that undecideds do not like smear campaigns; they are interested in the issues. If Obama performs well in the second debate.. he should remain steady in the polls and you'll see even more smear from the McCain camp.. and I feel if he throws more mud on the wall.. less of it will stick and he'll be doomed. People are generally getting tired of this shit.

I have to agree.. I saw something the other day where John Voight was talking about how enthusiastic and excited he was about Palin and McCain and couldn't wait to introduce California to her. He just looked like the old drunk crazy actor.

The McCain/Palin crowds are turning on anyone who they perceive as the "enemy"...including the press:

This seems to me to be the natural course of things anymore. IMO, this started with Bush and the neo-cons. Bush would do/say something stupid and the press would report "The President toady did/said something stupid." And the neo-con and Bush via proxy would scream bias. See it's not that what Palin says is completely nonsensical it's that the damned mainstream media keeps telling people what she said.

I watch this dog and pony show and think you have to really like what that horse is saying to be willing to eat what comes out the other end.

this just feels worse than the Bush crap though.. this feels like a fucking cult.

I'm seriously scared for America at this point. I even told my wife we're moving to Canada is McCain is elected.

I'm thinking that eventually a reporter is going to get attacked at their rallies.

olbermann had the PERFECT response to this last night:

my new hero

God, I love Keith Olbermann.

While I always take Olbermann with a grain of salt.. (he is the liberal equivalent of Beck) I love his sarcastic style.

hrmm maybe we could have a head to head between Beck and Olbermann?

yea, olbermann is just far more entertaining to me than beck..i think bc he actually seems to do research and doesn't just jump to the base level conclusion. that stuff drives me insane.

still, i think this whole issue is a nonsequitor to take the focus off the economy, the issues, and mccain's slipping numbers..

www.intrade.com correctly predicted all 50 states in 2004 and has been an amazingly unbiased indicator.


www.election-projection.net and pollster.com are showing mccain as flailing in the wind as well.


Last friday, there was an article about how mccain was going to go hardcore on the attack ads and try to take the focus off the issues...today and yesterday, we got this..then obama's camp came back with a LOT of keating 5 information...

i'd say mccain and palin both have too many skeletons in the closet to start dragging this stuff too deep in the mud like that...i just ohpe the dems know what to do with the info.

I want to have Olbermanns baby. It worked in Junior dammit!

Oh, and I recommend Electoral-vote.com: President, Senate, House Updated Daily for projections as well. Things are not looking good for McCain...

I'm amazed that information about the Keating 5 hasn't come out widely prior to this. When McCain announced his candidacy, my dad told me to look it up. But I'm glad it's out there; I think it's really important that voters know about this piece of McCain's history, and I hope more information about it continues to come out.

i wonder if this thread has gone the way the op intended it to.

I don't hold keating 5 against McCain.

Two things I can say about McCain:
1) He comes from a long line of military in his family, including himself. He's not a chickenhawk and actually believes that military might can make right.
I don't agree with him philosophically, but I can respect his position as genuine.

2) It's fairly clear that he was deeply affected by the Keating 5 situation. Regardless of how much involvement you want to put on his shoulders, he either learned his lesson or was simply caught up as a young senator by political forces outside his control.
Either way, his record demonstrates to me that he would prefer a system that doesn't allow political corruption and has made moves to limit corruption of public officials.

Now, what the incident does show us is this fundamental belief he holds about deregulation of markets which is a position I do not agree with on a fundamental level. It doesn't speak anything of his character to me, however. People can believe that war can solve certain issues and also that free markets are more beneficial to our economy and our disgreements over those two issues shouldn't say anything about either of our moral character.

smooth...I think the issue here is the hypocrisy of McCain/Palin (and surrogates) assigning "guilt by association" to Obama (re: Ayers, Rezko, Wright) when their respective pasts have equally questionable associations.

redbaiting.
how charming.
it was just a matter of time.

it's be nice were this a campaign that enabled folk to discuss policy and ideological differences, but it's obvious that the republicans think they'll loose in such a context.
some republican strategists think they'll loose anyway, barring some Colossal Outside Event
US election: John McCain struggles to keep afloat in final weeks of campaign | World news | guardian.co.uk

regardless, it's clear that the right is going to keep on trying to turn this into a rovian affair.
the only good thing about that is that if things go as it looks like they will, this will simply increase the pulverization of the right.
but you'd think there'd be a limit past which the "party of personal responsibility" would have to allow mc-cain at least to stand up and go on his own on the issues and come what may. i would include palin in that, but i don't see her as terribly capable of doing that. there you go again, joe.

It may have been early in his career but he was over 50 years old at the time. He wasn't a naive kid and he had been accepting donations and perks like use of Keating's jet for five years.

I agree with the hypocrisy part of the argument, but as you can see from kutulu's post some people take it much further than that.

(and there is no such word as irregardless so if anyone must fuck with my quotes at least use real words)

Honestly, there isn't much there (Keating 5 scandal). However, if McCain is going to go there with Obama (Ayers) he should be prepared for the same kind of garbage.

My mistake. I quoted you and deleted the part of your previous post that I thought was irrelevant. I must have missed the first letter of your post though and that is how that happened. I will fix that right away.

AIP is terrorist organization.
Todd Palin is terrorist organization member.
Sarah Palin is married to a terrorist organization member.
Sarah Palin has attended and spoke at terrorist meetings.

This is my conclusions using her own definition of terrorists.

It's a desperate move on McCain's part. The worst thing that can happen is that he still loses the election.

Obama is actually lucky that this stuff came out during the primary season. Who would have thought that Hillary going massively negative would have been such a good thing for him.

After reconsidering the predictability of politics here at TFP, it's going pretty much the way I should have expected.

I only know of three groups of people who even think about Vietnam:

1) people who think "if not for..." we would have won the war
I've never actually met someone who believed this, only seen them post on anonymous forums and imply it on TV; I assume it's fairly small population

2) people who think it was a sad chapter from our collective history that is best moved past
these people seem to be willing to give a pass to draft dodgers, civilian protesters, and even the extreme protests like Ayers, and to some extent even the government as long as we can move past it; talking to them gives me the sense that a general amnesty is the best approach

3) people who either participated in opposition to the war or wish they were born in time to do so
these people tend to believe that the war was fundamentally wrong and the only way it ended was due to radical protest and domestic uprising against the government


So from a practical perspective, it just seems like a dumb move to scratch at the scar that Vietnam is to nearly everyone in our country.
I don't personally know anyone under 30 who would argue that Ayers is a morally deficient person. Even among the ones who don't agree with the bombings of the Underground, they seem to think of it all as a big confusing period. Nearly everyone over 30 that I personally know dislikes talking about the Vietnam era in general.

I don't see anyone being swayed by these ads and I'm not even sure of who the target audience is.

I predicted you would say that. :)

otto...it would be most helpful if you could offer your opinion on how you believe his "associations" may color his decision making process as POTUS.
-----Added 7/10/2008 at 06 : 45 : 10-----

Here is my short answer......it wont....because the "relationships and ties" as presented by the McCain/Palin campaign and surrogates are not representative of the true nature of the past associations with the persons in question.

Good one! :)

I believe he has consistently demonstrated that he is willing to say or do what is politically advantageous for the sole purpose of promoting his career. It would have been disastrous to stand up and say "yes, I absolutely believe in Rev. Wright's Afro-centric teachings because I've regularly attended his church for 20 years and I cannot express enough praise and adoration for my spiritual leader (as indicated in one of his books)"... so he plead ignorance and quickly threw Wright under a bus when it is politically expedient.

The association with Ayres is now demonstrating to be much deeper than he has admitted. As more information is uncovered about this relationship, Obama once again resumes the pattern of claiming ignorance... he was only an acquaintance... he didn't know about the bombings and current philosophy. The problem now is that there is a documented working relationship of Barack and Michelle both proactively supporting Ayers' projects and organizations.

So which is it? Is he so naive that he becomes blindly involved with these people? Did he actively seek out these relationships to merely gain "street-cred"? Or does he truly believe in the radical movements of Wright, Ayers, and others? I believe he is masking his ideological intent with this "audacity of hope" persona... doing or saying anything to get elected.

So is he a moron... or a slick and highly calculating fake?

otto....thanks for you opinion...but I'm still not sure how you think it would impact how he would govern or make policy decisions. Is there any thing in his voting record in the Illinois or US Senate that would suggest those "associations" have influenced his vote?

How do you think it is different from McCain past association with the US Council on World Freedom and its support of right wing death squads in Central America during the illegal Iran-Contra affair? Will that influence McCain's foreign policy decision making process?

Do you believe Palin's association with the extremist anti-American Alaska Independence Party will influence her decision making process?

I dont think the attempt to focus on past association will change the opinions of many Indepedent swing voters still on the fence and most concerned about pocket book issues...but I could be wrong and it wont be the first time.

Obama as "naive" or a "moron" or a "slick and highly calculating fake?" IMO, it is "none of the above"

nice, otto: you're working those o'reilly factor tactics with alpomb--set up a series of false premises based on idiotic interpretations of cherry-picked infotainment, make a rickety series of inferences based on them and them top it off with a false choice between two ludicrous options which presuppose that the previous nonsense is actually compelling.

ayers has been working in elementary education for a long time. his notions of education link it to questions of social justice. it's interesting stuff, not that it would matter if all you're interested in is knuckle-dragging red-baiting.

Teaching Bill Ayers

were we to reverse the tiresome conservative pundit game, the central question would be "why do you oppose social justice, otto?" in that context, it'd be easy to frame out the weather underground---but why do that? i see nothing problematic about having opposed the war in vietnam. i see nothing problematic about the weather underground trying to stop that war--EVEN THOUGH I DO NOT AGREE WITH THEIR TACTICS---not because i oppose them in principle, but because they were ill-considered and self-defeating. but look at ayer's webpage and see what he has to say about it.

but hey, why bother? why bother figuring out what you're actually talking about? why waste your time on reality when red-baiting is so much easier?

what's funny is all this drivel from conservativeland is good publicity for ayers' educational work.
free publicity too.
because not everyone is as stupid as the mc-cain campaign thinks they are.
some folk look stuff up.

The only thing that I have to say to this is that you can say the exact same for McCain. Here is a very long article by Rolling Stone (haha, bias) that paints McCain as someone who would do anything and take any stance, no matter his personal belief, for political gain.

Make-Believe Maverick : Rolling Stone

rb....I was kinda curious myself about what otto finds so troubling about Ayers' current projects and organizations.

His school reform work with the Annenburg Challenge, his work with the anti-poverty, philanthropic Woods Charitable Fund?

A friend in politics doesn't mean too much. Even if they are friends outside of work, I have friends that may not have perfect pasts.

Then again, does Obama respect the guy for standing up to the government? Is he a freedom fighter or domestic terrorist?

(And for the paranoid, was it their bombs that killed a lot of their members... or was it just made to look like they blew themselves up accidentally)

Here's the thing... was Ayers still dedicated to violent action when Obama started associating with him? What are the organizations that Ayers runs? What do they stand for (and I mean today not in the 60s and 70s).

You also need to ask, does Obama support the bombing of Americans? Is he out there conspiring to blow up the ROTC on your campus?

In the end, what I see in Ayers is a guy that made some extremely bad choices in the past. He did his time for those choices. He still holds true to his belief in changing the system but has chosen to bring change about without violence.

This association would only be an issue if Obama was proved to be a member of the Weather Underground.

roachboy - you should create a response template...

"comrad, my spin is straight out of the daily kos talking points, so here, let me tie something completely unrelated to your comments while I claim I know what i'm talking about because you don't ... I have absolutely nothing to support my claims over yours, but I live in liberal-land and you're a (insert rb's usual demeaning slurs or conservative stereo-types here) ...blah ...blah ...and I looked it up."

Yeah, that's close enough in a pinch.

moving right along...

Regarding the validity of my claims versus your regurgitation of liberal talking points, I guess we'll just have to see how it all plays out.

Let me put it back on track:


What, you mean Barack Hussein Obama? I'm not surprised. He is a Muslim, after all.

he gives you a link to Bill Ayers' site so you could look up for yourself what the dude says and does on a daily basis...and that's a regurgitation of talking points?

We don't have to "see how it all plays out" some of us actually to take the time to educate ourselves about what we're talking about so we don't look like dumbasses when we talk to other educated people. You seem to be content to wear your ignorance like some kind of badge of honor...just a link away dude, what's the problem with reading it? will you get contaminated by knowledge or something?

What was the quality of the relationship between Obama and Ayers? How close were they? Fly to the Bahamas on his private jet with everyone including the babysitter close?

There is no equivalence between Keating & Ayers, and the pattern of corruption established in the Keating/S&L scandal is another reason why we'll be financing bailouts. Thanks John!

Bringing up Ayers is an act of pure desperation. Nothing more to say about it.

otto---it is of no consequence to me whether you imagine there to be "liberal talking points" or not or whether, more surreal still, you imagine me to either be a "liberal" (i understand myself to be well to the left of the democratic party) or that i would repeat such talking point, if they existed.

what's more interesting in this particular case is that you really have no idea what you're talking about, and that you have no idea what william ayers has done, what he stands for, who he is. your understanding of it extends about as deep as the surface of your television screen. it's kinda amazing that you would accept the campaign's redbaiting and repeat it as if there was anything of interest in it, without doing the slightest bit of research independently, without having the faintest idea, seemingly, not only of what that talking point refers to or is saying. but you project all that onto me.

then when confronted with a bit of information which even a rudimentary search could have provided you, you shuck and jive.

this is the best you got to bring?
as a conservative, you don't consider it important to be able to represent the political positions you hold with any logic or explanation? you don't feel any particular need to inform yourself about what the points you bring up actually are?
how does that work?

Regarding the "talking points", it doesn't feel so good to be easily dismissed and thrown in with a cliché, does it? Maybe it's time to take a hard look in the mirror. Sorry you didn't appreciate my lampooning your thoughtful response to one of my posts.

For one, I am not a conservative, you might be surprised at how much we agree on many things, some we don't. Which leads me to my next point... with your habitual condescending and clichéd generalizations, I can't take you seriously. Knee-jerk emotion driven put-downs are beneath you. If you want serious discussions, then try leaving out the personal slurs... In turn, I won't lampoon Mr. super moderator.

/thread

From the Chicago Tribune, a comparison of Bill Ayers and G Gordon Liddy.

With friends like these ... -- chicagotribune.com
Note that Liddy has been charged and convicted, unlike Ayers.

otto:
you are mistaken if you think i take this personally. i really don't. no worries.
but if we're going to play, maybe some ground rules are in order.

i don't generally write in generalizations, really--but at the same time, we're operating in a messageboard context, so there's compression. there will always be compression. rather than indulging the game of deciding that a compressed sentence is a generalization, go after the argument. generally, i have no problem with running out what's behind the sentences.

i'd expect the same from you if you gave any real reason--apart from this last post--to expect that it not a waste of time. you bring down the mode of interaction that you seem to want. you have control over your style, and you choose to use it in a particular way. you have control over your way of responding to posts, and choose to play a silly game of inversion over and over.

so you want to change the game, change it.
it's an isometric deal (your move in a game generates a response more or less symmetrical with it).

i'm perfectly willing to reciprocate.
this game bores me stupid: i do not find it interesting or amusing to interact with you in this mode. the only reason i usually do it is because you decide to rehearse something like this ayers business, toss it like a little rock into the pool in order to see what happens. that's all it looks to me that you do.

so change the game. it's easy peasy---just do it.

and don't bother with messing about with the mod title.
when i'm in mod-mode, i use yellow font.
when i'm not using it, i'm not in that mode.
it is a stupid and cheap move to invoke it when you know it isn't at play.

so maybe we can stop this idiocy and have an actual debate about something.
your move.

If Ayers is a not an issue why is the Obama team spending so much time responding to it? I agree that the Ayers alleged relationship to Obama is not an issue that would sway my vote but what would is a candidates honesty in responding to the question about the relationship. McCain has responded to some questions that suggests that he is being less than honest and I am disappointed with that but it is isolated. Obama has a pattern, and I am not only disappointed but disturbed by the pattern. If Ayers helped a young Chicago politician and if that young politician knowingly used that help, say it. The issue goes away. If a young South Side Chicago politician joins the most influential church on the South Side of Chicago because the church can serve a spiritual need and a networking need, say it. The issue goes away. Obama often asks us to suspend rational thought as he tap dances around these points that are relatively trivial. The more he does this the bigger the issue gets.

i think that if this is the case, it's an instance of obama's campaign walking into the trivia trap that is this "issue"---by responding, you accept the terms of discussion that go along with it.

given that the conventional wisdom is that the conflict between the campaigns is over undecided voters who, for reasons that i do not entirely understand, are said to be "centrists" this atwater/rove style move seems to be seen as a problem by the obama camp.

that is it based on nothing beyond redbaiting, nothing beyond distortion and the use of the word "terrorist" in association with the word "obama" seems to not be seen as a consistently trivial matter by obama's campaign, presumably because of the associations that are bundled around the "undecided voters"

i am not sure that obama really needs these voters, but that sort of view might also explain why i am not working for his campaign. well that and i didn't ask.

John Kerry's campaign didn't think the flap over the the legitimacy of the Bronze Medal he received in Vietnam was an issue and they never responded to that. Look were it didn't get him.

But I guess it's a case of damn'd if you do, damn'd if you don't.

This is all fear mongering 101.

The weather underground weren't terrorists. Misguided? Yes. Destructive? Yes. Terrorists? No.

ughh.

As I understand it those concerned with Obama's past with Ayers, Rev. Wright, etc.. (at least those on this forum) are not so much concerned with his connection with those individuals but his answers explaining those relationships today. I imagine as a young polititian he accepted fundraiser help from Ayers (and almost anyone else who would help) and also joined the largest black church in Chicago in part to connect to the black community. Like most polititians Obama will of course try to downplay any past associations which might negatively effect his current campaign. Polititians who do not play this game well will probably not win many elections.

I also expect McCain, Biden and Palin to downplay their past associations with fundraisers, separatists, lobiests, etc.. for political reasons. McCain had a reasonable position of smaller government and less regulation as a path to future prosperity but with the current financial meltdown this position is not working with many voters and they are getting desperate. His recent proposal to buy back all the troubled mortgages is truly desperate and almost like abandoning the capitalist ship. All the mudslinging is a distraction from what is really important and to answer the OP I don't think past associations will have much of an effect on Obama's (or the other candidate's) positions going forward.

I don't know. How do you define terrorist? Personally people who go around bombing banks and government buildings in an attempt to make political changes and/or scare the crap out of people are terrorists.

I don't think this issue moved any votes one way or the other. Again, similar to Obama Kerry had a pattern that was disturbing. He never took the time to simply explain his views and feelings during the Vietnam war era and how those views and feelings evolved. The voters were left with a void and people filled the void the way they wanted. Kerry did not need to specifically address the Bronze Medal if he had taken the time to explain the transition from being a disheartened Vietnam vet and being a US Senator wanting to be President of the greatest nation on earth.

Or, do what is right and screw those who don't like it.
-----Added 9/10/2008 at 01 : 46 : 48-----
What is your opinion of those taking the stance that if Obama loses the nation is racist or that those who don't support Obama are racists?
-----Added 9/10/2008 at 01 : 50 : 56-----
My friend look up fear mongering and this is what you find:

http://www.diamondvues.com/pelosi.jpg
-----Added 9/10/2008 at 01 : 53 : 29-----
This is true. I lived in the Chicago area. If you are a young ambitious politician you have to "kiss a few rings". Like it or not, that is the cost of gaining political power in Chicago.

what?
this sounds to me like projection, ace. i don't know anyone, nor have i read anyone, nor have i seen anyone make that claim.
i have seen alot of speculation as to what role racism might play in shaping electoral preferences, but that is not the same thing at all. and you know that. and notice that this kind of question was being raised a few weeks ago, before the the Mutation of Capitalism began to pulverize things, not least was the illusory closeness of the election and the efforts to mount a campaign based entirely on accusations concerning personality from mc-cain's campaign.

so i don't make anything of it, ace.
except that i think it's projection.

the other, more objectionable thing in this apparent non-sequitor is that you seem to assume in it that there's some merit to the palin-meme "palling around with terrorists" which i think is worthless. beneath contempt. seriously.

Yea Manic, I'm pretty sure they're terrorists. Doesn't mean I give any legitimacy to this half-assed connection they're trying to make between him and Obama, nor do I think Ayers is a terrorist any more, but they were definitely terrorizing when they were bombing buildings.

There was a poll conducted by AP. They did the poll because Obama should be winning by a large margin. Hence if he does not win it is due to racism, not issues.

Political Pulse | The Associated Press-Yahoo! News Poll on Yahoo! News

The same theory has been floated by some of the talking heads in the media.

{added} On the issue of projection, not that I think my race is relevant, but if you knew my race you would most likely change your view on "projection".

asking oneself and conducting research about possible correlation of racism to electoral preference is NOT the same thing as claiming "everyone who does not support obama is a racist" ace. this is pretty rudimentary logic. i don't see the point of this discussion.

I guess there could be a million or more reasons why the Presidential race is close other than Obama's skin color. I have not seen AP do research on those other million or so possibilities, have you?

I'm not vindicating any of the Weather Underground's actions but clear distinction can be made between those who hijack planes and claim the innocent lives of thousands and those who sent out evacuation warnings before they blew things up.

As I said before, they were misguided and destructive but history has proven that social change doesn't always come with a pretty bow and a court order.

Semantics? Maybe. Bottom line: Ayers ≠ Osama.

ace: what do you imagine polling to be concerned with? look at almost anything deeper than a "who are you voting for" poll and you find question after question like "which issue matters to you?" or "how important is x in your decision?" don't you actually look at these things? they're kinda goofy, i think, and certainly don't mean anything unless you know about the methodology and sample--and even then, they're kinda useless---but in the american pseudo-democracy where consumption-freedom, they're indices of voter consumer preferences.

here, i'll help you find a bunch so you can see for yourself.

Pollster.com - Political Polls, Trends, Charts and Analysis

lots and lots of polls, ace.
look for yourself.

I think they were clearly terrorist. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this I guess. But remember one mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. While we've labeled the Taliban terrorists many have labeled our troops terrorists and the Taliban freedom fighters.

I do agree with-

Ayers ≠ Osama

To Jinn as well,

That was exactly my point. Thanks.

Then we, all 3, agree. :)

Rhyme time..

well, it's a little more complicated than that--the weather underground were kinda on the same order as the autonomen and baader-meinhof group which used actions directed against buildings or prominent individuals as a way of demonstrating that the existing order couldn't maintain the control it pretended to as a way of either undermining the legitimacy of the system as a whole or as a way of trying to accomplish a more limited objective (ending the war in vietnam, which the weathermen pushed into the logic of the existing order as a whole)...so at that level, the term "terrorism" actually named a tactic. i think it turned out to be a bad tactic, accomplishing the opposite from what was intended...but it was part of the death rattle of the anarchist wing of the new left.

none of this stuff has a space in the whitewashed revisionist world of contemporary far-right revisionism made general, and the term "terrorism" is a good index of that--the shift from something that was a self-evidently political tactic to a term that denies the existence of political motivations beyond being Pissy or Jealous or whatever other cretin subjectivising term you want.

fact is that there was every reason to oppose the war in vietnam, and by the early 1970s, had i been old enough, i would have been active in the opposition and can very easily imagine myself seriously considering something like what the weather underground did---i wouldn't support it now because i know how the story turned out---but i can see why they felt it might work, or why they'd be so pissed off with the evil that was the united states in its vietnam war period that they'd resort to those tactics.

the reason that i find this whole redbaiting smear thing so thoroughly distasteful and offensive, really, is that there was EVERY reason to oppose the war in vietnam and EVERY reason to oppose the american political and economic orders which enabled it to happen. so there was EVERY reason to support that opposition, even if you do not agree with the tactics of particular groups. so there's NO PROBLEM with being associated with william ayers. but the fact is that obama was NOT particularly associated with him----this has already been dredged through in this endless sporting event of a campaign.

but coming from palin, now, this is pretty fucking vile stuff.
check out the thread in "found on the net" for some lovely footage of pissy fasco-republicans at a palin speech. it's lovely.

The AP and a few others have started making a connection between the closeness of the Presidential race to Obama's skin color, some are making the argument that a loss for Obama will be due to race. Are you suggesting that people are saying the closeness of the race is due to other factors, let's say Obama's past relationships? So, what is fair game for being relevant? It seems to me that those on the left are trying to dictate what is important to voters and trying to frame it in the most favorable manner for Obama.

I agree with your point regarding polling data, but some are starting to run with the "race" argument in a manner I find offensive.

ace--like i said, asking questions and conducting research implies a hypothesis or a question. i'm interested in the results--but i suspect that the state of affairs in the states is such that it's more ok to be a racist than it is to say you're one. so i don't know what the polls will show. i'm not surprised the question's come up, though. are you arguing that it should not have? on what basis?

saying "if you do not support obama, you're a racist" is totally different from asking a question and conducting research to see what it might lead to. and the first does not come from the second, except maybe for someone with an axe to grind, who's maybe concerned about the results of a poll being embarassing.

but like i said at the outset of this, i don't know what such polls would find.
doesn't mean it's not an interesting question.

If you follow the logic in the article regarding the poll, it seemed that the premise was that Obama should have a big lead and he doesn't because a measurable and significant number of voters are racist. I find the premise offensive. I don't dispute their right or interest in exploring the question, but given the premise I think they may have forced or at least incorrectly interpreted uncorrelated data to come to a faulty conclusion. Like the old joke related to statistical study - 99% of violent criminals ate a wheat based product (bread, crackers, cake, etc) before committing a violent crime, therefore wheat based products cause people to commit violent crimes. As a non-violent criminal I find that kind of logic offensive as well.

well, that would mean that you probably wouldn't have designed the poll that way.

i don't put a whole lot of stock in polls, like i said earlier.
but i also don't doubt that for *some* folk, racism is a factor.
but i still don't know what a poll would tell you about that.

I dont know if the poll methodology is a good one or not, but I dont know how anyone can deny that race and racial attitudes is a factor in this campaign like none before.

The question is how much and that is very difficult to measure...but a few points in some key battleground states doesnt seen out of line to me.

Is Obama saying race is a factor?

Was race a factor when Obama won Iowa, where that victory gave him the momentum to win the election?

Other than a few like Hannity commenting on the "black" vote, historically (based on polls) hasn't the "black" vote gone for the Democratic nominee in ranges from 80% to 90%, therefore meaning this election is no different?

Hasn't there always been a "white" element in the Democratic party with Republican tendancies?

So, can you elaborate on your comment? I don't think race is a factor in this election, however, I think some on the left and the AP are trying to make it a factor.

I'm really not interested in arguing over nonsense.

It's becoming clear that a large portion of people are going to start agitating for regulation of political messages and that's dangerous at the fundamental level but evidently is becoming increasingly more palatable.


As for what to do now, I'm thinking of organizing a boycott against companies that advertise in proximity to slanderous political advertisements. I don't know how I would get enough people behind it simply on the basis of letting them know about such a boycott, but I suspect Obama has enough supporters that even a portion of them upset at how these ads are coming across would make a boycott effective.

smooth....I'm not sure what you mean by advertise in "proximity" to slanderous ads. It sounds like holding companies accountable for something beyond their control.

In any case, it was interesting to read a report by an independent univeristy research organization that reviews political ads that in the last week or so, McCain's ads are nearly 100% negative (about whats wrong with Obama and not what McCain would do as president) while Obama's ads have been about 30% negative and 70% about his policies and proposals.

I just dont believe the negative ads will work this year as much as they have in the past, with the economy hanging over everyone's head like no issue in recent elections.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm proposing.

If a company has a commercial at or around a John McCain advertisement, then I will boycott that product and I urge anyone sick of the political ads to do the same.

If the companies want my business, then perhaps they should contact the network they want to advertise on and request they pull the McCain ads.

I'm definitely advocating holding companies accountable for things outside their direct control. If you don't agree with my position, then don't participate in the boycott.

actually, i like this idea. boycotts and other forms of consume revolt (taken beyond a certain scale, that's what they are) are useful tools, and i think the effect of this would be to put a dent in the atwater/rove school of politics-as-slander. and why *shouldn't* people organize themselves toward such an end--it's not a viable argument that this is censorship because there's no regulation involved--rather it's a redefinition of community standards--and the adverts are themselves such a redefinition--but they're one that demonstrates the imbalance of power which obtains between capital and people, the former dominating the latter entirely.

there's no prohibition on the atwater/rove aesthetic--only consequences. if the republicans want to buy up blocks of advertising time to run their idiot adverts one after the other, they can. if companies want their brand associated with these adverts, they're free to let em run---if they aren't, it's easy enough to hang stipulations (like earmarking funding). television outlets will comply, because they're interested in money. it's a form of freedom in action to force these adverts to become materially what they already are--a kind of stench that wafts over american pseudo-democracy, turning everything around them to shit.

if you want a hand organizing, smooth, let me know.

I applaud the noble sentiment, but just dont see the practicality or likelihood of organizing a national boycott campaign in less than a month. Anything beyond that and you are, in effect, proposing to punish commercial advertisers for not taking correction action after the fact.

A more reasonable approach, IMO, would be to focus on regulatory reform of political advertising over the next four years.

That would include a return of some form of "fairness doctrine" that would require allowing a candidate to run an ad immediately following any ad by the opposing candidate (or any 527 org) that uses the first candidate's name and/or image in an ad.

I would add other provisions....one i can think of off the top of my head would be requiring ads to run a scroll across the bottom for the full length of the ad when using actors to portray real people (no, one of the swiftboaters was not a swiftboat vet...it was an actor).

I agree, dc dux, it's not something that is likely to be effective this election cycle.
I wasn't proposing that people do a retroactive boycott, if that's how my comments were understood.

But I'd like to start working on this project because I think the thirst is there by many people to do *something* about the state of political adverts and now seems to be the time to reach out to them and start growing a base. Let's keep in mind that in two years we will see some of this crap, and in four years we will definitely have to deal with it again.

I like the sense of your ideas, much more than any kinds of attempts to censor the content of ads via government. I like the duel adverts idea, but layered on top of private censor to ratchet down the mudslinging. I've got to think more....but I am thinking long term.

i find it funny that obama basically laid out mccain's campaign plan in july..

I hope Obama's security detail is on high alert. It is getting ugly out there. I think even McCain's campaign is beginning to realize that some of the people at their rallys are going overboard. They probably underestimated the amount of hate and rage their negative campaigning would help incite among some of their more ignorant supporters. Shouts of "kill him" and "bomb Obama" at McCain's and Palin's rallys will not help their cause with most voters.

Do you really think that they didn't expect this level of hatred?
I can't see how they could possibly be caught by surprise by it.

Well, and it gets worse.

There was this "laudable" interchange yesterday at a town hall meeting in Minnesota:

Lady: "I don't trust Obama. He's an arab."
McCain: "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, a citizen that I happen to have disagreements with."

So... Great, a step toward civility. Everybody's talking about how he's trying to reign in the crazies, etc.

But.... How he answered that gives us a little peek into the McCain world view: Arab != decent, family, citizenship. So much for the Arab American vote, I guess. But he probably wasn't going to get that anyway, aside from the US relatives of the House of Saud...

I'm glad someone else noticed that. It was an essentially racist answer. And no, he's not getting the Arab-American vote. Bush & Cheney burned that up. My Republican Arab friends are either voting for Nader (because he's Lebanese American) or for Obama.

i thought i misheard or something...I swear, i'm just going to stop giving the benefit of the doubt bc it's never helped when i hear things like that...


it's kinda funny, though, bc the few arabs i know (arab or arab american) are the nicest/closest families i know...haha

i know that's small and anecdotal, but it just strikes me as odd. i was wondering how arab americans were taking the election this year. The ones i know are strictly for obama, but we're talking a sample size of 10 people :) haha

Still, i get really upset when people forget how much of a hodgepodge of ethnicities our country really is..and how much that has helped us in the past.


aha

This was part of the invocation at McCain's appearance in Iowa today:
Gotta love those self-righteous "country first" Christians

His guy is so freaking erratic I can't figure out if I'm gaining or losing respect for me.

I seriously would have voted for McCain in 2000. Every once and awhile I see the old McCain. Then I see this other guy talking who looks a lot like McCain but doesn't sound anything like him.

Kinda funny how everyone is so concerned about Obama's feeling being hurt based on people making absurd remarks, but had/have no concern about Palin when it was/is being done to her.

I don't remember any remarks about her being absurd. I think calling someone stupid is just slightly different than calling someone a terrorist and that they should be killed.

Also, the comments about Palin at least had some truth to them...

Some of them yes. All of them no. I remember a story about her not giving birth recently but claiming a child her daughter had was actually hers. No truth to that one.

I remeber a comedian saying something about wanting her to be raped by some of her "big black" friends.

I remember some saying she was some kinda Republican porn candidate.

I remember some saying she was neglecting her children.

I remember some saying she lied about giving birth to her son.

Where was the outrage?

you know, ace, if the election season were not an element of this, and all the figures were in a schoolyard or something like that, maybe i'd agree with you--and there's a way in which i do to the extent that i think about folk like palin as a human being---but the fact is that much of what's happening seems to me shaped by the strategies that the mc-cain campaign has chosen to adopt. so there's a degree of you reap what you sow in all this.

and it doesn't seem to me the sort of situation--the campaign strategy that the mc-cain camp has adopted--that you can factor out, even if you support mc-cain. it seems disengenous to try it.

Is this some sort of meta-defense of calling for Obama's death? As far as I can tell, nobody has called for the death of McCain at an Obama/Biden rally.

I'm sure that if the democrats were in the kind of desperate position that McCain supporters seem to be in, they'd say the same things (the same position a lot of Kerry supporters were in during the previous election). I doubt they'd do so with the implicit encouragement of the party's VP candidate, though.

Edit:

This whole "Well, I don't have a problem with someone calling Obama a terrorist because I heard someone on the bus call Palin a whore" thing is lame.

Tully...I think the difference is comments being made by the respective campaigns and/or surrogates with a direct connection to the campaigns.

Comments by the more rabid supporters of both can be over the top, but the candidates have little control over such remarks.

this is the rest of that video with the woman who said obama was an arab...

kinda crazy and ...just crazy

I suspect that ACORN associations will do more damage to Obama that Ayers associations.

acorn?
gee, helping poor folk get decent housing...encouraging autonomy...how outrageous.

I fail to see how rampant voter-registration fraud, intimidation, and frivolous litigation helps anyone become autonomous. And given how badly and in what ways the lending practices ACORN advocated have damaged the economy of the entire bloody world, I fail to see how it's helped anyone get decent housing.