For the last time this year, in theory, a Presidential Debate open thread. Share your thoughts during and after in comments below.
I’ll be on WBAI/Pacifica (99.5FM in NYC, streaming here) right after the debate, for post-game analysis. Listen in, if ya like. Will try to follow comments here even while on air…
POST-DEBATE UPDATE: ACORN issues a fairly scathing press release in response to McCain’s comments about them group during tonight’s debate. Their statement follows below…
Maude Hurd, ACORN’s National President, issued the following statement in response to Senator McCain’s attack:
“We appreciate that Senator McCain’s effort to stir up the Republican base by attacking a community organization working to increase public participation in our democratic process. However, these attacks reflect an increasingly panicked candidate; unfortunately the Senator McCain we saw tonight is very different than the Senator McCain who stood shoulder to shoulder with ACORN at a February 20, 2006 immigration reform event.
It is clear for us to see that John McCain was for ACORN before he was against ACORN; he was for reform before he was against reform; and he was a maverick before he became erratic. What is really going here is that Senator McCain and his allies are part of a coordinated effort to engage in what appears to be an unprecedented effort to suppress voter turnout. Repeating a lie doesn’t make it true, and the McCain campaign has resorted to the worst type of deceptions in regards to ACORN.”
The Facts:
– ACORN has helped 1.3 million citizens from all parties and all walks of life apply for voter registration.
– In most states, ACORN is required by law to turn in every voter registration card – even in cases where the cards are not valid.
– It is ACORN that has reported almost all of the issues regarding voter registration cards.
– Invalid voter registration cards do NOT constitute voter fraud. Even RNC General Counsel Sean Cairncross has recently acknowledged he is not aware of a single improper vote cast as a result of bad cards submitted in the course of an organized voter registration effort.
– ACORN hired 13,000 field workers to register people to vote. In any endeavor of this size, some people will engaged in inappropriate conduct. ACORN has a zero tolerance policy and terminated any field workers caught engaging in questionable activity. At the end of the day, as ACORN is paying these people to register voters, it is ACORN that is defrauded.
ACORN’s Fight Back Thursday:
Tomorrow, at 11:00 am EST, ACORN will be convening a conference call unveiling a pointed critique to Senator McCain’s outlandish assertion that ACORN was responsible for the housing crisis:
Thursday, October 16th: ACORN Call on ACORN Critique of McCain on Housing/Financial Crisis:
Call in #: 800-247-5110, pass code 8388
Johnny sounds desperate
McCain’s best moment so far: “If you want to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
McCain still balking. Trying to get in some shots. Needs to. So far not real effective, I think.
Obama’s a bit weaker so far today, but McCain not getting in a lot of licks.
Status quo remains so far…
:35 minutes in, McCain says:
“AYERS”
“ACORN”
Obama laughs…Condemns Ayers (using previous explanations), ACORN explanation pretty tepid I thought (he could have nailed McCain with nothing more than McC was ACORN’s keynote speaker in 2006!)
McCain had his shot…toast
Yeah, wasn’t much fire power there, eh, Flo?
:43 mins
Palin “has united” people all over America??? (Bush was a “uniter” too, I guess)
Yeah, she united every fukin bigot from here to Birmingham and beyond
When O says he’s going to do something, he sounds like he’s going to do it.
When M says the same, he sounds like he’s bullshitting (which he is)
has to ask herself does anyone know wtf McCain is talking about…”uh, Obama hates free trade, he sits down with Chavez, guerillas bad!” WTFFFFF!!!!!
OMFG, just compared Obama to Hoover!!! LMAO
This is so over
Clearly this will be known as the “Joe the Plumber Debate”.
Yup, Joe is now rich! 🙂
mccain your philosophy bankrupt the county . . .
“No litmus test”, but someone who supported abortion rights “would not be qualified”.
Walk that fence, John! 🙂
“$5800 /yr” for health care premium & taxed for who . . .
McSame compassionate conservative crap . . .
Fox News & McCain can’t seem to mention this guy enough. This man that doesn’t even appear to have a last name. The whole thing feels scripted to me. I’d love to know if he was either paid, or strongly encouraged by GOP surrogates to say what he did. If I were before McCain right now I’d tell him that I was deeply troubled by the focus of his third debate. He was supposed to be speaking to ALL citizens of the US, not just Joe Blow the plumber.
McCain had his battleship sunk again…waaa
It’s amazing to me how out of touch Sen. McCain really is. His “healthcare reform” will not work for the average person.
His anger is really showing tonite. Why can’t he answer the question when it comes to if “Palin” can be president. No answer there.
Did anyone else notice how McCain doesn’t even know that his own VP pick’s child does not have Autism, he is a Down Sydrome baby.
Wow…bet Sarah feels loved.
QUICK POLL BEFORE I GO ON AIR!
Did McCain change anything here tonight?
Nah
No, but Obama should send him a fruit basket, card reads, “Thanks McCranky you really helped me out there tonite”
no
McCain just made the most ignorant comment I have heard out of his mouth yet and there have been many. McCain said Sarah Palin understands the needs of families of special needs children. I am sitting here screaming F.U. at the television. Sarah has a child who was born with Downs Syndrome in April. She has been campaigning to be Vice President. Because she is the Governor of Alaska and should she become Vice President she will never truly understand what we the AVERAGE American family goes through to get the services for our Special children. Services and rights that are provided for them in the law we have to fight for while people act like they are doing us a favor should they chose to bestow a service for our child. I know that I have felt like I was in a war zone everytime I needed anything for my child. How can she understand the needs of families with special needs. Just because you give birth to a child with a disability does not give you immediate understanding of the needs of all the families that have come before you. Most families of special needs children have to fight for every right and every service needed for their child to have a quality of life. To truly understand the needs of families with special needs children one must live the life of a family that is struggling to get the basic needs met.
I do not blame Sarah for John McCain’s ignorance. This just shows me, again, how out of touch McCain is to the reality of the average American Family.
I support and coach families with special needs children on how to be the quality advocate for their children. These families need to be strong advocates or they will fall through the cracks.
You can bet that I will not be voting for McCain. McCain is truly a blithering idiot. It is laughable that he thinks he can begin to understand average American families when he has never had to live an average American life.
No I don’t think McCain changed anything tonight. He did better the first half hour until he wanted Sen. Obama to speak against John Lewis’ comments over the weekend.
I think that was his downfall he couldn’t get off the subject, frankly I was getting tired of the entire topic.
NO Brad McSame changed nothing other that he left absolutely no doubt that he is a lying idiot.
To me Obama completely owned McSame from minute one.
and watching CSPAN afterwards listening to callers it was a total blowout for Obama.
The very first caller supposedly “for” McSame was a survivor from the USS Liberty stating that McSames father the Admiral abandoned them to die, in fact according to him even out right said so, “Let them die”.
ACORN sends out this press release in response to McCain’s comments tonight…
I was disgusted by McCain implication that the people who attend his rallies are wonderful people & how dare Sen. Obama repeat the words “treason, & kill him”.
He had a holier than thou attitude about it and I was sickened by McCain’s defending them and Gov. Palin’s crowds.
My husband showed me this website and I loved it…http://www.palinaspresident.com/
Belle~
http://www.palinaspresident.com
That a site’s a hoot ya have to point and click around to get the full effect.
SNAP POLLS, via TPM…
I’m way more worried about the Diebold effect than the Bradley effect
The school vouchers, McCain and all republicans go for the vouchers because they want to get rid of the department of education, in average a private school tuition price is $15.000 per year the voucher is $6.000 how in the world is an average family going to pay the rest and this is very important when there are approximately 10,000,000 americans unemployed? Mr McCain is completely out of touch with what is going on down here in the real world. I work for the
department of social services and I am very much aware of how bad people are hurting.
Here is the information I found about Admiral McCain, confirming what the first caller stated on CSPAN.
http://ussliberty.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/25/
http://www.wingtv.net/documentaries.html
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/...ul-boston.html
Like father like son.
Pure Treasonous scum.
Norma Brien ~
I was impressed the way KPHX reports on the state of social service’s activity in that it is strained from over capacity. I have NEVER heard any other station EVER report that stuff … The electronic media supports a policy of … mushroom mentality … Keep’em in the dark and feed’em shit !
Oh and one more thing, I don’t give a ratz arse about “Joe the Plumber” that SOB is making over $250,000 a year.
He can kiss my ass.
Not to mention Joe’s business would benefit greatly from universal health care saving him far more money than a small tax break.
Bamboo Harvester,
My husband who is undecided but leaning the wrong way, showed it to me and walked me around it. I thought that it should be sent around because as hilarious as it is, it is also sadly somewhat true…you betcha!!
oops {
electronicbroadcast media}ThxI thought that McCain toned down his “GET OFF MY LAWN!” persona a bit, but I don’t think it was enough to change the way this race is going.
Online Presidential Debate Polls:
CNN http://www.cnn.com
CBS http://www.cbsnews.com/
MSNBC http://www.polls.newsvine.com/_...won-the-debate
Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/n...,0,624400.poll
NBC4 http://www.nbc4.com/index.html (Beneath the debate photo)
AOL http://news.aol.com/
Time.com http://www.time.com/time/ (right column, below fold)
Q13 Fox Seattle http://www.q13fox.com/pages/main
Cincinnati.com http://news.cincinnati.com/arti...S0106/81015005
NYDailyNews.com http://www.nydailynews.com/index.html
ABC local http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/fea...038;id=6451807
Newsday.com http://www.newsday.com/
Star-Telegram http://www.star-telegram.com/el...ry/974802.html
WFTV.com http://www.wftv.com/surveyresul....html?section=
AJC http://www.ajc.com/ (beneath main photo)
Kare11 http://www.kare11.com/ (middle column, a little down the page)
Local 10.com http://www.local10.com/news/index.html (beneath the main photo)
Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/ (right column, below the fold)
Rocky Mountain News http://www.rockymountainnews.co...ebate/results/
Drudgereport http://www.drudgereport.com/
Fox News http://elections.foxnews.com/
The problem is that the politics that McCain is playing are no longer valid. The country is going in a different direction and McCain doesn’t realize it.
He has never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or the money he is losing from his 401K everyday.
He never worried about having the ability to see a Dr & be diagnosed early with his skin cancer. My friends, I have seen the feds insurance & lets say they have it all covered, even erectile dysfunction is covered.
My mother in law waited 5 years to see a Dr., because she did not have medical insurance, before going in to be diagnosed with breast cancer. She has it in 11 lymph nodes and can barely make her premium payments let alone her deductible & co-insurance.
This country needs a change and it’s obvious that McSame is not with it.
One thing that really irks me is the fact that all the manufacturing jobs are in China, India, Thailand, etc. and no matter how much money they pour into these financial institutions it won’t matter one bit, hear this folks, the cash cow of the world is jobless and that means that we cannot buy, buy, buy or charge, charge anymore because we cannot even pay the most basic things like food, etc., if they want to fix the economy, they have to concentrate in bringing the jobs back, not create them but BRING THEM BACK. That person in the White House said he was giving the top 2% get I last heard $193,000 tax breaks and what they did is unforgivable go to China to open factories where workers have to work at these cites 6 days weekly and they have to sleep there and have to pay their employers food and lodging while they are living there. Another case I heard of a woman who sews underwear for Sears in El Salvador and she makes $30.00 per week I know because I send her $30 a month to help her a little. What the republicans have done is criminal. There is a cartoon going around where you see the earth on fire and Cheney is sitting atop in a rocking chair and has a monkey sitting in his lap and says to him: Gee uncle Dick we did to the country and now we are doing it to the world, you can guess who the monkey is. It is sickening to me to call 411 and hear a person in India giving me the phone number I need. It is sickening to me the fact that people are not working full time, they are giving them 32 hour week so they don’t have to give them health insurance and if you go to social services you don’t qualify unless you are between the ages of 1 to 18 or 64 to 100, people are dying literally, I had one young woman with terminal cancer and I had to tell her you don’t qualify, I literally cry every day. Mr McCain THIS IS THE REAL WORLD!!!
BRAD! WHAT ABOUT OHIO????
As a long-time poll worker, presiding judge, and occasional temp at the local Board of Elections, I can see the chaos coming on election day. If these Republican poll watchers decide to challenge people for foreclosures or whatever the reason, all those people will still be able to vote – provisionally. Each provisional vote takes me about 10 minutes to complete. An envelope with lots of informtion has to be completed first, then I have to check it to make sure everything is correct, then the voter gets a paper ballot, then he takes the time to vote. And we must allow everyone who is in line to vote at 7:30 pm to vote, but if we get bogged down with provisionals, we may be there until midnight. And the vast majority of those provisionals will be acceptable, meaning they could have voted in the regular way. If we have a lot of challenges which result in long lines at closing time, I will be ranting about it for years to come and making sure people know it was Republican shenanigans that caused it.
I thought McInsane was doing well at first, but only for his base. That is, he wasn’t convincing me (I’m way to liberal to ever swallow the right-wing poison) and I figured his “attacks” and being given the last word so many times would ring with undecideds.
Boy, am I glad I was wrong!
But it’s not over yet.. We still have an election to watch and it will be a HUGE mess trying to get through all the problems we WILL have from these damn machines. Let’s just hope those problems aren’t big enough to let them steal a 3rd election. Though, maybe this time the MEDIA will actually pay attention and call BULLSHIT if they try to steal it. The real powers that be have to see what their inaction last time resulted in.
Yeah – but if 2004 is any indication of 2008, 95 per cent or more of the provisional ballots will end up in the dumpster without even being acknowledged! We need some state law to the effect that they will be stored, and checked for validity, then counted if found to be legitimate. Do we have such laws? If you think we do, I own some choice real estate just off the Florida coast I’d like to sell you.
One of them fun ones going around.
Is “Joe the Plumber” a relation to Chas. Keating?
Link
HEY, anybody heard about THIS?
Voter fraud alert: Houseful of out-of-state Obama activists registered as Ohio voters, received absentee ballots
I first heard about it on Fox News this morning (the people who run the gym keep it on one or more of the tvs, and it happened to be on the one in front of the treadmill I was running on this morning, so I caught a few minutes of it before I remembered it was more entertaining to stare at a spot on the wall below the tv)
I expected something like this, and it doesn’t pass the smell test, but I can’t find anything debunking it yet. So what’s the rest of the story – anybody know?
Think I’m gonna send an email to “Vote From Home 08” and see if they know they’re being linked to this.
amazingly, Ameritocracy.com has mcpalin’s BS claim about ACORN on their homepage.
check it and fact-check the low-rate the hell out it!!!
Brad ~ Good Job! on the Stephanie Miller Show
Maurice Greenberg takes the fifth.
Just a coincidence that Dave Boies is one of his counsel?
Why is it when Greenbergs name comes up, Boies (also of Bush v Gore fame) is there also representing him? WTF?
I hope they hang him by his nutz but will probably get a new yacht out of the deal.
Joe the Plumber.. not a plumber, but a six year lacky for a plumber.. and now he wants to “buy” a very lucrative company.. but he has no plumber license.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/st...MPLATE=DEFAULT
what a load of shite. Sure wish I could buy a business from my boss, and it be something I don’t know a lot about but could make a lot of money at, apparently.
And I have my suspicions that a 2 man plumbing shop is making $250,000 a year in profits. That seems pretty high.. In fact, if I was the lacky, I’d be pissed that my salary was so low if those were the profit margins.
One of my local NPR stations, WBUR, has a noontime news program called Here and Now. Today there was a lengthy (and accurate!) story about ACORN featuring a reporter from that leftwing bleeding heart liberal Commie rag, The Wall Street Journal, Evan Perez. Mr. Perez confirmed in great detail that everything Brad and ACORN have been saying about how they register people to vote is true. The story even included John McCain’s appearance at an ACORN convention in 2006, although it omitted to say that he was the keynote speaker and that he had called the people in the audience “[w]hat makes America special”. I don’t know if he has any articles on this, but, if he does, I think they need wide circulation among the wingnut set. You will eventually be able to listen to the story at their website, http://www.here-now.org .
Just in case you want to fire a few more synapses than the regularly programmed ones of the corporate debate, try this:
http://www.democracynow.org/200...er_third_party