Tuesday, October 28, 2008

He's Melting

Hell is in the process of freezing over with Fox News blog headline: "As McCain Cancels, Obama Rallies":

CHESTER, PA - Dressed in blue jeans and a black jacket, Barack Obama braved the cold rain falling in Pennsylvania, and held his scheduled rally - outdoors. “A little bit of rain never hurt anybody,” he quipped to the 9,000 who showed up in ponchos and futilely holding umbrellas.

Just an hour away in Quakertown, the rival ticket cancelled their own outdoor rally due to inclement weather. Unfazed, Obama incorporated the conditions into his speech.

“I just want all of you to know if we see this kind of dedication on election day – there is no way that we’re not going to bring change to America,” he said as the soggy crowd cheered.

And the temperature in hell continues to plummet, as Shepard Smith debunks Joe the Plumbers lying smear about Obama's relationship to Israel.

Then there's chillmaster Florida Governor Charlie Crist, one of the Republicans on the McCain VP list who got passed over for poll-sinkin' Palin, and had the additional humiliation of McCain's team cutting his seven-minute video meant to play before the nomination acceptance speech. So he has ample reason to be pissed off at McCain and no reason to support his losing cause.

But that said, when was the last time a Republican Florida Governor made it easier for people to vote?:

Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday extended early voting hours across Florida to 12 hours a day.

The executive order comes after record early voting turnout has contributed to long lines at polling sites.

Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours a day each weekday and for a total of eight hours during the weekends.

With Crist's order, early voting sites will be open the rest of this week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They will be open a total of 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday, the last day of early voting.

''It's not a political decision,'' Crist said moments after signing the order, which declares a state of emergency in Florida. "It's a people decision.''

And if that isn't a palette cleanser after Jeb Bush/Katherine Harris controlled elections, how about this Dem vote booster:

Crist issued an executive order Wednesday that requires officials to include voter registration applications when they send out rights restoration certificates to convicts who have completed their sentences.

The order also provides convicts who have completed their sentences with better access to information about restoring their civil rights by posting more of it on the Internet.

The rights of Florida's nonviolent felons are automatically restored some time after release. Violent felons have to go through an application process. Thousands of ex-convicts have had their rights restored but don't know it, or don't realize they are eligible to register as voters. The state has been unable to notify them because it has lost track of them.

Who knows, maybe Crist's gunning for an Team of Rivals cabinet post. Or maybe he rising to the dignification Obama offers everyone in this election. Or maybe he's got the makings of a real statesman; there were once Republicans like that.

The Obama love has spread to Obama, Japan. A 109-year-old daughter of a slave just cast her mail-in vote for Obama, just imagine. And this video had me reaching for the Visine:


This one had me reaching for my bourbon:

I guess you just have to admire all the Obama supporters who showed up to make themselves heard, and withstood the violent language and threats (both implicit and explicit) of this crowd John McCain and Sarah Palin appear to be deliberately ginning up.

There's never been a clearer difference between how two campaigns have conducted themselves. There's a lot of talk that McCain has run the ugliest Presidential campaign in anyone's memory, but Nixon was dirty filthy tricks, Bush 41 was racist Willie Horton shit perpetrated by Lee Atwater, and the GOP swiftboating of military hero John Kerry was vile. But it's how on the up-and-up Obama's run his campaign that makes McCain's look so bad.

And what is he doing with the Red Smears like he's studied at the feet of Joe McCarthy? What kind of man is he to cry fire in a crowded building, or allow his running mate to pour gasoline?

Per the ironclad screenwriting rule: true character is revealed under pressure.

Especially a downward spiral.

1 comment:

Reeko Deeko said...

I watched those vids 3 hours ago and can't stop thinking about them. The contrast. In a way, that hateful video is just what America needs -- a chance to take a good, hard look at the ugliness within and reject it. I know this country has a rich, racist tradition, but I believe in the goodness of the average human spirit. I believe in our need for self-preservation, but also our need to reach for something better, and yes... our need to love. Obama speaks to all of that. Not to our better selves, but most of our selves. Goopy and sentimental I know, but I don't care.

Speaking of the human spirit, here it is in full:
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/callie-bp.html