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Submitted by pmcarpenter on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 7:22am.
P.M. Carpenter
THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter
"Do we have to win any of those to get to 270? No. Do we have reason to think we can be competitive there? Yes." The specified number, of course, is the needed electoral-vote count -- which George Bush exceeded by only 16 in 2004 -- and the "there" referred to is the expansive territory of traditional Republican states. That, in a nutshell, is Barack Obama's general election strategy, as outlined for The New York Times by his campaign manager, David Plouffe. In effect, John McCain is under siege, or at least he soon will be. If anything keeps him up at night, it is surely the stark realization that his loose and rather shaky coalition of distrustful conservatives and unre
 Technorati Tags: P.M. Carpenter mccain obama clinton
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 9:26am.
Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Elliot D. Cohen Now that Barack Obama has secured the Democratic nomination, many of his supporters are looking forward with guarded optimism to a victory in November. However, while they assume that the road ahead will be a challenging one, and that the outcome may rest with key battleground states such as Ohio, what they may fail to anticipate are the kinds of obstacles that the McCain campaign in tandem with the Bush Administration might, in the coming months, place between them and victory.
It is easy enough to take one's eyes off the ball when concentrating on campaign speeches and strategies for winning over the hearts and minds of Americans. So what things might change the landscape of the current contest and tilt it in favor of the McCain camp?
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Elliot D. Cohen Obama McCain AT&T retroactive immunity Protect America Act of 2007 illegal spying George W. Bush
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 10:44am.
Shirley Smith
MS. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON BuzzFlash, "What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." -- Robert F. Kennedy, The Pursuit of Justice: Extremism, Left and Right, 1964 Technorati Tags: Shirley Smith Conservative Liberal Republican Extremists Intolerance Privatize
Submitted by Chad on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 10:47am.
Be-Elected
photos of Bush from 2004. This can't ever happen again. Every 4 years, we have a presidential cycle, and every quadrennial, we have a debate... about presidential debates.
This year, we have the "hey, let's have town meetings" and the "hey, let's have Lincoln-Douglas debates." And these are good ideas. But part of why we have this debate is that we never know what and how and when we have debates.
The days of the League of Women Voters running a non-partisan debate setup are long gone. And that is a shame. We need a non-partisan group to set up a system and say how we will have debates.
The debates shouldn't be set to the whims of the candidate who is running. We should establish a setup where we, the voters, think we will get the most from the candidates.
It felt like Al Gore and George W. Bush set the tone in 2000 and John Kerry and Bush set the tone in 2004, and it may have made them feel better, but didn't serve us and democracy well at all.
Technorati Tags: Be-Elected Chad Rubel 2008 race ABC Charles Gibson Barack Obama John McCain Lincoln-Douglas debates League of Women Voters
Submitted by meg on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 1:38pm.
Alerts
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White The White House quietly pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council as the Bush Administration came under fire by the House of Representatives for possible war crimes violations. Separately, Guantanamo Bay prosecutors prepare for their own war-crimes tribunals and secret negotiations continue over the role of the U.S. in Iraq. Technorati Tags: Alerts human rights torture UN war crimes Guantanamo Bay Iraq
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 3:32pm.
Dave Lindorff
One remark by a minor Israeli cabinet officer hinting at a possible U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran sent oil prices up by a record $11/barrel to a record $139 per barrel Friday. That should tell us what would happen if the Bush Administration were crazy enough to attack Iran, or to let its vassal state of Israel do it. Most analysts say an actual attack on Iran would send oil almost immediately to past $300 per barrel -- a level that would strangle economies worldwide and send the world into an economic collapse not since the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs kicked off the Great Depression. The repercussions of that would be staggering. America, which runs on oil, would grind to a halt. Gasoline and home heating oil would double or triple in price, leading to desperation in the coming winter for those living north of the Mason-Dixon line, and to a mass exodus of the elderly from Florida and Arizona, where air-conditioning would no longer be affordable. Technorati Tags: Dave Lindorff price of oil Iraq George W. Bush Smoot-Hawley Tariffs Great Depression Air Force
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 3:54pm.
Reader Contribution
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Mary Pitt Okay, America, it's time to put up or shut up! After a couple of generations have reached maturity since the civil rights marches and all the hoopla that was brought about by the women's rights movement, we have it made on the basis of equal rights for all, right? We have banished chauvinism, both sexual and racial, and we are now the model for a modern democratic republic and an example to the rest of the world of a society that should be emulated? We shall see!
For the first time in history, we have been a part of an historic contest between a woman and a man of African extraction to represent a major party in the race for the presidency of the United States. By a narrow margin, the Democratic Party has chosen a man of mixed race to represent them in the general election. The test for the nation is now whether that man or the white hero of a former war, after years of additional service in the senior body of our government, should be chosen to direct the future progress of our nation into the future and, in a sense, to guide the process of bringing the world together in a spirit of common humanity. This choice should be made in an atmosphere of civility and common cause.
Technorati Tags: Reader Contribution Mary Pitt Barack Obama Hillary Clinton John McCain racism sexism
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